The fact that he has so much raw potential makes him a tremendous pick up.

Turning today’s assets into tomorrow’s assets are a vital part of building a sustainable winning baseball team. All too often we are buying guys who’s future is very short and then they leave us with nothing when they go. Just in the last few years Pedro, Piazza, La Duca, Delgado, Trachsel, Redding, Livan, Perez, Floyd, Valentin, Duaner Sanchez, Castillo, Alou, El Duque, Greene, Schneider, Wagner, Arias all combined to leave us with……..Chris Carter. That’s no way to build a sustainable winning baseball team.

Organizations that win, or at least compete every year think about this year as well as the next five to ten. They know at the very least they have to have something in the minors to make the Santana/Adrian Gonzalez type trade and that for every Brett Gardiner type making 500K and providing good production that supports the cost of bringing in a Texeira.

Boston makes a concerted effort to acquire guys within a couple of years of becoming a free agent partly to get their walk year production and partly to get the compensation picks. This year and future years were behind the acquisitions of Victor Martinez, Jason Bay, Billy Wagner and Adrian Beltre to name a few.

The Red Sox have picked up guys like Daniel Bard, Jed Lowery, Jon Lester, Clay Buckholtz and Jacoby Ellsbury by letting guys go.

The Braves got a terrific year out of Javier Vazquez and then traded (ie sold high) him to the NYY for one of their top pitching prospects in A ball who is now one of the Braves top 4 pitching prospects they didn’t want to let go (Aroydis Vizcaino), cause their thinking of their future as well. They also traded their SS last year (Yunel Escobar) in a deal that returned a minor league SS (Tyler Pasternicky) and Alex Gonzalez to get them to Pasternicky.

That’s what Alderson’s been attempting to do. Build up some options and depth without giving any away in the hope that that some will come through and either hold the fort or with their value raised, allow him to move them for better younger pieces.

That’s why the gripping about the one’s that don’t work out (Hu, Boyer, Emaus, Young) is so shortsighted because it’s not the one’s that don’t work out that matter, their easily dispatched. It’s the one’s that do work out that matter (Brydek, Izzy, Paulino, Capuano. These guys could be moved for better talent and younger players and cost us nothing to acquire.

Pedro Feliciano might have been able to help us this year but Fulmer could REALLY help us down the road either in our rotation for 6-10 years or as part of a trade for a big time ace.

Yeah it hurts to lose Carlos but that’s the cost of going for it every year. Sometimes you have to take a step back inorder to realistically compete for a prolonged period of time.

Your Organizational decisions cannot be about this year, every year without this day coming sooner or later.

This trade was about being happy that prospect-wise the Mets did a good job getting the best deal you can for a player that is having a year much better than anyone expected health-wise that was not going to give you any draft picks once he became a free agent.

If you look at it in that light you have to agree that the Mets accomplished getting more that most of us could of expected.

Even Joe who wrote he never believed the Mets could get a Zack Wheeler and was surprised at how many were actually buying into that notion. Who for the record was right in believing so when you think that they got him for a two month rental with bad knees. Would most likely agree now in retrospect the Mets got more than most of us could of expected.

This was never about being happy to see Beltran go. He was already gone. This was about being happy that prospect-wise the Mets did a good job getting the best deal possible knowing Beltran was gone already.

Can Wheeler be a bust? Sure that is the risk with all “prospects”. No one is saying they have a guaranteed front line starter in 2013 but the process of getting a player who projects to have the most upside as possible, the process was not a bust.

All you can do as a GM trading veterans is get the best projected players you can find. The rest is up to the Mets development program now. His control is not exactly a big problem. He’s already striking batters out, control is up to the pitching coaches to grasp.

Joe: Not exactly sure how or why you’d say they would be better off with Gary Brown? That’s like saying you want Red apples instead of Green apples to me.

AS TO EVERYONE ELSE IN THE THROWS OF REMININISCIENCE TAKE NOTE FROM THIS “OLD SAGE” EMPASIS ON “OLD”

XTREEM: RESIGN? REALLY? @ 34, ONLY ONE MISSETP FROM USELESS,WORTHLESS, END OF CAREER?

BRANDON: GARY BROWN, REYES TYPE CFer? BRANDON BELT, 1B? REALLY U WANT OFFENSE REPLICATING A CORE PLAYER(REYES,DAVIS)? SILLY ME, ALWAYS BELIEVED BIG BALLPARKS CALLED FOR PITCHING,DEFENSE & SPEED. IN THAT ORDER OF PRIORITY YUR ALTERNATIVES TO ALDERSON’S SELECTION IGNORES #1 ONLY COVERS #3 & THERE’S ONLY 1 LEADOFF HITTER IN A LINEUP, YET 5 SP IN A ROTATION. I BELIEVE THE MATH SUPPORTS SANDY’S DECISION.

