Odds And Ends: Nats, Astros, Putz, Brewers

There's no way McLane shops any of his players pending major injuries to Oswalt and/or Berkman. I dare someone to say something different.

woe are the mets - first reyes now putz. if it wasn't for injuries, they would've won five world series titles in the last decade.

i'm sick of all their fans complaining. a player's durability is part of their performance.

phils well on their way to their third straight division title. it's early june and they're already 4 games up. usually they're floating around .500 at this point.

Posted by: ARW | June 05, 2009 at 12:57 PM

I am a Phillies fan, but I think you're counting the Mets aout a little early. We have a #1 starter a #3-4(happ) and two #5's. If bastardo is the real deal then maybe we have a #2. Until we get a legit top end starter don't start claiming the east yet

obviously the #1 is cole, but happ has pitched well all year and blanton's looked good in his last few starts. hopefully bastardo can keep it up and moyer is the question mark. if bastardo or moyer can't perform, then they can trade with the deep system they have for a legit pitcher.

we'll have this thing wrapped up by the day-night double header on september 13th.

Hardy to the Sox has been rumored since Wednesday when Sutcliffe on ESPN Wednesday night baseball heard Hardy's name around the Red Sox clubhouse...

Bowden for Hardy? Alcides takes over SS for the Brewcrew?

"phils well on their way to their third straight division title. it's early june and they're already 4 games up. usually they're floating around .500 at this point."

4 games? Ha! Yeah, and you gained 3 of them in the last 3 days. You realize how quickly a 4 game lead goes away? Especially with a rotation as awful as Phillies?

And you call the Phillies system deep? Okay, never mind, I have about as much chance of having a rational conversation with you as I have at getting Sneakers O'Tool to take his sneakers off.

Yumm, Spilborghs. I would love him to come to play for the Braves.

As for that Philly winning comment, the Phils are obviously overachieving right now. Wait, before you go busting your balls on me, i picked the Phils to win last year and this year. However, it is blatent the Phils shouldn't be where they are right now with their ugly rotation. Trading for Penny, Bedard..etc would help though.

As for the Mets. Umm, if the Mets could hang on until August, they could surpass the Phils. When Reyes and Delgado return, it will defin boost the team. However like the Phils, the Mets have an average rotation. After Santana, they have question marks throughout. Maine, in my opinion is overrated and shouldn't be counted on my Met fans. The rest, speak for themselves.

As for the Braves, they recently got Nate, who i think is an instant upgrade for the Braves. He is not going to be the savior, but he already makes the Braves better because he is replacing the lack of production from Schafer. The Braves have a top-notch rotation and their rotation is the reason why they are still in the race. The Braves are one bat away though from realistically competing for a title run.

Four possible guys that i hope the braves consider are,

Dunn, Dye, DeRosa, and Spilborghs (if available). Dye and Dunn may be difference makers, but could the braves actually afford one of them? Well, they could trade major league talent like Johnson, Prado, Diaz, Kotchman to free up money, but realistically, i don't think the Braves will go for neither guy unless the opposing team eats up most of the contract. DeRosa and Spilborghs are going to come out cheap, and that is why i prefer them over the other two. Now now, this is only because of financial purposes. I would obviously want Dunn or Dye. DeRosa is a guy who could play mostly everywhere. He will fill in for Chip WHEN he is hurt, or fill in for Johnson or Escobar when they need a day off. Same goes for the outfield. Spilborghs, if he comes to Atlanta, will play left field (unless they trade Francoeur). Okay, before anyone says anything, i dont want Frenchy to be traded for the sake of it. Let me first say, i never liked Francoeur, ever since he came to the majors. I nevere liked his lack of approach and hacking ways. However, i feel as though the braves should not trade him for the sake of trading him. I think the guy has value. He needs a new hitting coach *cough* fire Pendleton *cough*.

So to sum this thing up, the Phils are overachieving. The Mets could bounce back when Reyes and Delgado return, but their rotation is poor. They NEED to trade for pitching in the break, NOT for offense. Finally, the braves are overlooked by many. They have a rotation that is tops in the league. They are improving offensively as well.

Some Phillies fans conveniently forget that Ibanez is having the most productive 2-3 months of his life. No way he keeps that up.

"Well played."

Thank you... was hoping somebody would pick up the Family Guy reference....

btw ARW... who is complaining anyway? I would like to see where the Phillies would be without Madson, Rollins, Howard, Werth, and Ruiz. Fact is, you have a 4 game lead, that you built 75% of in the last 3 days, when the Mets just came off their worst series of the year. Keep talking smack, but just don't rely on the Mets to give away the division this year, the Phillies will actually have to earn it.

Whats Miggy Tejada's value right now? Could he be had for say, Dana Eveland and Eric Patterson? Or would it take more like straight up for James Simmons or Sean Gallagher?

Then Oakland trades Orlando Cabrera for Rick Ankiel in hopes that change of scenery will light the fire under the two contract year players.

Make sense or no? Im just throwin it out there....

"i never liked Francoeur, ever since he came to the majors. I nevere liked his lack of approach and hacking ways. However, i feel as though the braves should not trade him for the sake of trading him. I think the guy has value. He needs a new hitting coach *cough* fire Pendleton *cough*."

His value probably amounts to the box of cough drops you need for that cough of yours. I honestly think the biggest problem with frenchy is that he was rushed to the majors and not given time to develop. He's still never had an at-bat in AAA. He was successful early, and never had to work on his approach, something that some AAA at-bats likely would have helped with. Luckily for the Brave, Schafer struggled enough to be given that time, because I could easily see the same thing happen to him.

Right, even though Hardy has a higher range factor then Lowrie, and a much better bat.

