Kevin D. asks…
It seems that you are the only one among your writers that didn’t like the Chris Young signing. He is an all star who took less money to come to the Mets and is still young with a lot of upside. I don’t understand what you don’t like about him and even FanGraphs said it will be the best baseball signing of the entire offseason.
Joe D. replies…
That’s quite a mouthful Kevin. First of all, he has one All Star appearance and it was about four years ago and they chose him because the next best player on the D-Backs that season was Mark Reynolds and his 32 homers and .199 batting average. I don’t have a problem with Chris Young if he had been picked up on the cheap and only as a platoon player. Young can’t hit righthanded pitching and is getting paid like an above average everyday player. More so, he may have blew the Mets budget and could be their biggest signing of the offseason. Not sure if I would have bit that hard on a player who has four straight years of decline in OBP, OPS and SLG. As for FanGraphs, great site, but lets just say we disagree. We can revisit who was the best signing of the 2013/2014 offseason in July and I’m sure Young won’t be in the discussion. Thanks for reading.
Joe (Yonkers) asks…
So who do you think the Mets will sign now for shortstop? Don’t tell me it will be Omar Quintanilla again?
Joe D. replies…
Love your name. I’ve believed all along that Ruben Tejada would be the Mets opening day shortstop or second baseman in 2014. As much as some make him out to be on the outside looking in, that’s not what I’m hearing. The Mets have him doing strength training and conditioning right now and are trying to get him to lose a few pounds in hopes that it will give him more range and make him more agile and flexible. Despite what his agent said, Tejada has no intentions of carrying through with that grievance against the Mets. He is still very much in the Mets’ plans and I don’t see Sandy Alderson pursuing any other shortstops via free agency or trade unless they do something with Murphy and it creates a void. However, when all is said and done, I still believe that Murphy and Tejada will both be on the team come the Spring.
You know one of the reasons the Cards signed Peralta was because GM John Moseliak tried trading for a shortstop and the prices were staggering. If trading for a shortstop was too high for the Cards, imagine how the Mets would feel?
