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Matching up with the Mets
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Post by bigpapismangosalsa on Dec 2, 2014 9:29:37 GMT -5
The big thing I keep coming back to with Niese is that I too think he would fare very poorly in the AL East. Agree, he has been a good pitcher the past three seasons, however, if you look at his splits against the AL over his career, they certainly are not pretty and are nowhere near what we should want for a number 2 starter. He has started 16 games in his career against the AL and has a 4.78ERA, and a 1.558WHIP. I don't want to break small sample sizes (which this admittedly is) into even smaller ones, but he hasn't really been any better than that in the AL over his last three years (ten starts) either, to your point about his last three years.
If we were getting him to be a number 3 starter, he's someone I'd be interested in at the right price for the reasons you cite (including an improved past three years) and at 28 he should be right in his prime. Though I think if we're looking at a rotation of SP1, Niese, Buchholz, Kelly and De La Rosa, then we're in a lot of trouble.
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Post by jmei on Dec 2, 2014 9:35:57 GMT -5
Those splits versus the AL are in such a small sample as to be almost meaningless.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 2, 2014 9:38:58 GMT -5
I agree that the Red Sox need another, better pitcher. But I think Niese improves the team, and I think it's a mistake to ignore him just because he alone doesn't improve it enough. The lesson of the 2012-13 offseason was of incremental improvements. Mid-level guys like Napoli, Drew, and Victorino played key roles because they were better than the players they replaced. Even Dempster was useful because, while he was by no means excellent, he was better than the alternatives who were the reason for the dismal '12 season. Niese is better than Kelly and more consistent than Buchholz, and trading for him doesn't preclude being able to sign Lester or Shields or making another deal for whatever frontline starter is actually made available.
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 2, 2014 9:43:21 GMT -5
Neise may be an upgrade over the current rotation but that doesn't make him a good fit for this team. They need guys who can slot in the top two spots and that's not Neise. Adding to the bottom doesn't make sense to me before the year. They need to commit to young arms for that 5 spot with Clay and Kelly 3/4.
Using one of the best trade chips you have for Neise is a bad idea. If it were Porcello we could at least potentially get a number 2, but to me he's (RP) is the last resort.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 2, 2014 9:44:15 GMT -5
Are the Mets still looking for an OF after signing Cuddyer?
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 2, 2014 9:48:29 GMT -5
I agree that the Red Sox need another, better pitcher. But I think Niese improves the team, and I think it's a mistake to ignore him just because he alone doesn't improve it enough. The lesson of the 2012-13 offseason was of incremental improvements. Mid-level guys like Napoli, Drew, and Victorino played key roles because they were better than the players they replaced. Even Dempster was useful because, while he was by no means excellent, he was better than the alternatives who were the reason for the dismal '12 season. Niese is better than Kelly and more consistent than Buchholz, and trading for him doesn't preclude being able to sign Lester or Shields or making another deal for whatever frontline starter is actually made available. So you want to give up on developing the young starters? Because adding Neise, Lester and a number 2 does just that. Yes the team is better for it to start 2015, but you're severely retarding their development to the point that you might as well move on from Ruby, Workman, Webster and Ranaudo or send them to the pen. I realize there will be some starts to be had just because of injuries etc, but that's not enough. A guy needs a spot at some point not an injury fill in. Plus there are so many you need a lot of innings to give guys a chance.
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Post by bigpapismangosalsa on Dec 2, 2014 9:48:59 GMT -5
Fair enough about the small sample size, which I admitted, but it's really all we have to project how he might translate to the American League east. Another thing that would concern me about him is that in his career away from Citi, he drops to a 4.25ERA and 1.403WHIP in 70 career starts.
However, if we're talking about him as a middle to bottom of the rotation starter, replacing for instance Buchholz inconsistency (and talent) with Niese's innings and durability, that is something that I'd be interested in the Sox pursuing. A rotation of Lester, "Samardzija" and then filling in some way with Niese, Kelly and De La Rosa, it'd be a very formidable rotation. Epecially when paired with one what might reasonably expect from our offense.
