Smart teams always buy low on players who have not proven themselves yet, those who are coming off down year, or those coming off injuries. The Dodgers have some Devil’s Magic when it comes to finding these guys like Justin Turner, Chris Taylor, and Max Muncy. Last year, teams might have been looking at Zack Wheeler as a buy low candidate.
My criteria for buy low options for hitters were people who had success in hitting the ball hard at the Majors and have had some level of success in the past, whether it be in the Minors or Majors. Buy low pitchers are those with some combination of good stuff/velocity and bad result in their batted balls against them. Without further adieu, let’s look at some who would be good options for the Mets.
He’s an athletic outfielder who is capable of playing all three outfield positions. He hit .272/.340/.516 in 2017 with a .359 wOBA and 121 wRC+. In 2018, that slash dropped to .181/.295/.333 with a .282 wOBA and 75 wRC+. He was even sent to Triple-A and struggled there as well.
Altherr still hit the ball very hard as evidenced by 90.5 MPH exit velocity and hit 96.9 MPH exit velocity on balls hit in the air. Those numbers rank 68th and 28th respectively in terms of every hitter with at least 30 balls put into play. Altherr’s ground ball rate went up while his fly ball rate went down, which is always a bad combination for a hitter.
The Phillies outfield is already crowded and Altherr fell out of favor there towards the end of 2018. The Mets could likely Altherr for pretty cheap and hope that a different coaching staff can get through to him.
New York teams with the color theme of blue and orange haven’t had good experiences with people named Derek Fisher but this one could be different. Fisher was a first round pick back in 2014 and usually hit pretty well in the minor leagues and showed decent power too.
Unfortunately for Fisher, his first go around in 2017 was not great and was relegated to pinch running duties in the postseason. He began 2018 in the PCL and began striking out at a very high clip (pretty concerning for a 25 year old repeating the PCL). It is a decent sign that he was trying to sell out for power to get himself back into the Major Leagues. Despite his struggles in the Minors and Majors during 2018, Fisher still managed to hit the ball hard in a small sample size. His exit velocity was 92.3 MPH and his exit velocity on balls in the air was 98.4 MPH.
Fisher did not get a chance to really play this season even with all of the Astros injuries. He could be someone who needs a change of scenery and needs to try hitting some more fly balls.
The Yankees are trading Sonny Gray. Brian Cashman has said it publicly and it makes all the sense in the world to do it.
Truth be told, I have no idea why Sonny Gray struggled so much in 2018. His velocity was actually the highest of his career. His strikeout and walk percentages were nearly identical to his 2017 season. His FIP was not that much higher and his ground ball rate was also fairly high in both seasons. Even when digging into his pitches, he was getting more movement on them in 2018 than he was in 2017.
I have a theory and I’ll preface it as such. My theory is that Sonny Gray became too predictable with two strikes. When Gray had two strikes on a hitter, hitters hit .201/.277/.312 against him. For comparison, American League pitchers had people hit .179/.250/.285 against them when they had two strikes. Judging by Gray’s heat-map, He did not have a problem throwing the ball in the zone with two strikes. He threw it in the zone 47% of the time when he had two strikes on opposing hitters. Given that Gray does not have wipeout stuff or insane velocity, it’s entirely possible that he became too predictable at the plate which gave hitters a better chance than they would have otherwise.
Dave Eiland has done well in getting Mets pitchers like Zack Wheeler and Steven Matz back on track. The Mets have no risk in making a deal with the Yankees for Gray.
I’ll end this by saying the Mets should not only be looking to make buy low deals. I’m not at all suggesting that they should trade for Aaron Altherr in lieu of signing Manny Machado. They should do both. I just want to see some creativity from the (hopefully) new front office.