SATISH: SEE XTREEM’S RESPONSE ABOVE.

DAVE(RETIRE 31) NATURE & BASEBALL HATE A VACUUM & DOESN’T MURPHY SEEM FORMIDABLY COMFY @ #3?

JOE D: GARY BROWN, DOM BROWN, MRS. BROWN’S LOVELY DAUGHTER WHATEVERM, WHAST STADIUM DO U SEE WHEN U SEE NYM HOME GAMES? WE CAN CHOSE TO TURN BLUE HOLDING OUR COLLECTIVE BREATHS FOR JEFF WILPON TO ADMIT PUBLICLY HE FAILED IN THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK HE WAS ASSIGNED BY RECONFIGURING HIS “BABY” OR WE CAN BUILD THE MOST COMPETITIVE TEAM POSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH THE EXPANSE WE’RE SADDLED WITH aka “THE HOUSE THAT REYES’ BUILT” THE REAL ‘DITY LITTLE SECRET’ IN THE WILPON HOUSEHOLD, THEIR INFATUTION WITH THE ‘ENERGIZER MET’

SORRY, GUYS; BUT HE’S GONE, HE WAS REMARKABLY GOOD & LIKE PIAZZA BEFORE HIM, HE COULD NOT OVERCOME THE MEDIOCRITY PLACE ON THE MOUND FOR HIS CAUSE.

PERSONALLY, I SHED NO TEARS, BELTRAN IS THE PAST. THIS TEAM IS NOW ABOUT THE FUTURE! LO & BEHOLD THERE SEEMS TO BE “A P L A N” AND A DETERMINATION & VISION TO GET US THERE. ALL THA IS LEFT FROM US IS THE PATIENCE NOT TO FORCE A DERAILMENT, AS SO OFTEN HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST, ONCE SANDY’S HONEYMOON WITH WILPONS IS CONCLUDED &^ JEFF RESUMES HIS SURREPTICOUS MEDLING & BACK DEALING TRYING TO INSINUATE HIMSELF INTO MEANINGFUL CONSIDERATION. LET’S NOT GIVE HIM ANY REASON TO FEEL NEEDED DUE TO IMPASTIENCE AS I SEE THE POST SANTANA ERA ROTATION OF 2014 POTENTIALLY AS:
NIESE
HARVEY
WHEELER
FAMILIA
GEE*/GORSKI

*ASSUMING CURRENT TEAR DOESN’T ERODE HIS EFFECTIVENESS.

FOR THOSE WITH VISIONS OF “GEN K” RENACTMENT I MOLLIFY MY OWN FEARS WITH NUIMBERS. GEN K WAS PRIMARILY LIMITED TO 3 HIGH QUALITY PITCHING PROSPECTS WE ALL KNOW WERE ISRINGHAUSEN,PULSIPHER & WILSON.
THIS VERSION IS FAR MORE NUMEROUS WITH HARVEY,WHEELER,FAMILIA,MORRIS,FULLMER,URBINA,TAPIA,GORSKI,RODRIGUEZ, ETC. THUS THE OLD STANDARD, “YOU NEVER HAVE ENOUGH OR TOO MUCH PITCHING

Right. The same can be said for any transaction. It’s a given. We don’t know how Brandon Nimmo turns out. We didn’t know how the Jason Bay signing would turn out. Results are a mystery at this point but the process is here for evaluation. That’s all that really matters at this juncture.

I live about 20 minutes from where the Twins AA team plays in CT and I go sometimes because minor league baseball is stupendous. I remember three years ago, some Twins pitcher (can’t remember the name), gave up five runs in about 30 seconds because he threw 17 straight sliders. I counted after the fourth, because it seemed odd he’d throw only sliders. But he threw 17 straight to five batters and got hammered. He got out of the inning and when he came back to the dugout (I was sitting behind it), he got handshakes and “nice job” and “good pitches” like they were happy about it.

When I got home, I looked up the kid’s scouting report and they all said the same thing. “Needs to develop a second pitch.” The reason he was throwing sliders is because he needed work on them, and if the opposing team figured out what he was going to throw and jumped on it, then so be it. It wasn’t about his ERA, or the score, it was about the kid learning and improving his slider and throw it where he wants. Subsequently, I kept tabs on him. Over his next four games, he pitched 5 innings, two hits, one walk, six strikeouts.

So Alex, to answer your question directed at me, 3.99 ERA in single A doesn’t mean anything. I’d advise you not to get caught up on it. I’d also advise you to forget about his walks, too. It’s not something to worry about now. Control can be harnessed. Wheeler already has the difficult part nailed down, two plus pitches and a solid foundation for a third. The control can be taught, the talent can’t.

This isn’t a major league ready pitcher with an ‘alarming’ walk rate. It’s a low A ball prospect who has plenty of time left to develop before determining what type of pitcher he’ll become.