Crasnick on Lowe

Why not the Phillies or Braves?

O pleaseeeee LOWE that would make the mets elite and inoctober we will look back at this offseason

i still think the phils will sign him. i thought the mets were trying to resing perez

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3767033

Francisco Rodriguez
"Of course, we're going to try to win the division. Of course, we're going to be the front-runner. Of course, we're going to be the team to beat," he said Saturday.

Personally i feel he shouldn't have opened his mouth before proving what he can do on the field.

Before doing what he can do on the field?

KROD has done nothing but prove he is a top notch closer year after year for a teamt hat is always competing for the playoffs / World Series title

Lowe will come crawling back to the Dodgers

Tough:
I totally agree with what your saying K Rod is a top notch closer and was the best one available this offseason, but when i said proving what he can do on the field i meant proving what he can do as a Met first and getting adjusted before starting anything. Personally i feel he's been here for far too short of a time to be opening his mouth and jumping to conclusions. If the statement ESPN put out there by KRod is true than my opinion is the same if not and Krod actually said "want" he isnt at fault and i totally agree with him.

I'm a met fan ,
Iknow he show that he is great but he hasn't proved it in a mets uniform.

Which of course a) the media removes the relevant word 'want' to misconstrue what he actually said and b) it was a reporter prompted question. But naturally everyone wants to jump to conclusions.

Kind of like how the two morning hacks on WFAN radio did with Hamels earlier in the week.

Hamels was stupid to go on there. Who in NY is going to buy the Phillies WS DVD anyways? He should have realized he was being set up. And the reports came out as if all Hamels said was the he thinks the Mets are choke artists and conveniently left out how he mentioned how the mets killed everyone in 06.

Oh and I'd rather you have Lowe. Perez kills us while we won 2 games against Lowe in the NLCS.

The mets do have the moneu to spend on derek lowe 17 per year and perez fo 12.5 per year

"I'm a met fan ,
Iknow he show that he is great but he hasn't proved it in a mets uniform."

Well said. LA and New York are two different worlds. Blow a save or two and he'll find that out first hand.

"Why not the Phillies or Braves?"

Because Lowe is a big name free agent. As far as the media is concerned, New York and Boston are ALWAYS the frontrunners, don't you know that?

Lowes salary will increase but no mor than 5 years. 80 millon

I think he will get 3years and a option for 16 a year

I think ESPN misquoted K-Rod, which is understandable considering his heavy accent. According to Metsblog.com, this is what he said:

“Of course we want to win the division,” he said, when asked about the rivalry with the Phillies. “Of course we want to be the front runners, and of course we want to be the team to beat…That shouldn’t be a controversy, but we need to be confident… If asked who will win the National League, I’m gonna say, ‘the Mets.’”

PhilsWSchamps. How much better do you think the phils are then the mets.

I think they are equally match in every catergory

"as a mets fan id rather have perez than lowe. 1. perez killed the phillies 2. with howard, utley, and now ibanez it is imperative that the mets have another lefty in their rotation.
does anyone know which pitcher will cost more?"

I disagree with you. The Mets played fine against the Phillies last year. They were 11-7 in the season series. It was the other teams that gave them trouble. The Mets cannot tailor their team to match up against the Phillies. Lowe will give you much more consistency. He will go deeper into games. As for who will cost more, I would guess they have pretty similar price tags, maybe Lowe will get an extra million or two. He is worth it because he had an ERA a full run lower than Perez last year.

Even though perez kills the phils braves and the yankees, ichoose lowe because how effective he is against the rest of the league. Perz is inconsistent but isn't injury prone like sheets.
1.Lowe
2.Perez
3.Sheets

Why would you think that they would have similar price tags when everything we have heard suggests Lowe will want something like 4/70, and the most wild projection we have heard for Ollie is 5/70, which we all know he will not reach. Ollie will probably cost you 3/40 at the most. They both have pro's and cons. I don't touch Lowe on a 4 year deal.

Amazings... they all have pro's and cons. It honestly comes down to how the market plays out and who will cost what. I would be interested in any of the 3 at the right price.

