In Defense of Josh Thole

Derek Jeter.

Mark Tiexeira.

Robinson Cano.

What do these players all have in common? If you said they are all overpaid, you'd be right. If you said they are all overvalued, you'd be right. If you said they all have an on-base percentage lower than Josh Thole, you'd be...right?

Thole currently sits at a .355 OBP. 

His defense is disappointing. Whereas last year, he was exactly average defensively, with 0 runs created or lost, this season so far he has cost the Mets 4 runs with his sub-par defense (non-scientific observation: he is lazy on balls in the dirt and needs to work on his transfer speed on throws to 2nd). He has a lot of work to do if he wants to stick in the majors as a Catcher, as teams tend to favor defense behind the plate (and with the Mets, he has no future at first, or even platooning there, with lefty hitting Ike Davis, Daniel Murphy and Lucas Duda all impressing).

But he has given the Mets exactly what they need as part of an organizational change of philosophy: a good eye and some patience at the plate. Among Catchers with at least 250 PAs, he sits at 6th in the majors in BB%, 7th in K%, 11th in AVG, 8th in OBP and is just about a league average hitter by the wRC+ metric, all while playing his home games in an extreme pitcher's park.

It may turn out that Josh Thole goes the way of Vance Wilson and Jason Phillips before him. But if he can improve his defense, or at least stop his defensive decline, a league average hitter at the Catcher position will have tremendous value to the Mets going forward. 

Overpaying for Prince

This off-season, Prince Fielder will be a free agent. He will get paid a lot of money by a Major League baseball team. It will not be for his physique (Google suggested search: "Prince Fielder Fat"), but for his prodigious power production (Career Slugging %: 538). With that comes big HR and RBI totals, and a big pay day. He rejected a 5 year/$100 million offer from the Brewers before this season, so he is either planning on getting more money or more years than that, and he has done nothing to make us think he will not. He currently sits third in the NL in homers, first in RBIs, fourth in BB%, third in ISO, second in OBP, fourth in slugging and fifth in wOBA.

He is really, really good with the bat. Really good.

He is also, ironically, a really, bad fielder. Really bad.

The value of his bad defense is hard to quantify, but that is not the exercise we are looking to take on here.

A more abstract thought crossed my mind as I watched Mr. Fielder's Brewers destroy the Mets this weekend: Prince Fielder will be overpaid this off-season.

I know, ground breaking stuff you say. Free agents are always overpaid, you say. RBIs are overvalued in free agency you say. Offense is overvalued in free agency you say. Yes, yes, yes I say. But I believe he will be overpaid for another reason:

His Prince-ness.

His father was a major leaguer. He is a vegan. He is fat. His father named him Prince when he lived in Minnesota in the 80's. He has an awesome beard. All account are that he is a good guy. He is working on a mini-afro. He is really, really fat. He hits the ball really, really far. He is one of the few African-American stars of the game.

All of these facts bring him into the public consciousness more often, and, I would argue, into the subconsciousness of owners and GMs in the game. This will in turn make him more money than he deserves as purely Prince Fielder, ball player. I would argue that all of those facts will make Prince Fielder get paid more than if he was named or looked like Ryan Braun.

What K-Rod's Games Finished Option Means

As every Met fan knows, Omar Minaya is the gift that keeps on giving. Still paying the likes of Gary Matthews Jr, Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez, the Mets have big money still due to Johan Santana (a relatively defensible contract) and Jason Bay, both of whom are unlikely to even be average players for the Mets. However, the biggest poison pill of them all for the immediate future is the $17.5 million option for K-Rod. $17.5 million. For a closer. A good, not great closer.

But, the point is not to continue piling on Omar Minaya. That is just too easy. The point is to analyze the option, and the pace K-Rod is on. Right now, with 25 games finished, K-Rod is on pace for 63 games finished, 8 over the 55 games finished threshold that would trigger maybe the worst one-year option...ever? I don't know, did Eric Byrnes have an option? Was Moises Alou's contract an option year?

There is only one question to be asked: HOW IS HE ANYWHERE CLOSE TO THAT FIGURE???

