Tim Marchman of SI.com, had an interesting piece yesterday in which he ranks each MLB teams core players. By his definition, core players would be the top four players.
By his reckoning, the top five quartets in baseball are as follows:
1. Yankees (CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Curtis Granderson)
2. Phillies (Chase Utley, Roy Halladay, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins)
3. Mets (David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay)
4. Red Sox (Dustin Pedroia, Victor Martinez, Jon Lester, Josh Beckett)
5. Cardinals (Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, Adam Wainwright, Yadier Molina)
I have one problem with his selections and wonder how Johan Santana was omitted from the Mets core?
He did include Roy Halladay who is two years older than Santana in the Phillies core, and obviously as he constructed the cores the Mets rank third behind the second place Phillies. But if the Mets core had been listed as (David Wright, Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran) I could make the argument that the Mets could have the BEST quartet of core players.
If you were to assume healthy years from everyone on this list as well as age, wouldn’t you agree that the Mets are more solid than the Yankees or Phillies as far as core players go?
The point is that Marchman changed the whole dynamic of his analysis by leaving out one of the top five starters in baseball.
Of course this comes from the guy who runs a Mr. Met Myspace page and a fan site called Metsmerized…