Ollie has also dominated the Marlins, Yankees, and Braves (although Atl was better against him this year). He really is a big game guy. I am one of the few who would be fine bringing back Ollie and Pedro, having Niese waiting in AAA, and having a couple of guys like Armas and Vargas like last year who are capable of holding down a rotation spot for a month or so in case of injury. I know I will get dogged for even suggesting that Pedro be brought back, but then again the same people getting all over me for it will be the same people calling Omar an idiot for letting him walk when he is pitching in Pittsburgh and putting up 175 innings of 3.50/1.10 for almost nothing.

I understand that, nrmax88, but I don't want to negotiate with Perez only to see Derek Lowe waltz off to Boston. Lowe is a better pitcher than Perez. You can't deny that. So why would you want to negotiate with Ollie?

Pedro is shot. You just think he'll be good because of how dominant he was back in his prime, but he has proved since May of 2006 that he's finished. There's no reason to bring him back if Uehara will come at the same or slighly greater price. I do agree that Jon Niese should be anchoring Buffalo's rotation, not backing ours.

uehara looks eletric even in the baseball world classic

Ruben Amaro needs to grow a pair a go get Lowe.

PhilsWSchamps. How much better do you think the phils are then the mets.

I think they are equally match in every catergory

I agree they are very evenly matched. The real question will come when September rolls around and assuming they are still neck and neck, how the Mets will react. We all know how the Phils will react, but when the weight of the NY media keeps recounting the choking of the past two years WHO will step up and make sure it doesn't happen again? Santana tried valiantly, but couldn't stop it. Will Wright??? Beltran? KROD??? Mets had better hope they have an insurmountable lead come Sept 1st or the questions will be there.

i once hated the phillies and thier fans because of their clutch play but they have earn at least my respect.

last 2 years the phillies took over in september but since our pitching (most of the bullpen) has been reorganized i feel confident in the mets play for september and october.

I'd like to break down the Mets and Phillies position by position. We're going to assume that the Mets sign Derek Lowe, and that the Phillies re-sign Jamie Moyer, as both appear likely. If the two players are even in talent, they will be marked "Even". If a player is marginally better than another, they will be marked +1 (Santana over Hamels). If a player is much better than the other, they will be marked +5 (Utley over Castillo). With that in mind, here we go.

C: Paulino/Ruiz +1 Schneider/Castro
1B: Delgado Even Howard
2B: Utley +5 Castillo
SS: Reyes +1 Rollins
3B: Wright +4 Feliz
LF: Ibanez +2 Murphy/Tatis
CF: Beltran +2 Victorino
RF: Werth +1 Church

That leaves the Phils' offense +2. Let's go rotation:

Santana +1 Hamels
Lowe +3 Myers
Pelfrey +1 Moyer
Blanton +1 Maine
Happ +2 Niese

The Mets' rotation gets +2. Now to the bullpen:

Lidge +1 Rodriguez
Putz +2 Madson
Romero Even Feliciano
Condrey Even Green
Durbin +2 Stokes
Eyre Even Sanchez

That gives Philly a +1 bullpen advantage. With the Phillies bench getting a +1 for their bench, they are two points better than the Mets, and that's assuming the Mets even get Derek Lowe. That's why I'm picking the Phils.

i looked at the schedules for both teams and the only teams that looked hard were the ones with the red sox yankees tampa and when the mets and philliesface one and other. whoever wins the most games against these teams will win the division, the loser wins the wildcard.

you do realize that last year the Phils were 4-11 in interleague play while the Mets were 9-6.

Where we won was DESTROYING Atlanta (sorry nixa37) while you guys lost to them 7-11 we won 14-4. That's, IMO where the division was won/lost depending on your perspective.

last year the mets did great against the "BIG TEAMS" phillies yankees etc but in the division braves nats marlins smacked us around dont understand

that makes it a overall EVEN

then it all comes down to how each team performs in September/early October. hmmm.

Oh and as a side note, it must be nice to have a franchise that can have a 10.5MM injured closer and then spend another 13 million on a closer and over normal rate on a set up guy and who will be paid "closer's rate" next year.

the rest of us pe-ons would end up with a minor leaguer in that role.

