The Mets suffered a pair of bad breaks as they extended their winning streak to eight games. Catcher Travis d’Arnaud and left-hander Jerry Blevins both suffered fractures in the 7th inning of the Mets’ 7-6 win over the Marlins: d’Arnaud’s right hand after being hit by a A.J. Ramos pitch and Blevins’ left forearm when struck by a liner off the bat of Dee Gordon. Mets GM Sandy Alderson announced the contract of catching prospect Kevin Plawecki will be purchased from Triple-A Las Vegas and right-hander Hansel Robles will be recalled from Vegas. A 40-man roster move is required to add Plawecki.
Plawecki is ranked 40th overall by FanGraphs’ Kiley McDaniel, 63rd by both Baseball America and MLB.com, and 80th by Baseball Prospectus. Manager Terry Collins told reporters after the game (as tweeted by ESPNNewYork.com’s Adam Rubin) Plawecki will become the Mets’ number one catcher in d’Arnaud’s absence. D’Arnaud told reporters, including Rubin, Plawecki is ready for his MLB debut. “He’s a great catcher, a great player, a really smart player. He can swing the bat really well. And he knows how to work with the pitching staff as well.”
Drafted with the 35th selection in the 2012 draft (a free agent compensation pick obtained when the Marlins signed Jose Reyes), Plawecki is viewed as an offensive-minded catcher. MLB.com’s scouting report on Plawecki, however, gives him credit for having good hands and enough agility to block balls well, but believes the 24-year-old will never be the kind of backstop who can shut down a running game because of his average arm. Plawecki was hitting .229/.250/.343 in 36 plate appearance for Vegas before his call-up, though he hit a much more impressive .309/.365/.460 in 419 PA between Double-A and Triple-A in 2014.
The loss of both d’Arnaud and Blevins figure to test the Mets’ depth. While early, d’Arnaud had the makings of a breakout season with his line of .317/.356/.537 at the time of his injury. Defensively, d’Arnaud also stepped up his game throwing out three of the seven runners attempting to steal after catching just five all of last year. Blevins, meanwhile, has been death on left-handed hitters this season retiring all 14 he has faced. Alderson said a timetable for how long d’Arnaud and Blevins will be out will not be known until both are examined by hand specialists Monday.
I think it is safe to say that Travis d’Arnaud is one of the unluckiest guys in the sport. Luckily, they have Plawecki too.
The Mets are such a mixed bag of good and bad luck already this season.
Wow, poor Travis 🙁 very unlucky or beyond unlucky. Hope he recovers quickly.
Travis was showing how good of a hitter he truly was. It’s a shame that he will miss a good chunk of time, and keep him from a potential all star season.
And even though the Mets have quite a lot of depth in the left handed reliever position, Blevins was clearly the best of the bunch.
I am glad Kevin will get some time to play. It might not go so good, but most rookies don’t jump out of the gate good. Just look at d’Arnaud. It took him nearly 3 years to establish himself in the MLB.
Who do the Mets have as lefty relief depth?
Jack Leathersich, a lefty who has a reverse platoon split. His Twitter handle is LeatherRocket.
#SoMuchDepth
Matz is one if the top lefty pitching prospects in baseball, they could do what the Cards do and get his feet wet in the bullpen.
For sure, but is that lefty bullpen depth? If he’s a reliever than he’s not throwing enough innings to build his arm up and work multiple times through an order, and that affects his development.
He would be more of a second half addition for sure, and Blevins will be back by then but when you have that option it’s a form of depth. (Although obviously Matz is much more than a pen arm)
Torres and Gilmartin. though not typical Lefty specialist they both have gotten lefties out this young season. Then should they need to recall a 3rd option, more of a specialist, later in the season Leathersich and Rice are both down in vegas. so they do have depth. Opinion on the quality of that depth will very but they have fare greater depth then they have had in the past from the left side in the pen.