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Post by mattpicard on Dec 2, 2014 9:52:56 GMT -5
Are the Mets still looking for an OF after signing Cuddyer? I doubt it. Granderson isn't really platoonable, Lagares is one of the truly elite defenders in the game, and even if you play Cuddyer at 1B over Duda against southpaws (which the Mets probably won't do as much as they should), it's going to be tough to distribute fair playing time to those three + YC or Victorino. What they really need is a shortstop.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 2, 2014 9:56:13 GMT -5
I agree that the Red Sox need another, better pitcher. But I think Niese improves the team, and I think it's a mistake to ignore him just because he alone doesn't improve it enough. The lesson of the 2012-13 offseason was of incremental improvements. Mid-level guys like Napoli, Drew, and Victorino played key roles because they were better than the players they replaced. Even Dempster was useful because, while he was by no means excellent, he was better than the alternatives who were the reason for the dismal '12 season. Niese is better than Kelly and more consistent than Buchholz, and trading for him doesn't preclude being able to sign Lester or Shields or making another deal for whatever frontline starter is actually made available. So you want to give up on developing the young starters? Because adding Neise, Lester and a number 2 does just that. Yes the team is better for it to start 2015, but you're severely retarding their development to the point that you might as well move on from Ruby, Workman, Webster and Ranaudo or send them to the pen. I realize there will be some starts to be had just because of injuries etc, but that's not enough. A guy needs a spot at some point not an injury fill in. Plus there are so many you need a lot of innings to give guys a chance. I don't want to give up on developing young starters generally, but specifically I don't think Webster or Workman are ever going to be as good as Niese is right now, and I'm skeptical of Ranaudo too. I love De La Rosa and think he should have a spot in the 2015 rotation. If the Red Sox went into the 2015 season with a rotation of Acquisition/Niese/Buchholz/Kelly/De La Rosa, chances are there'd be plenty of opportunity to get innings for Barnes and Ranaudo and later on Owens, Johnson and Rodriguez. And if my starting five pitch so well and are so healthy that there isn't that opportunity, it probably means that the Red Sox are a really excellent team.
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Post by bigpapismangosalsa on Dec 2, 2014 10:09:14 GMT -5
James, wouldn't you agree that if we went into this season with a rotation of SP1, Niese, Buchholz, Kelly and De La Rosa, we're talking about a recipe for disaster though. If we use Niese's away ERA as a reasonable baseline for his transition to the AL and specifically the AL East ballparks (which I don't think is unreasonable, but someone can correct me if they have better data or translation systems) you're talking about a 4.25ERA pitcher. If that is your number 2, the uncertainty of Buchholz is your 3, and then you have further question marks in Kelly and De La Rosa, that just strikes me as a horrible use (or misuse) of resouces.
Maybe I'm just more down on Buchholz than most, but he hasn't had a season with 20 or more games startered and an ERA below 3.50 since 2010. There is no reason I can think of to project him to do as such this year. I'm probably more down on Kelly than others too, but his career FIP is 4.11 (which oddly enough matches the ERA he put up in Boston last year). SP1 and then four pitchers, none of whom can be expected to give you an ERA below 4.00 for an entire season just is not going to cut it - unless of course that SP1 is vintage Pedro, but I don't think we have that on the horizon.
I wouldn't hate Niese as a 3, 4 or 5, but as a 2 it's just too many question marks in my opinion.
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Post by jmei on Dec 2, 2014 10:26:56 GMT -5
If we use Niese's away ERA as a reasonable baseline for his transition to the AL and specifically the AL East ballparks (which I don't think is unreasonable, but someone can correct me if they have better data or translation systems) you're talking about a 4.25ERA pitcher. You can't really do that. Most players perform worse on the road than they do at home due to travel, unfamiliarity, and other related factors. In general, you should hesitate to use a smaller sample over a larger one unless you have a really good reason to do so, and league/ballpark adjustments can be done without resorting to slicing and dicing your data into small samples and introducing extraneous variables. Over his career, Niese has a 104 ERA-, a 101 FIP-, and a 95 xFIP- (all three of these stats are league- and park-adjusted). Over the last three years, he has a 97 ERA-, a 103 FIP-, and a 97 xFIP-. As such, we can expect him to be a roughly league-average pitcher on a per-inning basis. I do think that the Red Sox should aim higher for the second slot in their rotation, but I wouldn't hate a rotation of Lester, Niese, Buchholz, Kelly, and De La Rosa.
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Post by bigpapismangosalsa on Dec 2, 2014 10:56:16 GMT -5
Thanks Jmei, I didn't know that some of those were factored in for league and park as well. Specifically on FIP I did believe it was more a fucntion of your defense as opposed to things that were in the control of the pithcer. So over his last three seasons (because I do agree that it's likely he was more learning how to pitch in the big leagues early on in his career) he has roughly averaged a 103ERA+, so he's likely a good bet to be a little bit above league average - in my opinion, a very good number 3 starter for this team.
