Mets Rumors: Castillo, K-Rod, Abreu

Good news for Phillies fans, however.

In all seriousness, Castillo is pretty much stuck at 2B, Orlando Hudson is a bad signing for the Mets, and as is K-Rod.

"I could only hope that Castillo shows up to spring training with two healthy knees and he could become even a microcosm of the pesky hitter he was in Florida."

Newsflash...Castillo never is going to have healthy knees again. I'm happy we didn't resign him and now have Casilla doing the job, cause Castillo is clearly on the tail end of his career as anyone that can be considered a starting 2nd baseman.

Truthfully, I always thought the "Mets need to upgrade the Offense" line was an overreaction to the end of the last 2 seasons, when it in fact really wasn't the problem.

The Mets Offense scored the 2nd most amount of runs in the NL last season, and were tied with the Phillies, who have an obvious ballpark advantage on their side.

Getting a healthy Church (And not the shell of himself that played post-concussion last season), a full season out of Murphy, while building up the depth (Still need a bench MI that can hit a little) should keep the Mets Offense around the top of the NL next season.

Upgrading over Castillo obviously would have been nice, but that probably is more of a luxury then a necessity at this point.

The Mets priority has to be the bullpen, and replacing/re-signing Oliver Perez and Pedro (Please replace Pedro).

Abreu would be a good fit for the Cubs. He's a twenty-twenty guy in the AL East, and in the friendly confines of the NL Central cold likely hit 25 HRs even with some regression. The defense is ugly, but he's the big lefty handed bat Pinella craves.

Not sure if I prefer Abreu or Furcal more. With Furcal, Soriano shifts down in the lineup and DeRosa fills in at right field (with Theriot shifting over in the middle infield). Defensively, its preferable but the lineup still features a string of righties.

Furcal
Fukudome
Soriano
Ramirez
Lee
Soto
DeRosa
Theriot

or

Soriano
Fukudome
Ramirez
Abreu
Lee
Soto
DeRosa
Theriot

I prefer the second lineup...

Finally Abreu is linked to the Cubs. He's the best solution I can think of for RF and a lefty bat.

I don't like Furcal and think he would mess up a good thing the Cubs infield has going on.

Fukudome.......bleh. Dump him and Marquis. Let Johnson start full time in CF. Give the number 5 spot in the rotation to Marshall and be done with it.

Castillo at 2nd in the foreseeable future... oh man. O-dog would be a great slot in at 2B but it is money that could be spent elsewhere, but I do not know how many more of Castillo's ABs I can watch, especially when he looks like he is fighting off strike 3 on the first pitch of at bats. Brutal.
If he is going to be at 2nd, An upgrade in LF needs to be made, via trade or FA. I wish the Mets would offer Manny 2yrs 45mil, option for 25 with buyout. A clutch Righty in LF to protect Wright in the lineup and his defense deficiencies are slightly mitigated by Beltran in CF, lineup with...
3. Wright
4. Manny
5. Beltran
6. Delgado
that would be fun to watch.
Anyway, enough pipe dreams, Since the Cubs seem to be looking to alleviate themselves of Marquis's money, maybe the Mets could sign one FA pitcher, and take on Marquis's contract, slot him in as the 5 starter?

It's absolutely astounding to me how you could not want a 26 year-old flamethrower with four out pitches who didn't throw that many innings relative to his save opportunities last season. Add in the fact that he has a delivery that PREVENTS injury (similar to Pedro before the Mets contract) and that he will be moving to the NL, and you could see a 45-for-48 season from K-Rod next year. I'm just so shocked how someone could not want him for 4/50. Ridiculous.

metsobsessed-

Declining K/BB rates.

BB/9. It's a hair higher than that of Greg Smith. And Smith walks too many people.

WHIP. I can take that from an SP, but not from a closer.

Angels infield defense is really good. Delgado and Castillo blow defensively.

Wagner was a good closer, and the Mets pen still sucked. The Mets need more than just K-Rod to fix their pen.

This guy has Barry Zito syndrome. Declining rates across the board, and an awesome defense padding his stats.

He's 26 years old! He saved 62 games with a 2.24 ERA in the American League! And what are the chances Luis Castillo is the starting second baseman for a significant period of time? You know he's going to get hurt. That means whoever they sign as a backup (David Eckstein?) has to be better. Heck, I'd take Argenis Reyes.

