How the other half lives
by All Shook Down on May 25, 2009 7:40 PM EDT
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PrintWith all the (rightful) bellyachin' about the Mets roster situation lately, I thought it'd be a good time to point out what an efficiently run organization has available when injuries strike.
Rays 2B Akinori Iwamura tore his ACL and is out for the season.
Via DRays Bay:
Ben Zobrist, Willy Aybar and Reid Brignac will rotate at the keystone position in his place.
Yeah, you read that correctly the Rays have the luxury of replacing Iwamura, a 2.6 win player last season, with three players more than capable of performing within shouting distance of Iwamura's level.
Ben Zobrist, acquired from the Astros for two months of Aubrey Huff, was worth 1.7 WAR in 2008 and has a .415 wOBA this season. ZiPS projects him to finish with a .363 wOBA -- a tick below last year's .364 -- and in-line with his minor league performance (.391 '07/AAA, .367 '06/AAA, .410 '06/AA)
Wily Aybar, who was worth 1.4 WAR last season in 95 games and 362 PA's, and currently sports a .355 wOBA. ZiPS projects him to finish with a league averageish .330 wOBA mark and an increase from last season.
Finally, Reid Brignac, who almost went to the Pirates for Jason Bay, will get a long look with the big league club. He's a solid defensive shortstop according to Total Zone (+33 at SS over his career), so sliding over to 2B should provide the Rays with a defensive stalwart at the position. Though ZiPS hates on his bat, projecting him to put up a .275 wOBA this season, he's been a solid hitter in the minors, 2008's .313 wOBA in AAA be damned.
The Mets, instead, are forced to live with Ramon Martinez and Ramon Martinez alone. That means the Mets will have to endure more -.10+ WPA late-game PA's with no reasonable alternative.
Now obviously, the Mets and Rays situations aren't quite analogous because the New York had two SS fall to injury; however, the Rays have the depth to cover two injuries, and with only one player down, they have the luxury of platoon options. Speaking of luxury, did I mention that the Rays payroll was a robust $64M? Yeah, the Mets are doling out $147M and can't even muster power doors.
While I recognize that the Rays and Mets are on opposite sides of the astuteness spectrum when it comes to roster building, the truth is that this kind of crisis would befall no other contending team but the Mets.
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I wish I was able to
come here and post that you are really stupid and the two situations are completely different and you clearly just hate the Mets.
But I can’t do that, because you’re completely right. Which is kind of sad.
Actually
Willy Aybar is good enough to be a starting secondbaseman on just about any MLB team:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/willy-aybar
While I do generally agree with your point, Aybar and Zobrist are arguably the two best bench players in the league.
King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president
I've said this to many friends
The Mets have no depth because they’re run by amateurs, and the Rays have tons of it because they’re run by professionals.
The player I’ve always specficially cited is Zobrist, who is awesome, and who was stolen from another blockhead team in Houston.
Somehow, a chain of events unfolded that put Steve Phillips in a professional broadcast booth Sunday night so he could rip Carlos Beltran. Try to explain that in any other terms.
by Greenpoint Ian on May 25, 2009 11:47 PM EDT up reply actions
Houston has really been the model for how NOT to build a baseball team the last 3-5 years.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
Unfortunetly, The Mets lack the depth that other teams have
I mean Ramon Martinez and Jeremy Reed, both are Triple A type players.
Lopez wants it away, and it's hit deep to left center, Andruw Jones on the run, this one has a chance... home run!!, Mike Piazza!, and the Mets lead 3 to 2!!
-Howie Rose
Gary Thorne=Simply the Best!
by The American Mr.Hockey on May 25, 2009 10:16 PM EDT reply actions
Its an interesting example
But how many teams are legitimately three or four deep at SS? I can’t figure its too many, but I would not be surprised if most teams were generally deeper than the Mets.
"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet
What a fool I was to defy him"
-HST
by Mark Himmelstein on May 25, 2009 10:40 PM EDT reply actions
I'm not sure if I completely agree with this post,
and the primary reason is that you completely ignored Alex Cora in this post. Objectively, I don’t think you can really blame Omar for not having a good 3rd string shortstop to backup a starter (Reyes) who has always shown very good durability. Having Cora was a fine contingency to give Reyes the occasional day off, and to fill in at the other infield positions as needed. I don’t think anyone really foresaw Reyes AND Cora getting hurt simultaneously, and I doubt many teams have 3rd string shortstops who really blow Ramon Martinez out of the water. If Martinez was our starter, or even our backup, I’d agree with the gist of this post, but I don’t think we can really call Minaya unprepared for not anticipating consecutive injuries
i dont think the point is short stops specifically
its the difference in overall depth of the organization. if anything we’re more prepared at short stop for multiple injuries than we are at basically every other position, other than maybe third, but our back up 3rd basemen are also our back up first basemen and corner outfielders.