If you're banking on that as your number two, with the complete uncertainty of Buchholz, Kelly and De La Rosa filling out the other four slots, I would feel it's going to be another long summer. Though I would rather have the relative certainty of Niese as my number 3 starter than the roller-coaster of emotion that is Clay Buchholz, specifically as we look to incorporate in some manner, young pitchers like Kelly, De La Rosa, Owens, Webster, Johnson, Rodriguez, and the rest.
Since the Mets are reportedly looking to shed some salary, and they do need a short stop, and it makes me wonder however if something along the lines of Marrero (whom I don't think is enough to get higher ranked pitchers like Samardzija) and Brentz for Niese would be a good trade for both teams. Would free up the Red Sox to move Buchholz as well, but not cost many of our "assets" that we could use to procure an option at SP1/2 (and fill the other via free agency). On the surface, that seems to make sense to me.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 2, 2014 11:02:09 GMT -5
If we use Niese's away ERA as a reasonable baseline for his transition to the AL and specifically the AL East ballparks (which I don't think is unreasonable, but someone can correct me if they have better data or translation systems) you're talking about a 4.25ERA pitcher. You can't really do that. Most players perform worse on the road than they do at home due to travel, unfamiliarity, and other related factors. In general, you should hesitate to use a smaller sample over a larger one unless you have a really good reason to do so, and league/ballpark adjustments can be done without resorting to slicing and dicing your data into small samples and introducing extraneous variables. Over his career, Niese has a 104 ERA-, a 101 FIP-, and a 95 xFIP- (all three of these stats are league- and park-adjusted). Over the last three years, he has a 97 ERA-, a 103 FIP-, and a 97 xFIP-. As such, we can expect him to be a roughly league-average pitcher on a per-inning basis. I do think that the Red Sox should aim higher for the second slot in their rotation, but I wouldn't hate a rotation of Lester, Niese, Buchholz, Kelly, and De La Rosa. Also, given that he's a ground ball pitcher, theoretically he should do better than the average pitcher in moving to Fenway.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 2, 2014 14:27:47 GMT -5
So you want to give up on developing the young starters? Because adding Neise, Lester and a number 2 does just that. Yes the team is better for it to start 2015, but you're severely retarding their development to the point that you might as well move on from Ruby, Workman, Webster and Ranaudo or send them to the pen. I realize there will be some starts to be had just because of injuries etc, but that's not enough. A guy needs a spot at some point not an injury fill in. Plus there are so many you need a lot of innings to give guys a chance. I don't want to give up on developing young starters generally, but specifically I don't think Webster or Workman are ever going to be as good as Niese is right now, and I'm skeptical of Ranaudo too. I love De La Rosa and think he should have a spot in the 2015 rotation. If the Red Sox went into the 2015 season with a rotation of Acquisition/Niese/Buchholz/Kelly/De La Rosa, chances are there'd be plenty of opportunity to get innings for Barnes and Ranaudo and later on Owens, Johnson and Rodriguez. And if my starting five pitch so well and are so healthy that there isn't that opportunity, it probably means that the Red Sox are a really excellent team. Neise is an okay pitcher, that's had one really good season in 2012. I do like his low number of HR that's what you need it your not a strikeout guy in Fenway. I just don't think he's a number two in the AL on a team that wants to compete for a title. If you resign Lester or get another Ace (Hamels, Cueto, etc), then get a good number two (Samardzija, Latos, Shields type), I'd be happy with Neise as my number 3 pitcher. Is Cesepedes value really only of a number three starter? What's Neise contract look like? How many years of team control?
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Post by dmaineah on Dec 2, 2014 14:32:25 GMT -5
Jon Niese 2015 28yrs $7,000,000 2016 29yrs $9,000,000 2017 30yrs $10M Team Option, $500k Buyout 2018 31yrs $11M Team Option, $500k Buyout The Mets are rumored to be looking for a SS & right-handed hitting corner outfielder to be paired with Michael Cuddyer when he plays 1st Base. •Though much has been made about the Cubs, Rockies, D’Backs and Mariners as a potential trade partner to fill the Mets‘ hole at shortstop, Andy Martino of the New York Daily News writes that the Red Sox are an interesting partner as well. Prospect Deven Marrero is said to be available in trades, Martino writes, and the Red Sox have a well-documented need for starting pitching, making the two sides a good fit on paper. www.nydailynews.com/blogs/baseballinsider/sifting-ny-mets-shortstop-options-blog-entry-1.2030011
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Post by bigpapismangosalsa on Dec 2, 2014 14:58:54 GMT -5
The Mets have so much young pitching talent, I think the argument could be made that Niese is more of their 4 (or even their 5) at least based on ability and value. Would anyone on here actually take Niese over (in order, for me at least) Harvey, Wheeler, de Grom and Syndergaard. I sure wouldn't.
