Will Mets Release Delgado?

Actually, the Pirate say "uncle."

I can see Toronto getting him for 1b/dh duties

Please!!! Make it happen, Omar!!

Delgado hit 2 homers today, including a monster shot a third of the way up the right-field scoreboard. I'm sure they'll give him a little longer to snap out of this.

I agree with Scribble, Delgado will be around at least until we approach the All-Star break. Perhaps longer unless the Mets start slipping out of contention. They don't have the trade pieces to get a substantial replacement unless Jon Niese continues his hot start, and with so little pitching depth in the upper levels of the farm, I doubt this is a serious option. Obviously if they weren't parting with Fernando Martinez for Santana, they won't here.

The only other interesting upper level prospects the Mets have are three corner infielders at AA (21 year old 1B/DH Mike Carp, and 22 year old 1B/3B/DHs Nick Evans and Daniel Murphy) who are all raking. The problem is none has a long enough resume to have a ton of value just off a hot start this year. They'd have to either continue raking at AA or prove they could handle AAA first anyway, at which point why not just give them a look instead of trading them for a mediocre veteran replacement if Delgado continues to struggle so mightly (and yes, the two long HR to two different fields are a nice sign, but Delgado's always been a fits and starts hitter, its just that lately the fits seem to last longer than the starts)?

With a reasonably high line drive rate and an extremely low BABIP, Carlos Delgado has the appearance of a very unlucky hitter so far this year. If I was betting, I think Delgado will heat up at some point and his offensive stats will head in the direction of something like the PECOTA projections.

@darkstar:

You obviously know VERY LITTLE about Carp. He is pretty big, but he's fast for his size(average speed). And, he has GREAT bat speed. He is definitely an interesting prospect. I think by the end of the year he could be a top 50 guy. He's only 21, and he's destroying Double A.

Yeah I think you're putting way to much stock in 2007 darkstar and not enough in 2006 and 2008. He may be repeating a level, but being 20 years old and hurt all year and hitting in the Eastern League is VERY difficult. A bad year there wasn't a career killer, but he needed to turn some heads quickly in 2008 and he's done that. He's still a bit ahead of the age curve and he's in a very difficult hitting environment in Binghamton and he's absolutely raked. Most importantly, he's hit lefties hard so far this year. He's not an uber-prospect by any stretch, but a torrid start like the one he's had at least deserves some attention, especially with a slumping Delgado.

Delgado as Toronto's DH in 2009 makes a lot of sense. He's already the best hitter in franchise history, and he could fade away into the sunset in a city where the love has always been mutual.

RE:Carp

Baseball America had this to say about him last week on their “Who’s hot” list:
“Mets 1B Mike Carp (.556/.586/.889) is doing his best to resuscitate his prospect status and had as good a week as any minor leaguer, with a 15-for-27 week that included two homers at Double-A Binghamton. Most encouraging, he's off to an 8-for-23 start against lefthanded pitchers with three homers after posting a .418 OPS against LHPs last year. He's going to have to keep that up (or a reasonable facsimile) to avoid being a platoon player in the future, however.”

Kevin Goldstein had this to say about him mid-late last year:
“Asked whether Mets fans should be excited about Mike Carp:
Not really. Last scout I talked to was pretty unimpressed. Bad athlete with not enough hitting skills or power to make up for it.
I can see why scouts wouldn’t like Carp because of his athleticism, but as a first baseman, you need to worry about his plate discipline, which is pretty bad at this point.
Carp has limited his K’s as the year has gone on, but I still believe his value is plummeting and the Mets should deal him.”