I'm not sure about that,
only because Ramon Martinez is mentioned specifically, but I think it’s important to differentiate between a player like Iwamura and a player like Reyes. Last year, Reyes had a 5.9 WAR, putting him in line with players like A-Rod, Jimmy Rollins, and Kevin Youkillis. If those players went down (as we saw with A-Rod this year) “depth” is not really an issue. It’s simply not possible to replace top-tier players, you simply have to hope that the backups can do their jobs.
On the other hand, GOOD players like Iwamura are much easier to replace. Last year, Delgado’s WAR was higher than Iwamura’s (2.9 vs. 2.6) This year, with his injury, the Mets are clearly struggling with his absence, but have managed to platoon players effectively to largely cover up his absence, in the same way the Rays likely will in Iwamura’s absence.
I’m sorry if this turned into a digression ,but my primary point is simply that it’s not accurate to bring up Reyes’s replacements as evidence of a lack of “depth,” because Reyes is simply an elite player, and Iwamura is not. Had the injury happened to Longoria, and someone from the Rays bench stepped in and filled his shoes, I would find the argument more valid, but that’s not the case. While the Rays might have more middle infield depth, I think it’s unfair to argue that the Mets, and Omar specifically, were negligent in putting together a complete team.
Yeah but his replacements aren't league average either
If an injury happened to Longoria they wouldn’t be able to replace him, but more than likely they’d at least be either league average or above replacement level. We can’t say the same thing for most positions.
really?
pretend for a second that the Mets don’t have more injuries than the Iraqi National Guard. Their bench originally was Tatis, who could probably be around league average at first, third, and the corners; Sheffield, who’s been well above league average at the corners; Cora, who could be league average in the middle infield; Reed, who’s maybe a little below league average but not a terrible 5th outfielder; and then the catcher platoon of two league average guys in Schneider and Castro, plus a plethora of moderately ok AAAA guys like Cancel and Santos. I know we complain about them, but look what the Yankees have at catcher right now.
NO TEAM in baseball, not even the Red Sox, would be able to adequately plug in holes when 2 of their top 4 players go down, one of the backups for those players goes down, one of their catchers goes down, and multiple outfielders go down/are banged up. Really, the only healthy starters on the Mets are Wright, Castillo, and Murphy. That would be like the Red Sox having only Youkilis, Drew, and Nick Green healthy.
Cora wouldn't be league average at short stop
He hasn’t been even an average short stop defensively in a pretty long time, and like someone has mentioned earlier he was backing up a position we weren’t even sure we’d get league average production from in the first place, there’s a reason he had those game started incentives in his contract there was legitimate concern that we wouldn’t be able to rely on Castillo as an every day player and Cora would become our starting second basemen. So for him to also be our number 1, and really only option at such another crucial position isn’t really acceptable. You could say the same for Tatis he was the first back up for two spots we really didn’t have any idea what to expect from in Murphy and Church, and another spot where we were relying on a 37 year old, who’s been healthy most of his career but has had his share of injuries the last two years to stay healthy. We were basically playing with fire, and hoping all the cards fell perfectly or close to perfectly.
you're changing the argument though
I agree that the guys they planned on using as starters weren’t very good, but that doesn’t mean that the guys they have backing up shouldn’t have been adequate. Nobody can plan for losing two players who average 155+ games a year plus multiple other players. Not even the mighty Rays or Red Sox.
But that's kind of the point
At least imo your starters are part of your depth. And no one can plan for those things but we when you have a line up already full of so many question marks then you can’t rely on one player to back up multiple positions and not have anyone behind them, like Tatis/Murphy.
Exactly
Last year Tatis had a 1.6 WAR, Reed has always been a very good defensive outfielder who you have no problem using as your fifth outfielder, and Cora can service as a middle infielder. In addition, without injuries, we could assume Sheff would be starting and Murphy would be coming off the bench as well. I think it’s fair to conclude that the Mets COULD use league average replacement players to replace almost everyone, it’s simply that this spate of injuries has given this team some trouble, as it would any team.
On a separate note, the team profiled here, the Rays, lost yesterday because their bullpen couldn’t hold an 8 run lead. When our closer was hurt 3 nights ago, we had the option of turning to someone who was a dominant closer two years ago, and I think it’s fair to say that the Mets have one of the best and deepest bullpens in the league, and I think that needs to be considered
Reed hasn't really been a very good defensive outfielder
There’s not really a big enough sample size to say anything one way or another but the numbers say he’s been awful in the corners.
