Wily Mo and Valentin released?

Wily Mo Pena and Javier Valentin released, says Bart Hubbuch of NY Post, via mlbtraderumors.com

over 2 years ago deadspy3 28 comments 0 recs |

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Valentin > Santos

In a just world, Thole would get promoted. Not that Valentin was even catching up there.

by jasondg on Jun 22, 2009 12:32 PM EDT reply actions

Ha, ha, ha, ha

Where do you guys come up with this crap…

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 23, 2009 12:45 AM EDT up reply actions

Beltran is a whiny loser

Right?

by jasondg on Jun 23, 2009 12:56 AM EDT up reply actions

Correctamundo

We all have our crosses to bear

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 23, 2009 2:07 AM EDT up reply actions

I can only assume they requested their own release

because Buffalo is so brutally bad I can’t imagine they didn’t have a spot for these two.

by Eric Simon on Jun 22, 2009 12:57 PM EDT reply actions

These were two of the players I didn't mind on the roster.

If I ran Buffalo, I’d be inclined to say “NO! Can you guys stay? We’ll release Chip Ambres, Michel Abreu, Jonathon Malo, Robinson Cancel and Mike Lamb instead!”

by All Shook Down on Jun 22, 2009 1:14 PM EDT reply actions

Say what you will about Minaya

but he has constructed the worst AAA team in recent memory.

King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president

by Sam Page on Jun 22, 2009 2:12 PM EDT reply actions

short memory

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/minors/2008-05-06-lehigh-valley_N.htm

by cjmulrain on Jun 23, 2009 1:40 AM EDT up reply actions

And when Santos or Schneider get banged up?

Cancel? What in the hell sense does that make? They were both playing fine. Who cares if your AAA team is embarrasingly bad and you want to shake things up. The goal there is not to win a championship or even be competitive. It’s to feed the big club in time of need.

Guess what Minaya, we’re there. And you just released at least 1 guy who could have helped this team at some point.

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 22, 2009 4:13 PM EDT reply actions

Apparently Bobby Kielty is gone too.

It’s really time they promote Thole, Duda, Bowman and Coronado.

by All Shook Down on Jun 22, 2009 5:11 PM EDT reply actions

Bobby Kielty too?

But…no…I liked him.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Jun 22, 2009 10:42 PM EDT up reply actions

We can only hope that this means the kids get promoted.

FYI:

Wily Mo: 276/296/414
Valentin: 260/360/416
Kielty: 231/394/346

You know what would have made some real sense? Promoting Valentin, and cutting Omir Santos. But that’s the smart play, that’s not how Omar rolls.

by BobbyV_Incognito on Jun 22, 2009 7:29 PM EDT reply actions

How is cutting someone who is 3rd in the league in OPS at his position smart?

The guy is 37 years old and wasn’t doing as well in Buffalo as Santos is up here…you can continue waiting for the other shoe to drop, but wasn’t that supposed to happen like a month ago according to all of the “statistical experts”.

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 23, 2009 12:43 AM EDT up reply actions

Okay, maybe pawning him off on some other team would have been the smart play.

There is absolutely nothing in Santos’ history that suggests he’s anywhere close to this good. He can’t possibly be this good; look at his minor league stats. By the end of this season, we will regret having traded a better hitting catcher, and releasing another we had waiting in the minors.

by BobbyV_Incognito on Jun 23, 2009 1:58 AM EDT up reply actions

The timeline for him turning in to a pumpkin keeps getting pushed back

First it was a week, then a few weeks, then a month. Now the end of the season? He has already given us more than Castro would have.

As far as “He can’t possibly be this good”, you are probably right because he has been exceptional. His OBP will never be great, but he is hitting in the clutch (not a cliche, but fact) and has been a run producer for a team in dire need of one.

I really would love to find some video of him batting in the minors as well to put these stats to bed. I have a buddy who played with him in the minors and last year with the O’s and he said he used to have the ugliest swing you have ever seen. He can’t believe it’s the same guy.

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 23, 2009 2:24 AM EDT up reply actions

But this argument only comes up whenever he has the occasional hot stretch

Where was your Omir defense when his OPS was down in the high .600s for much of May? He was pretty much ready to be carved into a jack-o-latern, then he had the game where he hit the HR against Papelbon and his OPS went from .684 to .750, quite literally over night. Then he turded out again after that game, going 7 for his next 29 with just three XBH and no walks, a .241 / .241 / .414 stretch, before a modest 5 game hitting streak with no walks or XBH, a few more games of suck, a home run, more suck, and then the 4 for 4 today. Even with his single-fest tonight, his OPS went from .752 to .792, and it was down at .721 just 10 days ago. When you only have 127 PAs, one good game can turn an ugly OPS into a pretty one, that doesn’t mean its going to stay there. At 350 PAs, if Omir has an .800+ OPS, forget that, if he has a .750+ OPS, I might just give up trying to do minor league statistical analysis.

If you want to defend Omir, don’t wait until his a rate stat likes OPS peaks off after one big game. All you’re doing is creating evidence that small sample sizes aren’t to be trusted.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Jun 23, 2009 3:29 AM EDT up reply actions

I have been probably the only one who has defended him the whole way through.