This option being triggered would be a colossal mistake, would set us back years, could prevent us from signing Reyes, or force a trade of Wright. He only has 18 saves, and 1 blown save. That means that 6 times Terry Collins brought him in with no save opportunity. Tie game, blowouts, getting some work in, Collins has had no hesitation about using K-Rod in every possible situation.

I am not blaming Terry Collins. He is the team's day-to-day manager. Unless he gets told otherwise by his employers, his job is to win as many games as possible. And he has done a bang up job recently, keeping a pretty bad Mets team close to .500. Kudos to him.

No, this is squarely on the shoulders of the Wilpons and Sandy Alderson. Any class organization would go to the manager and tell him in no uncertain terms that the option can NOT vest, and if he has a problem with that, they will find someone who will make sure it doesn't happen. If Collins had only brought K-Rod in in save situations, he would be on pace for 48 games finished, and K-Rod's (genius) agent would have no grievances.

This just further demonstrates the deficiency of the Mets organization as a whole, and it will be a shame if K-Rod is in a Met uniform next year instead of Jose Reyes or David Wright. 

Why the Melo Trade Was Good

Despite being swept by the Celtics, having few draft picks, and possibly minimal cap room, depending on where it get set, the Knicks are in a vastly better position than they were before the Melo trade. Yes, we need depth, a center, a point guard who isn't a member of AARP and some three-point shooting, but the presence of two super stars (yes, super stars) at the forward spots puts us in a position to be among the NBA's elite. According to John Hollinger's PER ranking, the following are the pairs of teammates to rank in the top 20 in the NBA:

Melo/Amare - Knicks
Wade/James - Heat
Durant/Westbrook - Thunder
Bryant/Gasol - Lakers
Duncan/Ginobli - Spurs

Expand it to the top 30, and the only other team with more than one is the Celtics, with Pierce and Garnett.

What do those teams have in common?

The one, two and three seeds in the Eastern and Western Conference playoffs. The only exception is Chicago, with the league's MVP at #9 and Carlos Boozer at #40.

They are all also still alive in the playoffs, except for the Spurs.

Our super stars have many issues (Amare doesn't rebound and neither play any defense), but their pairing is a start towards greatness. Maybe Gallo turns into Dirk 2.0 or Chandler into Melo 2.0, but we have the original now, and the Knicks future is only looking better for it.

Looking Back at the 2011 Mets Roster Construction

In September, 2010, I theorized as to what a (sort of) contending New York Mets roster might look like. A lot has happened since then. Johan's recovery from surgery has taken a LONG time. Omar was (sort of) let go. Sandy came on, as did an army of front office executives (an under appreciated Mets weakness these past few years). From day one, Sandy basically admitted that 2011 would NOT be a contending Mets team, and the start to their season would do nothing to make us think anything different.

My theoretical roster, from September:

"C - Thole/Ramirez
1B - Davis/Ramirez/Evans
2B - Tejada/Murphy/Arias
SS - Reyes/Arias
3B - Wright/Murphy/Arias
LF - Bay/Carter/Evans
CF - Pagan/Beltran
RF - Beltran/Carter/Evans

SP - Santana
SP - Zambrano
SP - Niese
SP - Pelfrey
SP - Dickey

CL - Rodriguez
RP - Parnell
RP - Beimel
RP - Green
RP - Acosta
RP - Takahashi
RP - Igarashi"

Some hits, some misses. Obviously Santana is hurt and without contending, there was no point in trading for Carlos Zambrano (although his start so far is encouraging). Niese, Pelfrey and Dickey are the top three Mets starters, unfortunately. Chris Young could be trade bait if he stays healthy and should be gone about the same time Santana is due to come back. Capuano is much the same, and will probably be replaced with Gee when he is ready/when Capuano is traded. Lets call that 4/5ths of the starting rotation.

The bullpen, as with all bullpens was hard to call. Who saw Jason Isringhausen coming out of retirement and the Mets selecting Pedro Beato in the Rule 5 draft and him being lights out? Byrdak is the situational lefty that Biemel could have been. 4/7 in the pen.