Torres and Gilmartin are on the 25 man right now
Now we are going to hear excuses as to why the Mets will slip and fall off soon.
They’e been dealing with adversity pretty well so far, and the Nats and Marlins aren’t playing well.
Exactly the reason why they are in first. They only lost to the Braves so far this season, who are better than people give them credit for. Marlins and Nats are better than the Mets on paper.
Nats are better than the Mets on paper. Marlins are pretty far behind.
I’d take the Marlins over the Mets.. on paper.
I’d take the Mets on paper and in real life. The Marlins are using a “stars and scrubs” approach whereas the Mets’ 25-man, 40-man, and AAA teams are all more well-rounded. After you get past Stanton, Yelich, Ozuna, and Gordon, the Fish talent level drops off to almost nothing.
I’m the exact opposite.
You don’t believe in a well-rounded, deep roster?
I do. Thats why I picked the Marlins who have the best outfield in baseball.
Their outfield is excellent. Their infield is okay, their starting rotation is weak, and their depth is nonexistent.
I’d take the Marlins infield over the Mets. Same with the outfield and bullpen. Rotation will be fine when they get healthy.
That’s quite the statement. The Mets are better at every single position on the diamond, and at most positions, even the Mets’ backups are better than the Marlins starters. Duda and Cuddyer are better than Morse, Murphy’s better than Dee Gordon (the only debatable one), Flores and Tejada are both better than Hech, Wright vs Prado is no contest – now I know you’re joking.
Just my two cents, but Gordon>Murphy.
Gordon may be better than Murphy, but I do think Flores is better than Gordon at 2B. I also think Herrera will be better than Gordon moving forward, but that’s in the future. With Gordon, it will always come down to BABIP.
Give me the Marlins at LF, RF, 2B, C and Bullpen. 3B and SS is a push and so is CF. The only one where the Mets are clearly* better is 1B.
You would have a tough time convincing someone that Prado is a better player than David Wright. Also, d’Arnaud and Plawecki are a pretty dang good combination. I’d take Wright and it’s not close, and even if you like Realmuto, Salty and him together represent a lot less upside than the Mets pair.
I didn’t know LF and RF were in the infield, picking Prado over Wright is a complete joke, and Flores and Tejada are both clearly better than Hech. C is to be seen with two prospects holding down the fort with Plawecki in Queens and Realmuto in Miami.
I don’t agree that Tejada and Flores is significantly better than Hech.
Prado was better than Wright last year, plus Wright is hurt for a month or so.
Tejada is a better defender and hitter than Hech; Tejada’s career on-base percentage is about 40 points higher than Hech and Tejada’s younger. Flores is worse defensively, but his bat is miles beyond Hech – 28 homers in 162 games in AAA, 5 homers in the last 6 weeks for the Mets last year. Look up the numbers.
Prado was better than an injured Wright last year. Wright was better every single year before that, and by a large margin. From 2012-2015, only Beltré and Donaldson have been better than Wright. 9 guys have been better than Prado, including Headley, Seager, Longo, and Hanley. If Wright misses a month, he’d still be more valuable than Prado. If he misses more than three, he’ll be less valuable than Prado.
Hechaverria is a terrible, sub replacement level player.
Tejada and Hech were both below average, above replacement level.
In 350 games, Hech has a WAR of -1.0. In 464 games, Tejada has a WAR of 4.0, so they are not equal in that regard at all. Hech is also a year older than Tejada with a horrendous offensive approach. Anyway Tejada is the Mets backup and is still better. Flores can’t defend but will still have more value as he hits. Catcher goes to the Mets, Salty is beat up and not very good any more. Gordon’s hot start/Murphy’s slow start aside Murph has been slightly better by most metrics and most would call that a wash. So in short, the Mets infield is better when healthy. The rotation is not even close, and the depth/farm systems are miles apart. The Marlins system is awful, one of the worst in the game while the Mets are consensus elite/top 5.