Go look at my posts if you have any doubt. I’ve said by the end of the year that he will have proven to be the better player over Ramon Castro. The debate is pointless until that time.

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 23, 2009 1:07 PM EDT up reply actions

Maybe you dropped in every now and then to talk about your Jerry-like crush on him

But you certainly weren’t taking the time to argue with every person who disagreed with you. Because if you did that, you’d have either gone insane, died of starvation, or gotten scurvy from living off Doritos and soda

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Jun 23, 2009 2:00 PM EDT up reply actions

It's fair to say

that people on this board have not given him credit for the things he’s done this year. He has a LD% over 25%, which is pretty stellar and accounts for his high BA and BABIP. But that LD% is completely out of line with what he’s done in his MiLB career and expains why most people here are imminently expecting an ugly regression. If that regression comes, we’re left with a .260 a hitter w/no power and an awful tendency to hack at everything he sees. One can only live on soft line drives and ground balls through the hole for so long.

As for your contention that he’s “hitting in the clutch (not a cliche, but fact),” you’re talking about a minuscule sample size: 67 PAs w/men on base and 41 w/RISP. I don’t see how we can be drawing conclusions from that small a number of appearances.

by Zwill on Jun 23, 2009 9:39 AM EDT up reply actions

The only conclusion that you can draw is that he has excelled with the opportunities that he's had.

You can’t to much more than that, can you? You can analyse it within an inch of it’s life, but the guy has produced when given the opportunity thus far. What more do you want from a guy we got for nothing?

I’m not saying that he is a long term answer or the second coming of Mike Piazza, but he is doing the job. That said, if Omar signs him to a 3-year extension, my tune changes quite quickly.

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 23, 2009 1:10 PM EDT up reply actions

This is not what you are saying

he is doing the job

That should read “he has done the job”. You can’t speak in the present tense while conceding that the sample size issue precludes predictability.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Jun 23, 2009 1:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Excelled?

Exceeded expectations, sure. Provided necessary depth at a position that is an organizational weakness, sure. Made some memorable plays, sure. But, excelled? No.

And with that, I’m done with this argument for the foreseeable future. A fairly large group of Met fans seems to think that Omir is the second coming of Carlton Fisk while a smaller but vocal minority is actively rooting against him. The arguments of the last month have only served to further entrench each camp. I’m going to attempt to move on.

by Zwill on Jun 23, 2009 3:23 PM EDT up reply actions

Clutch is not really a fact. Because it doesn't exist.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Jun 23, 2009 10:26 AM EDT up reply actions

clutch hitters don't exist

clutch does. And Omir has had a number of clutch hits this season. More, in fact, than David Wright – or at least more memorable ones. It doesn’t mean he’s a “clutch hitter” – it just means that to date he’s done a pretty good job in the clutch and he’s been, arguably, one of the most important Mets this season.

Look, nobody is expecting Omir to be Mike Piazza or even Paul LoDicka, but he’s been a really nice surprise this season, and regardless of what he does from this point out he’s already made some big contributions to the Mets and pretty much outperformed what anyone could have expected from him. Hating him for having a poor minor league career is just old – it makes me sad when I follow the game threads and Mets fans are basically rooting for their catcher to fail b/c it will prove their analysis of him correct. Why not root for him to be a statistical abberation? His success doesn’t disprove sabermetrics, it just helps illustrate that it does have some flaws, one of which is that it can’t predict flukes. And flukes are fun if they’re helping your team.

by cjmulrain on Jun 23, 2009 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions

Well...

I half-wanted Omir to fail back when we had Castro because I thought Castro was better. And what I feared would happen did happen.

I desperately want him to do well, and I root for him when he plays — it doesn’t change the fact that when you’re doing rational analysis, you end up coming to fact-based conclusions. And the facts are that many of us expect Omir to fail; it’s just a matter of when. That’s why we cringe when he’s in the lineup. It’s why we gasp when Jerry bunts and sets up a bases-loaded, one out sitch for Omir.

That is NOT the same thing as rooting against him. Basically, we need him to keep getting lucky. I hope he does because it’ll make the team better. But I won’t be happy if they resign him and hand him part or all of the job for 2010, if that happens. Is that wrong? I don’t think it is.

by jasondg on Jun 23, 2009 11:06 AM EDT up reply actions

Ok, I'll put it in to terms that you can compute then.

With 2-outs and runners in scoring position, he is hitting .389/.450. This has been a problem for us for years and he is excelling there.

You may not want to call him “clutch”, but he gets the job done better than anyone else on the team in that situation.

I take it you call that “luck”, right?

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 23, 2009 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions

I call it

A huge statistical variance every time he makes an out or gets a hit. You’re talking about 19 plate appearances. Great, he’s had 19 solid plate appearances with two outs and RISP. Sweet. What does that tell us about what he’s going to do in his next 19? Absolutely nothing.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Jun 23, 2009 1:58 PM EDT up reply actions