Ben Sheets to the Mets would be great.

1. If they sign him after the draft, they don't give up any draft picks.
2. No more Redding, which would be VERY nice!
3. I think the Mets don't really need to trade for offense, seeing that 'Gado and Reyes should be back in August (delgado) and mid-july (reyes). maybe like a mark derosa would work out, because he can play first and short, with a little OF as well.

Hardy is a great defensive SS w/ consistently good UZR ratings. Plus, he's 26 and under control for the next 1.5 years. His value as a player is far superior to Tejada.

phils.. thank you for that logical post. My point isn't that the Phillies farm is garbage, just that ARW made it seem like the Phillies have some sort of top notch farm system. The Mets don't really have an impact OF close to the majors outside of Martinez, but they only really will have one OF spot to fill in the next few years, which can be filled through FA or a trade. It is true that most of the Mets farm system is further away, though Holt and Mejia continue to rise(both just promoted to AA, and Mejia is only 19), Thole is a good looking catching prospect, though it is true most of the Mets high upside talent is in the lower levels, ie Marte, Flores, Familia, Tejada.

It's like they say, you are never as good as you think you are when you are going well (Phillies are scorching hot), or as bad as you look when you are going bad (Mets just got swept by the Pirates).

I am concerned, and I don't just take for granted that Delgado and Reyes will come back full strength when they are expected to. Delgado is old, and Reyes relies on his legs, so there are no givens. That said, to assume the Mets are done and the Phillies will run away is just silly. I think they play next week, and the Phils have 3 with the Dodgers this weekend where the Mets play the Nats 3 times this weekend. By next weekend it could easily be back to a 1 game lead, or perhaps an even race again. If the Mets sweep the Nats and the Phillies lose 2 of the next 3, and then the Mets take 2 of 3 from Philly things look a lot differently. Then again, the Phillies also may have a 6 game lead by next weekend. It can go either way, and this is a pretty important 6 game stretch coming up here.

nrmax,

yes anything can happen and the only team that seems to have anything clinched is the Dodgers more by default than anything else.

now onto 86 mets,

while i agree that pitchers, catchers and middle infield prospects are more important you need to have depth in your system and the phils, IMO have more depth with which to build (maybe that's because we haven't trade as much away as the mets) but we have plenty of depth to choose from.

You mention Marson's OPS this year but not last when he was doing better yet you point to F-Mart as a better prospect (which he probably is) than Brown or Taylor (both of which have OPS around or over 1.000 while F-Mart has struggled since being called up (obviously because he's young). My simple point to you is that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

As far as Donald goes i would think he had stats similar to Flores and Marte at the low levels, doesn't mean they'll progress and Donald BTW has taken a step back, IMO.

The point is the phils seems to have a plan (Brown and Taylor to eventually replace Werth and Ibanez if all goes well. I'd like to see them now in this upcoming draft address some issues with their middle infield as I'm not thrilled with our middle infield prospects and eventually Utley and Rollins will need to be replaced although thank God not anytime soon. I don't see the plan the Mets have with their system.

oh and the phils have a TON of pitching prospects. and I'll leave off Bastardo and Happ since they're already up here See list below in no particluar order:

1-Drabek
2-Carrasco
3-Worley
4-Carpenter
5-Joe Savery
6-Mike Stutes
7-Yohan Flande
8-Carlos Monsterios
9-Tyler Cloyd
10-Jason Knapp
11-Julian Sampson
12-Jonathan Pettibone
13-Jarred Cossart
14-Colby Shreve

I'm fine with our pitching depth in our minor leagues right now.

"Red Sox probably are just throwing around Hardys name to preasure Atlanta to make a move on Penny"

Atlanta is probably the last team in baseball who would want Brad Penny. They just have no use for him at all. Again, I think Penny would be far more intriguing if he was used out of the bullpen. He just doesn't really bring much to the table as a starting pitcher anymore.

"As far as Donald goes i would think he had stats similar to Flores and Marte at the low levels, doesn't mean they'll progress and Donald BTW has taken a step back, IMO."

-Actually Flores and Marte both had very similar OPS in their first season's. The big difference is that Donald was 21, while Marte and Flores were 16.

"You mention Marson's OPS this year but not last when he was doing better yet you point to F-Mart as a better prospect (which he probably is) than Brown or Taylor (both of which have OPS around or over 1.000 while F-Mart has struggled since being called up (obviously because he's young). My simple point to you is that you can't have your cake and eat it too."

- Martinez had a .889 OPS at AAA as a 20 year old. He's actually been fairly solid after his first series in the bigs, there has been a ton of pressure on him to produce. I'd let the sample size get larger than 8 games before making a judgement on him.

If F-Mart is hitting .220 a when interleague play ends, he is going back to the minors, so it is sort of a moot point. He only came up originally to fill in for Church for 2 weeks. He was never really expected to stay up here. The only way he will is if he just totally mashes and leaves management no choice. And honestly, I have always like Minaya and been a supporter, but it is getting harder to defend some of the things he does. I wouldn't fire him just to fire him, though if there is a replacement who is an upgrade over him, and the Mets lose again this year, I won't shed any tears over his job.

milehigh,

i don't think i said that they were the prospects of those clubs you mentioned but compared to what we were a couple years back we are just fine. Savery is crap I admit but Carpenter has done well lately and the younger kids like Cloyd and some of the Lakewood and Clearwater kids are solid. If any of them amount to anything we'll have fine depth. BTW I also didn't mention any relievers, just starters.

on top of that guys like Cossart (throws 97 as a high school kid) and Pettibone (gave up a USC scholarship) they went over slot for so while you haven't seen them yet (likely to start in Williamsport this year) they have potential to be good.