Noah Syndergaard’s injury was a crushing blow to the rotation for an already-struggling Mets club, and general manager Sandy Alderson acknowledged yesterday that he’ll be on the lookout for outside rotation help. As Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News writes, Alderson offered the following stance on the matter:
“We have looked at that possibility, I would say yes, that this probably accelerates that process. I think we have to be realistic about what may be out there. As I said before there are some pitchers may be available who have not been pitching, would require a certain amount of time to ramp up and may not be available to us until about the time [Steven] Matz and [Seth] Lugo are possibly back, but there may be some other possibilities.”
As Alderson suggests, the situation isn’t quite as simple as it would be in the event of an offseason or Spring Training injury. Free agents like Doug Fister, Colby Lewis, Jake Peavy, Tim Lincecum and John Danks are all unsigned, but any of those veterans would have to ramp up to the point where he is able to take the mound in a Major League game. With the Mets tentatively hoping that Matz and Lugo will be back in a month, adding one of those arms might not offer a closer timeline to a rotation augment than waiting out their internal options. Of course, adding the depth for the remainder of the season wouldn’t hurt, especially considering the fact that Zack Wheeler is on an innings limit after missing the 2015-16 seasons due to Tommy John surgery.
On the free-agent front, it doesn’t seem that a match with Lewis is especially likely. Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweeted last night that the Mets had interest in the longtime Rangers hurler in the offseason, but Sherman adds that Lewis’ agent now tells him that the right-hander isn’t interested in joining the Mets at this point. The Mets did watch Doug Fister last month, but no deal materialized following that workout.
Looking around the league, there aren’t many obvious trade candidates this early in the season. One very logical depth option, in my view, would be to swing a deal for left-hander Tommy Milone, who was designated for assignment by the Brewers yesterday. Milwaukee also probably wouldn’t mind getting out from some of the remaining money on Matt Garza’s contract.
Speculating a bit further, it’s possible that a definitively rebuilding club like the Padres wouldn’t be as reluctant as most teams to part with a starter in early May. (The Braves, for instance, traded Jhoulys Chacin to the Angels around this time last year when the Halos were similarly devastated by rotation injuries.) However, any of Padres’ offseason signees — Chacin, Jered Weaver, Clayton Richard, Trevor Cahill — would have to consent to a trade prior to June 15, and Chacin and Weaver have each struggled quite a bit.
Generally speaking, early May is a difficult time to be seeking any type of meaningful upgrade on the trade market. Even teams like the Royals, Blue Jays and Giants — each with a .370 winning percentage or worse — are reportedly still looking to right the ship rather than market veteran players in trades.
Bartolo
What would that be, 3rd season in a row those teams matchup in a trade?
ATL will also trade the rights to sign FA Kelly Johnson
I agree. The Braves have arms and if the price was right, they’d be crazy not to consider it.
Nobody is going to offer anything for Bartolo. There is no price. He’s almost 44 years old.
No go on Colon. Won’t accept going back to the Flushing Cheapskates. Wilpon should have done the smart thing and told Sandy to sign him as a dependable piece for the staff. Instead keep skimping and saving so the team is screwed.
I know my Mets are stupid but this would be a terrible idea even for them. The Mets went into the season saying they didn’t need veteran pitchers because they had young depth now it’s come back to bite them.
They don’t have a deep enough farm system to trade for pitching. They need to ride this out and pick up 2 veterans this offseason. They have a bunch of money freed up after this year. Then They could conceivably trade Harvey after this season for a young hitter and still have more pitching depth.
Derek Holland? Miguel Gonzalez? James Shields?
Might as well get Dickey from the Braves. He’s doing better than Bartolo this year, and both are well-liked in NY. It couldn’t possibly cost much in terms of prospects from the Braves.
Sorry Charlie, good veteran pitchers don’t want to go back to the freak show in flushing bay. No support for pitchers’ well being = stay away from TC and company.
Like they have a choice where they get traded in july.
Here’s the math:
10 and 5 rule gives players a choice.