Thole is the starting catcher, and is looking pretty good. Davis is entrenched at 1st. Murphy is in a platoon with someone (currently Justin Turner, but, come on) at 2nd. Reyes and Wright hold down the left side. The backup infielder is Hu, not Arias, but same difference. My big whiff was in the backup outfield, where I wanted the Mets to give power and patience some run (and it's odd, cause it would go along with Sandy's philosophy, but oh well) with Carter and Evans, but instead the Mets have gone with defense and scrappiness with Hairston and Harris. So, let's say 9/13.

Thats a total of 17/25. Not bad.

Yankees Abuse the DL?

Last year, Phil Hughes finally made good on the hype that had been built up by the Yankees and Peter Gammons. He had an xFIP of just over 4 in over 175 innings as a 24 year old. He was penciled in as the Yankees' #2 starter this season, and everyone assumed that he would take another step forward, especially since his peripherals matched his performance.
photo © 2008 Keith Allison | more info (via: Wylio)

Well, this season he has sucked. An ERA of almost 14 over 10 innings (3 starts!) led the Yankees to question what was wrong with him. Almost immediately, they put him on the DL with a "dead arm". Today it was reported that he had a significant setback while throwing a bullpen session, although he reported no pain. ESPN's Stephania Bell reported:

"As ESPN New York reported, however, Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild indicated this may not be a true dead-arm scenario because Hughes never demonstrated velocity on the ball since reporting to spring training.


On the one hand, the fact there is no overt structural issue is a positive. On the other hand, it can make trying to tackle an invisible enemy all the more frustrating."

Now, one might ask what the issue with this is? Two words. Oliver Perez.

The Mets searched for two seasons for a solution to Perez' "dead arm" (Yes, I am aware that a dead arm is an actual injury. I only quotate the term because it seems that Hughes does not have a dead arm, but rather just sucks, and hence, him being on the DL is fishy at best). They openly campaigned for him to be on the DL. They begged him to go to the minors to work on his "issues" (read: suckiness).

But rather than stash him on the DL or have him agree to the minor league batters that were more on his level, a saga got played out in the press, with Ollie basically stating that since he was being paid $12 million, he saw no need to be in the minors. Only after he began openly limping did he agree that his knee was an issue, and went on the DL, only to come off as soon as eligible, creating more roster issues for the Mets.

It pains me to say this, but the Mets should look to how the Yankees handled their crappy pitcher issue for how to properly handle roster decisions. If they came correct in most instances, they wouldn't have crappy pitchers holding them hostage, but rather looking to help out the organization.

Knicks Looking (Small) Forward?

Remember Allan Houston? Latrell Sprewell? The Knicks once had two All-Star shooting guards, who they played at the same time (Sprewell usually played small forward, although he played point for a little bit as well) because they were so good, they needed them both on the court at the same time. So it is odd to look at Mike D'Antoni's system and not see the Knicks with ANY shooting guards on the roster, especially given how well shooting guards have done in his systems. (Anyone else think Allan Houston would have thrived in this system?)

Joe Johnson, Casey Jacobsen, Raja Bell, Quentin Richardson, Leandro Barbosa (really a combo guard), Eric Piatkowski. All shooting guards who played much better than their previous or post-D'Antoni careers (yes, Joe Johnson got a max contract, but, come on). In the Carmelo Anthony three-way trade, the Knicks got Corey Brewer, a talented, if erratic, shooting guard, from Minnesota. He was the only true shooting guard on the Knicks roster, with a good outside shot, and some effort on defense. What did Walsh/D'Antoni do? Buy him out.

Huh???

So now we are left with Bill Walker, Shawne Williams, Carmelo Anthony, Landry Fields, Renaldo Balkman, Derrick Brown, Jared Jeffries. That is 7 out of the 15 players on the Knick roster who are small forwards. Andy Rautins is basically PNG, so fully HALF of the Knicks players are small forwards.

Now, in D'Antoni's system, positions are a bit amorphous, but Shawne Williams at Center? Landry Fields as the starting shooting guard? The Knicks recent moves expose some serious roster construction flaws, not the least of which is the lack of a shoot guard OR center.

This system is built on making opponents pay for leaving shooters open, and Donnie and D'Antoni have managed to construct a roster with as little shooting as possible. How are Derrick Brown and Jared Jeffries a better fit for this roster than Corey Brewer, who, by the way, can also play small forward if needed?