OK, I'll take your Pepsi Challenge
if the Red Sox had our injuries:
2B: Green
SS: Lowrie
That assumes Pedroia and Lugo are hurt…basically our Reyes and Cora
3B: Lowell
1B: Youkillis
DH: Lars Anderson
CF: Ellsbury
LF: Drew
RF: Rocco Baldelli
Yea I think they’d be fine.
King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president
If the Red Sox had our injuries
Then you would have to take out Youkillis, no?
But that logic is flawed
Because Ortiz isn’t hurt, he’s just finally stopped using steroids struggling immensely. If anything, you can compare Ortiz to Ollie, because both players were expected to contribute in the Spring, and both have failed to do so. Delgado, unlike Ortiz, had been performing at a pretty high level until his injury, which is why the comparison is way off.
I think he means
Pedroia = Reyes (best middle infielder)
Lugo = Cora (utility infielder)
Bay = Delgado (fourth best hitter)
Ortiz = Church (struggling complimentary player)
by All Shook Down on May 26, 2009 5:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Did you forget Bay?
Or are you saying he=Church? Even if you take out Youkillis, though I think Ortiz=Delgado makes more sense given their ages and the concerns with Delgado coming into the season, you can move Anderson to first and bring up Josh Reddick
And this doesn’t even get into their rotation depth.
Or the fact that if push came to shove the Red Sox have prospects they could move
to fill holes without really opening up future holes/destroying their minor league depth.
Kazmir's been awful this year
Ha Ha, the joke is on the Rays!
Somehow, a chain of events unfolded that put Steve Phillips in a professional broadcast booth Sunday night so he could rip Carlos Beltran. Try to explain that in any other terms.
by Greenpoint Ian on May 26, 2009 11:19 AM EDT up reply actions
I've always felt
that if Kazmir hadn’t been traded for Zambrano, he would have been traded that summer for Tim Hudson.
and that would have been a good thing
Tim Hudson is an elite pitcher. Victor Zambrano is…..not.
Somehow, a chain of events unfolded that put Steve Phillips in a professional broadcast booth Sunday night so he could rip Carlos Beltran. Try to explain that in any other terms.
by Greenpoint Ian on May 26, 2009 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions
Further note
Depth and a low payroll also is aided by sucking for a REALLY long time and having a whole bunch of high draft picks all over your minor league system.
This has been said over and over and it's completely false
Obviously Longoria and Upton came from high draft picks, but the majority of their team has been signed in free agency, or traded for since their current gm took over.
Using top prospects to trade for players counts
by Lunkwill Fook on May 26, 2009 12:24 PM EDT up reply actions
Which prospects are you referring to?
And even still, they had to use good scouting to GET those prospects. And even that wouldn’t get you from worst to first in the AL East…
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
The Rays' scouting has been excellent
The Pirates seem to have discarded the notion that teams who suck for a really long time have to eventually get better. And look at the Royals’ first-round draft picks from 1997 to 2001. Every year they had a Top 10 pick, and this is who they selected: Dan Reichert, Jeff Austin, Kyle Snyder (who has somehow managed to stick around for a while), Mike Stodolka, and Johnathan Griffin. They didn’t finally get it right until they picked Greinke in ’02. And their success this year has come almost exclusively from acquiring players from other teams/systems.
Really, Jerry?
what he said
+1
Somehow, a chain of events unfolded that put Steve Phillips in a professional broadcast booth Sunday night so he could rip Carlos Beltran. Try to explain that in any other terms.
by Greenpoint Ian on May 26, 2009 3:04 PM EDT up reply actions
The only top prospect they used was Young for Garza and Bartlett
these are the players they’ve traded
Toby Hall, Mark Hendrickson, Jeff Ridgway, Delmon Young, Brendan Harris, Jason Pridie, Aubrey Huff, Ty Wigginton, Joey Gathright, Seth McClung.
Other than Delmon Young, who obviously got them Garza and Bartlett, what top prospects are there. And for those players they got.
Matt Garza
Dioner Navarro
Grant Balfour
Jason Bartlett
Dan Wheeler
JP Howell
Edwin Jackson, who he turned into Matt Joyce
Willy Aybar
Gabe Gross
Ben Zobrist
Chad Bradford
from last years team only 4 players were drafted in the first 2 rounds. 2 of whom barely contributed to the team, Baldelli and Price.
Also the red sox have been able to build the same kind of depth
Without either of these things. By identifying talent and signing it when it’s undervalued, or trading for it, and by drafting smartly and knowing when to let free agents go to get compensation.
ramon martinez is the worst
i know hes not trying to suck but he really is useless.
All of the mets fans hope that we will not see the bad news mets ever again.
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