Hechevarria is actually a slightly above-average player by WAR. Defense counts too.
No he’s not, I mentioned in the above post that Hech has a negative lifetime WAR. In almost 400 games, which might make him the worst everyday player in baseball.
By fWAR? bWAR has him as an average player, all because of defense.
Look at his BR page, he has a career WAR of -1.0.
Oops, you’re right. 1 win below average in three seasons isn’t a terrible player, but isn’t very good either.
Cuddyer is better than Stanton? I disagree highly.
I didn’t know Stanton played in the infield. When did the Marlins move him?
Generally the phrase “all over the diamond” means all over the field. I understand now you were simply referring to the infield. Sorry. I’d probably take all the Mets infielders over all the marlins infielders, but I’d definitely take all the Marlins outfielders over all the Mets outfielders.
What’s amazing it that none of the Marlins’ OFs has even peaked yet.
Yeah, Lucas Duda is not that good. Outfield is not that good. Wright and Murphy are their best hitters. Everyone else is replaceable.
Don’t get me wrong, the Mets aren’t bad. Lucas Duda has been great since the Ike Davis trade. There outfield is actually pretty good. Larages had huge potential because of his defense. I just like the Marlins’ better
I definitely like the Marlins potential over the Mets this year, and that isn’t a knock to the Mets. The team just seemingly has a higher ceiling if their stars contribute, they’re just not getting the results they need from everybody thus far, as early as it is. The rotation is an area of concern for MIA though and the Mets definitely have the edge there. Still too early to take results too seriously.
Good for him. Let him sustain it longer. I’m not sold on Duda yet. Same for Lagares, especially since his offense hasn’t been up to par yet.
You might not be sold on Duda, but his offense has been very good since he came up (career 122 OPS+). Breakout year with HR last year, but he’s hit well his whole career and is crushing it so far this year. As for Lagares, he’s legit. His defense is so good that anything he gives you offensively is a bonus. He’s also not a scrub; he’s somewhere near league-average offensively.
Here we go again. Reminds me of when people continuously try to convince me Heyward is a very good hitter. No and No!
What measures do you use to figure out if a hitter is very good or not?
Well, that explains it. You don’t know the team and therefore are making incorrect assumptions about it.
Okay. So be it. I’ve been told this multiple times because fans get to jittery went their team gets off to a hot start. That is when rationality takes a free pass. Eventually, these people just end up getting caught looking!
Try again. You seem to be talking about a different team.
You’re clueless
Lucas Duda is not good? Really? I’ll keep that in mind while I watch him continue to rake this year lol.
Outside Hech, they don’t have a ‘scrub’ in the lineup. There bullpen have all been solid, and there big 2 in the rotation is hurt. Outside the bench, and the makeshift rotation, they really don’t have any scrubs.
The same lineup that just lost 4 in a row to the supposedly inferior Mets without their best hitter. Gotcha.
Because 4 games means so much when evaluating teams.
Let’s agree to disagree that the team that is making a habit of getting swept is better than the team making a habit of sweeping.
Its 12 games into the season. You can’t base an entire team over that span. The Rockies have a better record than the Nationals. Whos a better team?
Go to FanGraphs and check out their depth charts.
You didn’t really answer the question though..
What was the question? These threads are hard to follow.
‘The Rockies have a better record than the Nationals. Who’s the better team?’
As of right now, the Rockies are. MLB uses ONLY wins and losses to determine the teams that make the playoffs. There have been plenty of teams that looked good on paper that were left wanting come October. So yes, the Nats might be a better team in theory, but theories aren’t facts.
The Nats, obviously. There’s a great article on FanGraphs which looks at projected wins for the rest of the season in the NL. These projections take roster depth into account. The tiers are broken down to likely division winners, contenders, pretenders, and the Phillies. The Nats are up there with the Dodgers and Cards as likely division winners. The next tier, the “contenders”, includes the Padres, Pirates, Cubs, and Mets. The one after that, the “pretenders”, includes everybody else but the Phils, who have their own tier.