The Mets will end up +30MM over the Phils in salary. Will that translate to a division title????

Reed replaces Endy easily. That being said, you may be right about Ibanez. I love the guy. Look, as much as it hurts to say/type, the Phillies are the World Champs. There's no reason for me to pick against them. With that said, there's also no reason for ESPN to misquote Francisco Rodriguez about being the team to beat. Metsblog had live blogging of the conference call, and he did NOT say the Mets were the team to beat. ESPN got it all wrong, and now its all over the Internet. That infuriates me.

"that makes it a overall EVEN

then it all comes down to how each team performs in September/early October. hmmm."

It seems you are forgetting about the first five months of the season...You have to perform the whole year. You can't just count on the Mets collapsing like they did two years ago. Especially with the complete overhaul of their bullpen.

PhillyWSChamp, while I agree that Perez is much tougher on you than Lowe is, I looked at the stats. Going back to 2006, over a span of 6 starts, which includes the two postseason starts from this year, Lowe has posted an ERA of 3.03 and a 1.12 WHIP, netting 3 wins, 1 loss, and 2 ND, while never giving up more than 3 runs in any of the 6 starts.

Even though you won both playoff games against the Dodgers in which he started, it wasn't his fault. In the first game, he went 5 1/3 innings and gave up only 2 runs, and in the second game, he went 5 innings and, again, gave up only 2 runs. Considering the potency of the Phillies' lineup, that's pretty good. In the first game, he was rolling along without giving up a run, until the 6th inning when Victorino got on via an error by Furcal (did Furcal have a horrible series or what?), and Lowe wound up giving up a HR to Utley following that. Then later in the inning, he gave up a solo shot to Burrell. Who knows what would have happened had Furcal not made that error, but now down 3-2, the Dodgers would not score again, and as you know, the Phillies wound up winning by that score. Lowe still pitched well that game. In the second game, Lowe struggled in the first inning, giving up 2 runs, but he settled down after that, yielding no more runs, and just like the first game, both runs he gave up came in a single inning. By the time Lowe left, he was actually the pitcher on the winning side as the Dodgers led 3-2. So, the loss certainly was not his fault. The rest of the game was sort of a mini slugfest, and the Phillies wound up winning 7-5. Again, in both cases, Lowe pitched well enough to win. These were cases where the Dodgers as a team lost.

Outside of these two starts, Lowe faced the Phillies 4 other times in regular season play, and he did really well against one of the toughest lineups in the majors. In the 4 games, he had a 2.84 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP, winning 3 of the starts and getting a ND in the other. Again, not bad at all.

Of course, Ollie was dominant against your lefthanded heavy lineup, but considering how Lowe has faired against the Phillies in his own right, and how much better and more consistent Lowe is with the rest of the league than Ollie is, I would take Lowe in a heartbeat. Sure, Ollie's upside is higher than Lowe's, but his downside is abysmal, and you never know what you are going to get. Ollie seemed to turn a huge corner last year, going 11 straight starts at one point where he went at least 6 innings, while yielding 3 runs or less-very impressive! But when the Mets needed him the most down the stretch, he faltered too much, especially in that extremely important game against the Cubs. Delgado had just given Ollie a nice lead with a grand slam, and Ollie couldn't hold the lead and was taken out early, and the bullpen only added to the misery (of course, the Mets STILL could have won that game with a man on third and no outs in the bottom of the 9th, but Wright couldn't handle it- a game that many Mets fans view as the epitome of the Mets' season. Ugh!). And while the so called "Big Game" Ollie was failing to help the Mets the final few weeks of the season when they needed him the most, Derek Lowe was busy helping to push his Dodgers over the top and into the playoffs, as he's done numerous times before, including a World Series title for the Red Sox in '04, when the pressure was suredly at its highest, given the Sox hadn't won the WS in something like 86 years at that point (Lowe's postseason ERA in 2004 was 1.86 with 3 wins, and he pitched the clinching game, throwing 7 shutout innings!). And in the final month of this season, Lowe posted a miniscule ERA of 0.59, giving up only two earned runs in that time, while Ollie got kicked around for a 5.79 ERA. Big difference!