I don't mean this to say we wouldn't want Niese, specifically since I think he'd give us more in the future than Buchholz or Joe Kelly, just trying to look from the perspective of how the Mets value him. I bet a year of control of a good hitter would get Niese. I also bet that it wouldn't get any of the others.
To remove the Sox from the equation, I think there is no chance the Mets would trade any of those to the Braves for Justin Upton (divisional rivalry aside), or if they Royals called asking about one of those four to get Gordon, the Mets hang up the phone. They certainly wouldn't do it for any of our hitters with a year of control left unless we were adding some serious other pieces along with them.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 2, 2014 18:02:50 GMT -5
Jon Niese 2015 28yrs $7,000,000 2016 29yrs $9,000,000 2017 30yrs $10M Team Option, $500k Buyout 2018 31yrs $11M Team Option, $500k Buyout The Mets are rumored to be looking for a SS & right-handed hitting corner outfielder to be paired with Michael Cuddyer when he plays 1st Base. •Though much has been made about the Cubs, Rockies, D’Backs and Mariners as a potential trade partner to fill the Mets‘ hole at shortstop, Andy Martino of the New York Daily News writes that the Red Sox are an interesting partner as well. Prospect Deven Marrero is said to be available in trades, Martino writes, and the Red Sox have a well-documented need for starting pitching, making the two sides a good fit on paper. www.nydailynews.com/blogs/baseballinsider/sifting-ny-mets-shortstop-options-blog-entry-1.2030011Well I like his contract if he can be a solid #3 for us. That increase his value in my eyes, 2 years 16.5 million, 3 years 26.5 million or 4 years 37 million. I now get why people are saying Cesepedes for Neise.
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nomar
Veteran
Posts: 10,825
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Post by nomar on Dec 9, 2014 15:09:14 GMT -5
Chris Cotillo of MLBDailyDish.com reports that Mets pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard is "in play" in trade talks.
I know we have a lot of young pitchers, but Syndergaard is a beast, and I'd be willing to slot him in the rotation this year just as easily as I would with Masterson. His upside is better than Owens or Rodriguez, and he's probably a bit undervalued right now after getting pretty unlucky this year. They may not be high on Marrero, but a Marrero + Guerra package would give them a safe option and one you can dream a bit more on. There would have to be more to it as well though. Holt could make sense here too.
My proposal: Holt + Marrero/Guerra + Ranaudo + Rijo
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Post by gatorgreenwell on Dec 9, 2014 16:37:55 GMT -5
Chris Cotillo of MLBDailyDish.com reports that Mets pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard is "in play" in trade talks. I know we have a lot of young pitchers, but Syndergaard is a beast, and I'd be willing to slot him in the rotation this year just as easily as I would with Masterson. His upside is better than Owens or Rodriguez, and he's probably a bit undervalued right now after getting pretty unlucky this year. They may not be high on Marrero, but a Marrero + Guerra package would give them a safe option and one you can dream a bit more on. There would have to be more to it as well though. Holt could make sense here too. My proposal: Holt + Marrero/Guerra + Ranaudo + Rijo I don't think that does it for Syndergaard. I'd love it if that happened. None of those bats help the Mets much. Holt is good and all, but they need a run producer. If the Sox offered Cespedes, Marrero, and Ranuado for Wheeler or Syndergaard...I think the Mets would have a hard time saying no. Their rotation is so deep! They have Harvey, deGrom, Wheeler, Gee, Neise, Colon, Syndergaard, Montero. Seems to me like they could easily deal one of Wheeler or Syndergaard for a guy like Cespedes and a guy like Marrero. Cespedes helps their lineup IMMENSELY. Marrero has to have a higher ceiling than Wilmer Flores or Ruben Tejeda. Not that it means much, but Ranuado seems to me like he'd be a better NL pitcher. He could easily fill in if an injury were to happen.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 9, 2014 18:31:26 GMT -5
If the Mets trade Syndergaard, they'd be doing it for someone who impacts them this year, right? I've never heard of an excellent prospect getting traded for a series of lesser prospects plus the major league utility man.
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