Nobody thinks that the Mets have a serious shot at the division, which makes perfect sense. It’s the same thing with teams like the Cubs, Pirates, and Padres – those are all teams with certain things going for them but without the established talent level of that first tier.
Another way to look at it is checking the playoff odds for the Mets, Nats, and Rockies. FanGraphs projects the Nats at a ~90% chance of making the playoffs and an 85% chance of winning the division. For the Mets, the playoff odds are around 43%. To put it in perspective, the Cubs are at ~44%, the Pirates are at ~51%, and the Pads at ~53%. The Marlins are at 12.5% and the Rockies are at 9.0%.
And that makes sense intuitively – it feels right that the Cubs, Pads, and Pirates are good but not great, and the Mets are just a little bit worse. It also makes sense that the Nats are projected as a near lock. That’s all pretty straightforward.
Pretty sure losing 2 of ur 3 best relievers, ur 2nd best starter and 2 of ur better position players is a pretty good reason to fall off.
or maybe you are forgetting they only played 13 games so far this season. With or without the injuries, 13 games don’t say much about any team.
They don’t say much, but an early cushion certainly helps. Wins in April count exactly the same as wins in September. The Mets have already had more home games with 40,000+ tickets sold than they did all year last year. That suggests greater financial flexibility for the squad as well.
I’m a Braves fan and i speak for everyone when i say, No it doesn’t! : )
The Braves made the playoffs in 2013 because of April wins.
and they went 17-7 to start the season in 2014 and still finished under .500.
the first 6 games were Nats and Braves and we were .500. we won the Scherzer and Strasbourg games
They have lost 4 of their top 5 relievers, actually.
Forgot about Black, but I didn’t really count Parnell.
Okay, take the Royals.
Morales is gone for the season.
Wade Davis can’t play 80 games and banned from post season.
Holland has an injury with no time table for recovery.
Frasor is out for 2 months.
Volquez is out for the season.
Hosmer is out for at least 3 weeks.
Gordon is out for 2 months.
How do the Royals look now?
It isn’t an excuse, it’s just a fact. When you take out 4 of the best arms from the bullpen and two of the best position players from any team in baseball, they are going to be hurting. A lot. Especially a team where bullpen was a strength.
I don’t think anyone expected the Mets to put up a .750 winning percentage from here on out.
Every team faces injuries but clubs with deep farms weather them better. At least they’re calling up a top prospect and not some journeyman scrub.
So let’s take count, down 3 relievers already, including the closer, in addition to a starting catcher, third baseman, and a good starting pitcher. Yikes.
Edgin lost for season with TJ
Wheeler lost for season with TJ
Mejia lost 80 games and post season with steroid suspension
Parnell still recovering from TJ
Blevins out at least 2 months with broken arm
Black to have MRI tomorrow due to shoulder injury failing to heal
Wright out at least 3 weeks with hamstring
d’Arnaud out at least 2 months with broken hand
That’s 5 bullpen arms, 1 starter, and two of their best position players gone for very long stretches of time.
And yet they have won eight in a row.
and we still have good guys on the farm. the guys playing now are mostly Minaya draftees. the Sandy ones are still a year or so away from the majors
Muno was the first Sandy draftee to make it to the Majors and Plawecki will be #2. Nimmo has an outside shot of getting a September cup of coffee, but Nimmo, Cecchini, and Conforto all look like 2016 guys. Montero was the first IFA.
Wow, that’s rough. A little overdue satisfaction then a world of hurt. Sorry to hear it Mets fans.
The thing about the Mets players is they have room to improve greatly, whereas most players on the Marlins, Nats, etc are all proven to be what they are now.
