In case you missed it, two of the Mets most promising pitching prospects have been reassigned to minor-league camp.
In other, somewhat unrelated news, Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost named 22-year-old phenom Yordano Ventura as his team’s #3 starter.
The bad news: Jonathon Niese left Sunday’s ballgame after the second inning with pain in his elbow. The good news: assuming the MRI comes out clean, the arm problems Niese has experienced this spring can be easily fixed by making minor adjustments to his pitching delivery.
The Mets and Twins tied 3-3 in Grapefruit League, split-squad action. There was no shootout, penalty kick, nor coin flip — just an unromantic kiss between brother and sister.
Over the last week, the Braves received the bad news that Kris Medlen damaged his UCL and Brandon Beachy was experiencing biceps tightness. They reacted quickly to create good news by signing free-agent starter Ervin Santana to a one-year, $14.1M contract.
The New York media asked Sandy Alderson if this signing affected what the Mets might do in regard to their shortstop situation. Alderson’s response:
“I’m not interpreting it in terms of ‘our situation. I don’t know that we have a situation here.”
From the standpoint of a GM speaking with the media, it was the right answer, of course. The Yankees and Red Sox might make competing moves with each other, but that’s because they’re in the same division and competing with each other for a playoff spot, while the Mets and Braves … oh, wait …
Seriously though, it wouldn’t make much sense for Alderson to publicly acknowledge that the Mets would be motivated to do something based on an opponent’s acquisition. And further, I don’t think it makes any sense for the Mets to step up their pace to improve the shortstop position just because the Braves signed a pitcher — it’s apples and oranges.
Or is it? The Braves getting weaker by potentially losing two starting pitchers would give the Mets a larger window of opportunity to advance further up the standings, wouldn’t it? So really, any response by the Mets would be more due to Medlen and Beachy being sidelined, than Santana joining Atlanta.
Even if you don’t look at it that way, I’m curious — do you agree that the Mets may not have a “situation” at shortstop? Do you think that a valid answer lies somewhere among Ruben Tejada, Wilmer Flores, Omar Quintanilla, and Wilfredo Tovar?
Again, it would be counterproductive for Alderson to say shortstop is a problem — but what’s YOUR view?
Answer in the comments.
Mets mount another late-inning comeback, but fall a bit short.
The Mets rallied late to outlast the Cardinals 9-8 in Grapefruit League action.
The Miami Marlins scored eleven runs in a laugher against the Mets. No worries — it’s spring training and the games don’t count. Further, most of the runs occurred in the later innings, when the two clubs were competing almost exclusively with players ticketed for the minor leagues come April.
Josh Edgin was one of more than a dozen players booted to Mets minor league camp. Cited was his unimpressive velocity — and we can easily illustrate the reason for his drop in MPH.