Neither of those players have 10&5 rights
Yeah they sure don’t. It’s funny when a troll can’t even get his facts right
Uh…to get 10
Wow. That one blew up in your face.
You don’t even know the rules. Quit while you’re ahead.
Damn hindsight is 20/20 but not Resigning Bartolo is looking like a mistake. I understand why they didn’t sign him, but relative cheapness, and effectiveness/innings are exactly what the mets need.
Hey Ace-time to dust off the green helmet, huh?
Colon wasn’t cheap though…didn’t he sign for @ $12m for this year w. ATL? I think he has a 2nd year too…so he took advantage of a weak pitching market. The mets couldn’t even guarentee him a starting role, so the Mets were never an option even if he signed for half of what he got.
I wonder if the Twins are a match. Ervin Santana on the higher end, or Phil Hughes, Hector Santiago, Kyle Gibson on the lower end.
Those are both good ideas. The over under is 60 days for “TC”‘to blow out their shoulders and elbows.
Inattentive management=unattractive place for pitchers to go.
It’s time for more burning out of rookies
Remember when the Mets swept the Cubs in the 2015 NLCS and most pundits talked about how good pitching always beats good hitting?
The Mets are providing the counter to that argument. Pitchers break. Frequently.
Good pitching does beat good hitting. Oh by the way, hitters can get hurt too… just look at Cespedes.
Pitchers get injured more than position players do. Everyone on the mets gets hurt though.
Cubs bats>kershaw game 6 nlcs and kluber game 7 World Series.
Kluber isn’t a great comparison for being worked as much as he was. He was bound to break.
And Kluber > cubs bats in the the 2 previous matchups. Winning 2 of 3 would still mean that good pitching beats good hitting.
Good pitching has always been thought to beat good hitting..I fail to get your point how injuries debunks that when they can happen to good hitters also.
exactly both statements are true God pitching did beat good hitting… but pitchers hey injuries more often
Face the facts. “TC” burnt out the young talented staff. Now they lead the MLB in surgical procedures.
Actually, the Mets have been incredibly conservative in their usage of young pitchers. If anything, the Warthen slider and the increase on velocity (the Mets, I believe, send all their pitchers to Driveline) might have something to do with all the pitching injuries. But it’s probably just bad luck; pitchers break.
^^^This.
All rebuilding teams need to realize you have to grow the bats, and buy the arms
Less rotation spots to fill than defensive positions.
Jimenez for Bruce!!!!
Hahahahahaha
Well, I am glad to see a Mets fan with a sense of humor.
Plus, I didn’t realize Bruce was batting like .290 and decent overall numbers.
A real solid start to the season.
Even if Bruce didn’t have a solid start, I think the O’s are stuck with Jimenez.
Mets fans have to have humor. How many teams have zero championships in past 31 years?
10. And none of them are called the Mets.
Mets are at 30 years, to date. Thanks, man. We do have some humor, huh?
Quintana?
Not a good fit. Mets (correctly) won’t give up Rosario, but don’t have enough prospect depth to swing a deal without including him.
The White Sox would want Smith and Rosario
*plus more
The Mets should look to trade for/sign Bartolo Colon, R.A. Dickey, Jon Niese, Dillon Gee and Mike Pelfrey.
Miguel Gonzalez.
Weaver hasn’t been that bad
Please trade for Brett Anderson
Sincerely,
Theo Epstein.
Builds around pitching,
Seems pitching help.
[Insert Alderson’s face]
Captain Imbecile says BeatBudBlack
trade the farm for quintana
The Mets have depth….except it’s all injured. Not sure how much you can blame them for this.
Fill in the blank:
Imagine the (. ) allowing a player to notify the team the morning of the start that he couldn’t raise his arm above his head and then after not taking an MRI getting shelled again. Come on. Only weak Mets management would allow the player to wreak havoc. They couldn’t have simply told “Thor” that it was ok to not have the MRI as the weather in Vegas would make him feel better.