Anyway, Lowe would be much better for us than Perez. And I think we have a great chance at actually getting Lowe. I am curious, however, how much Perez would cost if we did get Lowe. Could we still afford him if he has no other viable takers? Or what about Randy Wolf, a lefty to go against the Phillies? We will need that 5th starter, afterall. We shall see. But whichever it is, Omar, please, make it happen soon. This waiting is just too exciting for my heart. :P

"If you guys had to choose A,B, or C who would pick and why?

A) Derek Lowe
B) Ben Sheets
c) Oliver Perez"

A: A- Derek Lowe. No question. Sheets is a fantastic pitcher when healthy, but he is so often not healthy. Even when the Brewers were on the verge of making the playoffs for the first time in like 25 years, Sheets still missed a bunch of his starts towards the end of the season, and I don't recall him even pitching in the playoffs. What does that tell you about his body?

As for Perez, I've already detailed why I would take Lowe over Ollie in a NY minute.

The mets have reported to be the front runners for Lowe, Uehara, and Takahashi. Lowe wants 16 plus a year and 3 to 5 years. Uehara wants 10 plus a year. Takahashi is unknown.

COMMENT PLEASE !!!!!

Blanton +1 over Maine? Are you kidding me? The other way around.

Beast, the Marlins didn't smack us around, although they shouldn't be lumped in with the other teams that were .500 or less. The Marlins were a good team and they held first place for a while last year. That said, the Mets won most of the series they played against the fish. The only series the Marlins won was the one in Fl. shortly after the All-Star break, and the final weekend of the season (which was a killer, of course). The Mets won all the rest.

As for Putz, I am sorry, but he does deserve to be put up there. In fact, a number of so called experts on ESPN and other sites have claimed that as good as K-Rod is, Putz may be the better pitcher. Now that's saying something. Don't forget, Putz averaged 38 saves between 06-07, with a sick ERA and WHIP and crazy K totals with freakishly low walk rates. His K/BB rate was astonishing. Look it up. If he's healthy, and his ERA the last two months of 2008 shows he might be, then we got two relievers that are among the best in the game, up there with Lidge, Nathan, and Papelbon.

Also, I think Werth and Church are even. Sure, Church struggled after he got the concussion, but the guy was the Mets best hitter before he got hurt, with a higher avg. than Werth, and Church was playing incredible defense, GG caliber even, not exaggerating, and he easily has one of the best arms in the game. Werth in his own ways is also a very important part of the Phillies team. When I look at the Phillies, I think of Werth as being the Phillies version of Church, and vice versa.

As for Beltran, I say he's more than a +2 over Victorino. Shane's a really nice player, and he comes through in the clutch, and he's one of the better CF in the game, however, Beltran IS the best CF in the game. In fact, he's one of the best OF in the game, period, not just CF. They both play a mean CF, GG calber of course. But Beltran has considerably more power (he got off to a really slow start in the homer cat. last year, but still put up his usual 40 dbls). In general, Beltran's a much more productive offensive player. He was the first OF, regardless of which position, to hit the 100/100 mark in RBI/Runs, and he's one of 5 OF to do so, period. In fact, he's the only OF to better 110/110. Nobody else is even close. Look where Beltran ranks in so many different categories this year compared to the rest of the NL, or compared to the rest of the ML's OF, and he does it at the premium OF position. Beltran gives you pretty much everything that Shane gives you in CF in terms of defense, speed, etc, but Beltran does so much more. It's a shame that some Mets fans don't truly understand just how good this guy is (I'm not implying you, Beast, just a general statement). We have a GG OF who hits you around 30 homers, drives in over 100/100, steal 25-30 bases, and he does it all as a CF. Beltran gives you corner outfield offensive production with GG CF defense. And he's a switch hitter to boot. Now that's impressive (yes, I know Shane switch hits, too).