I don't care about K-Rod's WHIP or BB/9 rates. All I care about is if he's effective, and for his asking price, I'd say he's a lock. I know we need more than K-Rod (we could trade for Street and sign Cruz, for example), but he's one heckuva good starting point.

"I don't care about K-Rod's WHIP or BB/9 rates. "

Brian Sabean probably said the same about Barry Zito before signing him. FYI: an increasing WHIP and an increasing BB/9 are great indicators that a pitcher will not match his past successes.

Especially not for a reliever. Look at the WHIPs of guys like Mariano, Soria, Jenks, Lidge, Papelbon, even not-so-elite guys like Devine, Arredondo, have much lower WHIPs.

You'll want K-Rod gone when he lets runners get in scoring position in over half his save chances.

RandomScrub, Have to correct something real quick:

"And Fukudome will be a legitimate number 2 hitter. It was a mistake to put pressure on him to bat in the middle of the lineup,"

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Fukudome had most of his AB's the five spot and the two spot and he had his worst AVG, OBP, and OPS at the two spot and he had his best AVG, OBP, and OPS at the five spot.

CLEARLY, he was FINE with the pressure of batting in the middle of the lineup. That wasn't the problem, what the problem is that Fukudome hits better with runners on than without runners on. He had a better AVG, better OBP, more homeruns with runners on.

Fukudome is better suited to bat anywhere in the lineup other than the two spot because if he's batting in the two spot he'll be batting behind the pitcher's spot and Soriano. He'll rarely ever have runners on in front of him.

Getting a healthy Church (And not the shell of himself that played post-concussion last season), a full season out of Murphy, while building up the depth (Still need a bench MI that can hit a little) should keep the Mets Offense around the top of the NL next season.

While that's very possible you have to realize too that the Mets had several players with years they may not duplicate. I don't think Delgado does what he does again and Tatis played way over his normal level last year. Its not as if there's a lot of room for improvement in the offense. There MAY be some steps back there.

Then again the pitching staff/bullpen (if the right pieces are added) should step up, but Omar, time's a wasting.

maynardgilmour, I honestly haven't looked at the stats but expect that you are correct. But i think those stats would be misleading for a number of reasons...

Fukudome hit from the middle of the lineup through the beginning of the season when he was doing what he does well; getting on base. When he started to struggle Piniella tried to salvage what was left by moving him to the two-hole. He did not struggle because he was in the two-hole; he was moved to the two-hole because he was struggling.

Now I don't like to say "be careful using stats when you aren't watching the games" because you might be an avid cub fan. But based on the approach I've seen Fukudome take at the plate and the underlying cause for those splits, I think his skill set is better served second in the lineup. Thoughts?

I just spelled 'often' with an 'A'...

"While that's very possible you have to realize too that the Mets had several players with years they may not duplicate. I don't think Delgado does what he does again and Tatis played way over his normal level last year. Its not as if there's a lot of room for improvement in the offense. There MAY be some steps back there."

I couldn't possibly disagree with you anymore. There is no room for improvement? Lets go through this. David Wright, though posting solid all around numbers, did a terrible job of hitting with runs in scoring position. Any Met fan will tell you that there was something different about him this year. There is room for slight improvement there. While I agree it is unlikely for Delgado to reproduce the absurd 1000 OPS he was putting up in July-September, if he performs at even 70 percent of that rate without skipping April-June and he can replicate his overall 08 numbers. I don't think a mid to upper 800's OPS is out of the question at all, especially in a walk year playing for one more deal. They got literally nothing out of LF in 08. They will have at the worst a full year of platooning Murphy and Tatis, which throughout the whole year will definitely give the Mets better production out of LF then they got in 08. Same goes with 2B. Same goes for RF. They got 2 great months from Church and then nothing out of RF all year.

You are right, there may be some regression, but too say that a team with a lot of money to spend, and that got no production out of LF, RF, and 2B last year has no room for improvement on offense is just stupid. There is a LOT of room for improvement.

And if you were saying there is not much room for the improvement in the personnel they used last year, then I agree, but there is definitely room for improvement in the overall offense. The fact that the guys they were using in important offensive spots last year have little room for improvement is the reason that they need to improve the offense in the first place.