I don’t think for a second that we have seen the best that Stanton, Ozuna, Yelich, and Realmuto have to offer. That said, those that believe that the Marlins are better than the Mets are getting caught up in the idea that all trades are good trades. The Mets are better on paper, better on the field, better on the 40-man, and better in AAA. Fernandez is out until the break, Alvarez is out indefinitely with shoulder problems, Latos has struggled badly, and the Marlins no longer have their good pitching prospects to plug those holes.
MY 5 OVERHYPED TEAMS GOING INTO SEASON-miami cubs sd in nl+white sox/indians in al-so far i was correct
Come back in September. This is like celebrating New Years in February.
to be honest with you i kept hearing folks saying good things about miami all spring training+i would then look at their pitching staff+say REALLY?!-i dont get where all the hype is coming from really!-degrom would be a #1 sp in that rotation without jose-{and im a dodgers fan just being objective}
Yeah; it is surprising that so many people expected Mat Latos to be an ace, whereas he’d probably be the Mets’ 4th best pitcher without including Montero, Syndergaard, or Matz in the equation.
4th best behind who? Harvey yes, Degrom yes, who would be third? If you’re counting Wheeler, sure. But most teams don’t have that type of rotation so to say 4th best in this case isn’t really a slant.
Colón.
Eh, that’s a tough point to make,they weigh out pretty evenly IMO. Pretty similar tier of pitcher if you look at the numbers, really comes down to preference of experience vs youth.
Ya picking between Latos and Colon is like picking Rosie O’Donnell and Rebel Wilson.
i TRULY dont get the miami/indians/cubs HYPE machines+i also put sd/white sox on this list before season as well!
No one has these teams on their WS contenders list. But many have the Dodgers on it. You would think the hype for them would fade out by now.
After less than 10% of the season has been completed? The Dodgers are immensely talented.
Curious on what team you’re a fan of, because you’re bad mouthing just about everyone.
you know nothing about baseball
MANY have indians/white sox+even padres on that list!!-+MANY were drooling over cubs+miami too-{si picked tribe to win ws-heloooooooooooooooo?????)-now just to put things in perspective we r only 6% into season but this was my HYPE machine before season started-JUST SAYING!-ps-dodgers actually have a roster that can contend unlike this HYPE group
Why are you ranting about something so off topic?
I think most people agree that the Cubs hype is more for the future than simply this year although they’re definitely better, Cleveland has a very good starting cast but can’t afford injuries at all,the Padre hype is because they’re looking to be possibly the most improved team this season, the White Sox look rather improved as well. There’s a difference between teams looking brighter and being hype machines.
Which team can afford injuries to their best players?
The Indians have pretty decent depth at most positions.
Well that’s a fair point, the reason I said they can’t afford the injuries roots from how tough their division is this year, so I suppose that applies to any team in the division. It almost seems like the team that stays the healthiest has the best chance.
Staying healthy is probably the best thing a team can do to be successful.
The teams that have good seasons are generally the healthiest.
not ranting at all but what topic would u like to discuss?
yes agreed that cubs hype is combination of GREAT young bats+fact that they r the cubs+havent won since 1908-si picked indians to win ws-(i would categorize that as being wayyy to giddy on them)-white sox/padres might be better compared to recent years but i dont like ws rotation with the overrated samrdja+not much else besides sale-padres offense/defense doesent scare me too much either-well i do think that what i heard on these teams was giddiness/hype+not things looking “brighter”-so in that context i say they have all been overhyped/ovderrated or however u want to phrase it!-now lets c which ones IF any will prove me wrong!
Okay man. We get it. Next time click on reply rather than continuously create isolated posts.
u mean like this?-fyi-my picks were dodgers in west cards in central wash in east pirates as #1 wc+reds as #2 wc in nl
+angels in west tigers in central red sox in east seattle as #1 wc+toronto as #2 wc in al.
now that is something i can agree with 100%!-but ill be around
Goes to show why if you have 2 top catching prospects you shouldn’t rush to trade 1 of them to open a slot. (see also Boston)
He’s so hot right now…Hansel.