The problem with your list is that it's too subjective with the + and -, and so, you come up with a +2 for the Phillies when +2, given all the numbers you can play with, anything between even to a + 5 at every spot, and in the end, a +2 is really insignificant, not to mention very debatable of course. Plus, neither GM's are done yet. What if Minaya gets a nice 5th starter. Or he gets Orlando Hudson. Things change quickly. Besides, given the math of it, one can argue that a +2 is an acceptable variation from the middle. In other words, anything less than a + or - 5 overall is probably not a large enough of a difference, especially given the subjectiveness of it all, but it's more than that, to adequately assess whether one team is truly better than the other from that list. It's a good attempt though. I do that in my head as well. But I wouldn't go with that big a difference per player. Ranging between even and a +5 gives too much variation. I mean, how much of a difference is it for a guy to be a +3 over another player, as opposed to a +2? And how do you determine it's a +3 and not a +2, or perhaps, it should be a +4. Point is, I would narrow it down a bit.

Either way, I think the teams are close. In the end, I keep coming back to one thought: If the Mets had the same bullpen as the Phillies, they would have easily won the division. Of course they didn't have the same bullpen, but the point is, the Mets may have shown that they were a better team outside the bullpen, but that the bullpen was unfortunately enough of a killer to bring the Mets down. Now that the Mets have an improved pen, perhaps we will see how different things really are, although, I am still not fully comfortable with this bullpen yet, as we got two studs, but we don't know yet what we will get from the rest. I wouldn't mind Minaya getting another proven reliever.

You guys shouldn't even be doing this whole plus/minus system - you are only wasting your time. This is one step above a ''MY PLAYER IS BETTER THAN YOUR PLAYER'' argument. If you went last year and did a Red Sox and Yankees plus-minus system against Tampa Bay, Tampa would've been far below the other two teams. Think about that.

Just let it go and see what happens instead of comparing the two teams. Who knows, maybe Florida's young pitching could step up next year and blow both the Mets AND Phillies away. You never know in sports.

And since this is about Derek Lowe, I wouldn't be sacrificing a fourth year on Lowe, whether or not he is a sinkerball pitcher. Spending big money on him when he is approaching forty should not really a big privilege.

If I were the Mets, I'd feel more comfortable giving a lefty like Oliver Perez that has been healthy his whole career that fourth year, whether or not he hasn't been totally consistent throughout his career. My biggest gripe about Ollie is his inconsistency against smaller market and last place teams, which should come with maturity as a pitcher. He is a great talent and he seems to have reached a comfort level in New York with a building reputation as a big-game pitcher.

Delgado was at least equal to Howard last year, if not a bit better. HR's? RBI'S? R's? Really? Good job penciling in Knight and Niese in the rotation, even though we are in December. Ibanez is a worse hitter then Burrell, but fine, you win. Huge upgrade. If Ibanez is a 'BIG' upgrade from Burrell, then the same can be said for Wagner to K-Rod. You're funny if you think Rollins is better then Reyes too. Keep playing the Putz is mad he is a setup man card. So what, is he going to pitch bad on purpose and sabotage his own payday later in his career? You say only Wright and Beltran are better then their Philly counterparts, yet fail to mention that they are a ridiculous amount better. The only stats you used in your argument were stupid ones like homeruns, rbi's, avg, w-l, r's and everything else was just your silly philly bias. Yawn.

I love how the same people who use Bill James' projections talk about clutch hitting...Bill James does not believe in clutch hitting.

Phils, Reyes is the best player on either team. He puts up ridiculous numbers, and is one of the most gifted atheletes in the game. He led the league in hits and triples, was second in stolen bases, and was fifth in total bases. He plays Gold Glove-caliber shortstop, and is the catalyst of the Mets (although it can be argued that Delgado holds that title). I almost put him +2 over Rollins, but figured it would anger the Phillies fans if I did.

Ryan Howard hit .251 and struck out 199 times. For that alone, he is equal to Carlos Delgado, who also put up ridiculous second-half numbers and carried the entire team on their inspiring comeback from June 28th to September 10th. Unfortunately, that comeback and subsequent Phillies' choke job came three weeks early.