If they want Colon or RA, take them. I don’t know about others here but every time Colon or RA starts, I just shrug it off and don’t find the games exciting to watch. Colon is good for the game with his goofiness and age but he is worthless to this very bad Braves team who will finish with less than 70 wins again.
Dickey has an era sub 3.80, they aren’t going to trade that when they don’t have anyone to take his sport in the rotation.
Mets have one of the worst groups of position players in the majors,. That, as much as injuries to their pitchers, is why they’ve been descending since the WS loss in 2015. Plus, once a player become injury prone, that tends to have staying power. You can keep whining about bad luck if you want, but the fact is the Mets were really betting (in order to contend) on unusually good luck in getting full seasons out of guys who had those recently and/or young pitchers staying injury free despite still ascending in terms of innings and velocity. These were bad bets.
You don’t compensate for losing high end starting pitching by giving away prospects for low end starting pitching. You do it by upgrading the other elements of your team (like with high end position players or even stacking the bullpen) in the off season so you’re not so starting pitching dependent.
This was never bad luck- it’s poor management. I’m glad others are starting to see it.
Disagree. It’s injuries and slow starts. It’s absurd to think that they ‘have one of the worst groups of position players in the majors’.
Injuries: Duda, Cespedes, Flores (though he’s a UT, he did OPS+ 110 last year)
Slow starts: Walker, Cabrera, Reyes, and Granderson had OPS+es of 119, 115, 105, and 112 last year, respectively. This year, they’re at 59, 74, 58, and 4 (!!).
Who would you have gotten this past offseason to upgrade any of that? Bear in mind that they could get anything worthwhile for Bruce or Granderson. imo, they’ll be fine hitting-wise once they get healthy.
Rct: bear in mind that most of the players you listed are either has beens or worse. One season does not count. Reyes and granderson were washed up before last year.
Duda’ claim to fame is how overrated he is. Getting out of denial is a process. I wish you good luck.
All too true. Is Duda on the Mo Vaughn train or what? (without the MVP-calliber years, mind).
Year……Player1…….Player 2…….OPS+
2010:……..82……………..51
2011:……..137……………..89
2012:……..99……………..121
2013:……..118……………..168
2014:……..137……………..96
2015:……..130……………..147
2016:……..91……………..109
2017:……..144……………..96
Career:…121……………..120
Player 1 is making $7.25m for 2017
Player 2 is making $23m for 2017
Who would you rather have on your team?
hojostache:
Is that first column OPS+ , or Cespedes’s golf scores?
Among the injured don’t forget David Wright, and the apparently near-zero effort made by the Mets during the off-season to seek an upgrade/replacement.
Sandy should look long and hard at… Tommy Milone. Milwaukee had a contract with him for $1.25M this season. Pick him up on the waiver wire, and let him be the lefty until Matz is ready. Who knows they might get him to eat up 100+ innings??? If not they have some guy named Pill on the triple A roster that has pitched well so far this season. The guy has played A-ball for 7 seasons, let him come up and earn a little money chewing up innings. Any of the other names mentioned in this article probably would be a waste of money. Just hope the phone starts ringing soon for Bruce, dump some money and get ready for next season.
Grabbing Milone is a good idea. He can be had for a song, his relatively soft-toss repertoire would complement the current staff, and what team couldn’t use another lefty? The past two years saw him poorly used by the Twins in my opinion (short-notice starts, never defining a role for him, etc.), and he received absolutely no help from Minnesota’s horrid infield: Sano + Nunez + Polanco = duck and cover.
I love the Garza idea
As well you should!
I hope the Braves make a deal for some bat pop and send Tehran to the Mets.
Whut??? Reed to LAD for McCarthy and Hatcher?
Why would the Mets do that?
Offer a broken bat to the Yankees for Jon Niese.
Are these tears of laughter or fear that it just might happen?
Both. Jon Niece is a chump. I’d rather give the ball to a rookie who has something to prove than Jon Niese who has shown over and over again that when it matters he tanks.
I am FAR from a fan of Montero, but I’d rather put him out there than Niese.