And this is the normal type of scouting report you find on him:
“The Mets drafted Mike Carp out of high school in the ninth round 2004 draft. Following a solid 2004 campaign, Carp started the 2005 season playing for low Class A Hagerstown in the Sally League, where he started the season with a bang, hitting something like 10 home runs in 25 games. The Sally League pitchers quickly figured him out and he fell into a bad slump up until August, when he injured his wrist and missed the rest of the season. He's only 19 years old and has already shown power. Carp has a lot of adjustments to make. At this point, he's Brett Harper Lite in a system that already has Brett Harper. He's got a long way to go and a lot to prove.”
Or
“A power hitter who swings hard and misses often, Carp is also saddled with horrendous L-R splits. In 2007 he hit only .238 with just three home runs (in 151 at-bats) vs LHP.
Since his defense is unspectacular and he has no special baserunning ability, Carp needs to figure out how to hit lefties if he's ever going to be anything other than a reserve or platoon player. He's likely to get one last chance with the Mets in AAA this year, but if he does not perform, don't expect to see him on any prospect lists next season.”

…Add everything up with that .251/.334/.387/.724 line in AA last year, and you have someone that just isnt too “interesting” to me ~ even if he is hitting .393/.433/.676 right now because of that one weeks performance and an overall .414 BAbip… I would also point out the fact that he’s also fallen back to earth in a major way after that week ~ going 10/35 in his last 9 games. The decrease in the K rate is nice, the drop in the BB rate isnt ~ and although his age is on his side, well…

He’s a big slugger with almost nothing else to offer. The fact that he’s a bad fielder at 1B and cant really hit lefties at all just destroys him. He might turn out to be an ok stop-gap, he might even turn out to be a LgAvg-ish guy for a couple years ~ but a 1B prospect has to actually be rather impressive to be “interesting” to me, and that just isnt Carp…

He's a local product for me, I've had an eye on him for quite a while. And while he does have power, thats really it... Overall, it doesn’t matter much to me though, and I actually root for, and love the kid. But, well, I was just saying…

Johnson is still with the Rays organization. He popped a HR Sunday for AAA Durham. I'm sure the Rays would do the classy thing and trade him to the Mets for nothing if it could get him back to the majors.

I see where you're coming from darkstar, but I still think he fits my definition of "interesting" (although part of that could be the Mets homer in me). A .667 slugging percentage isn't just one good week, even this early in the season. I agree he needs to up his walk rate though.

The thing is, how many 1B are considered "unathletic" or are single tool players with just raw power? He's obviously not Joey Votto, but still, that doesn't seem that uncommon to me. He obviously won't be moved to CF or SS anytime soon, and his defense definitely needs work, but its worth keeping an eye on, especially in a farm system as barren as the Mets. I'm sure Carlos Delgado was once considered a single tool prospect. 430-some odd HRs later he's had a solid career and even borderline HOF type numbers.

As for the scouting reports, I love reading these types of things, but I always feel like the whole industry is so cliquey and trendy in a way. It became so fasionable to bash the Mets farm system, with a degree of good reason after the year they had last year, but I think there's a bit of an unfair carryover. There have been some really interesting things going on, especially in Binghamton and St. Lucie and especially at SP and corner INF. The one major dissapointment has been the continued medocirity of Fernando Martinez.

Yeah, I hear what youre saying…
Did want to point out a couple things though:

1) I don’t think the Mets get an overly bad rep. I mean, I hear as much bad about other clubs as I do them. And although when there is bad to be said it can sometimes seem as though it’s a trend, much of it is just repeating the same stuff ~ stuff that was true to begin with. If youre in the NY area, maybe it just seems worse ~ here in Cali we have a tendency to see the same thing with the Dodgers/Angels/Padres when a player or two are struggling…

2) I’m not really basing anything off one year either; I’m basing it off his totals as a whole. As Scribble said, a 1B has to absolutely rake to be something truly special, and Carp has never really done that. I mean, we can quickly compare his 2005 lines with those of others in that league:

.249 / .358 / .476 / .834 ~ *Mike Carp*
.414 / .506 / .624 / 1.130 ~ Brian Barton
.364 / .477 / .621 / 1.098 ~ Dante Brinkley
.338 / .413 / .652 / 1.065 ~ Hunter Pence
.355 / .396 / .645 / 1.041 ~ Ryan Braun
.338 / .463 / .544 / 1.007 ~ Jeff Natale
.308 / .423 / .577 / 1.000 ~ Brandon Jones
.346 / .436 / .549 / .985 ~ JR Towles
.291 / .373 / .603 / .976 ~ Joe Koshansky
.310 / .417 / .556 / .976 ~ Joe Denker

…Now, granted that most of those players were older, but… And if we go to PECOTA to get a ML-Eq line for a .249/.358/.476 produced in the SAL that year, we see:
.201 / .275 / .356 / .631
We also see similar with his StLucie line from 2006 ~ the .287/.379/.450 turn into:
.253 / .326 / .409 / .731
…much better, but I’m still not seeing anything that great. Then when we think about the fact that his 2007 line in AA goes from .251/.337/.387 to:
.228 / .303 / .356 / .659
… well, that’s looking eerily similar to 2005, isnt it?

He does have age on his side, so there is a possibility he starts to figure it out ~ but at this point his actual stats just don’t seem to jump out as anything that fantastic, esp when we are talking about someone playing the deepest position in baseball…

You certainly make a good case. I can't disagree with most of it. You're aboslutely right that in an average farm system with average depth at 1B, Carp wouldn't stand out at all.

The reason I think it does stand out a bit more than normal on the Mets is because 1. Delgado's had such a rough year+ and 2. There isn't ANY 1B depth at all in this system outside of what they have at Bing (unless you count Michel Abreu, which is a big stretch). Compared to the careers thus far of Murphy and Evans, Carp is actually pretty interesting. They might be decent 3B prospects, and they have more athleticism than Carp to handle that position, but there's absolutely nowhere to go with the Mets at 3B. Their bats don't even come close to what needs to be established to be a big league 1B.

What it comes down to in the end though, is that if Carp is going to give you something close to league average production at 1B next year (which isn't a lock by any means) its just infinitely more cost effective than picking up Delgado's option or going outside the organization for help that's not named Mark Texiera. Just having this as a hypothetical possibility is enough to give him a long hard look, IMO.

I hear you, and I'd need a better first hand look at the kid to really judge. Obviously you're more familiar with him than I am, so I'll yield to you for the most part on this one. I would like to however point out the following article by John Sickels, who's been one of the harshest pundits against the Mets system for a while now, Carp included:

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2008/4/30/470445/prospect-profile-mike-carp

Sickels neglected to put Carp in his prospect handbook in both 2005 and 2006, although he now admits he was at least a "C+" by his system and worthy of a spot in 2006 and probably 2005 as well. Here's a quote on what Carp's doing now:

"Carp isn't much of a fielder, but if his bat continues to develop at this pace he can be as starting first baseman in the majors. If I were the Mets, I'd leave him in Double-A until the end of June, then promote him to Triple-A on his birthday (June 30th) and see how he handles the International League. I have no idea how the Mets plan on fitting him into the lineup in the long run, but grade-wise I'm moving him back up to Grade C+ right now, and if he is still hitting like this on June 30th I will make that a B- or perhaps a straight B."

That's high praise from a prospect guru that's hard to please.

As for Deglado, saying his slump has only been a few weeks long is simply ignoring 2007 and even 2006 as well. He's been on a steep decline for at least two years now, and PECOTA notes that most of the guys on his comparables list aren't known for soft landings or swan songs at the ends of their careers. I think he has a better chance than a lot of them did of being an .850 OPS 30 HR guy (to my naked eye, it doesn't look like an issue of batspeed so much as just way to much body movement as he loads up his swing, which was what he managed to correct for that 2 HR game), but he's clearly going to be only slightly better than adequate at best. He's a clogger on the basepaths, and while he has decent enough hands to scoop poor throws across the infield, his range is an absolute disaster, and Luis Castillo hasn't compensated as well as I'd have liked (although Church has been terrific).