Should We Go After Kazmir?

News is that the Rays are shopping Scott Kazmir to try and cut payroll so they can make a big move, and they called the Mets.

Kazmir owns hte Rays/Devil Rays record books in about every major pitching stat, and was as we know, was infamously traded to the Devil Rays in 2004 for Victor Zambrano, when the Mets front office had the false idea that they had a shot at the playoffs. Now we can undo that past mistake, and might be able to do it cheaply. When a team is attpempting to dump salary they will trade players for a lot less value than they could get, and maybe we could get him for Jonathon Niese or Ruben Tejeda?

Many have questioned his make-up this year, but I do not think that there is any significant problem there, and it is just a reason for the Rays to tell their fans they are trading the best pitcher in franchise history.

He is 5-6 this year with a 6.22 ERA, which is not very good, and his BABIP is right around his career norm at .315 (his career average is .318), so it means he is not getting unlucky, but he is not getting lucky, which troubles me, but I looked deeper and found hope. He has a BB/9 ratio of 4.31, which is only a little above his career average of 4.18, and his K/9 is 7.99, which is down from his career average, and is why he has struggled, so if Kazmir can get more balls his softly in play, or less balls in play he will improve.

One Thing To Say

Hearing about the whole Bernazzard debacle, fire everyone, hire Paul Depodesta as GM, Keith Law as assistant GM, and farm director should be some guy from Baseball America...

What To Expect From Pedro

The Phillies signed Pedro, and in a few weeks he will be at the big league level, what can we expect from him?

Last season for the first time in his career he finished with a record under .500, at 5-6, and had an ERA of 5.61, the worst for him ever. He has said he was pitching hurt all of last year, but in 2007 was he? Well he has similar stats. In 2007 he was 3-1, and in 2006 he was 9-8, both years he spent time injured, so when he started to get hurt he started to decline.

The following graphs I am about to show you are from http://fangraphs.com/ .

As you can see, it shows his line drive, groundball, and fly ball percentage from every year in his career, and it shows that his fly ball percentage actually went down the last two seasons. and that his groundball percentage has gone up, which for an old pitcher who is trying to figure out how to pitch more precisely and play to contact, and not for the strike out is a good thing no? So why did Pedro get hammered? There was a slight raise in his line drive percentage, and those tend to be base hits, but it is not a substantial raise, and it definitely is not the answer to why he was so ineffective last year.

(Note: the blue line in the graph is league average)Next I want to look at his ratio statistics, his K/BB ratio in 2005, his last completed effective season was 4.43, which led the league, and is

great, but in 2006 it fell to 3.51, and in 07 which was a small sample size it was 4.57, so because of the small sample size it does not mean much, and in 08 it was 1.98, which is bad for a pitcher who allows 21% of his balls put in play to be line drives, which unless are right at a fielder, are not likely to be caught. As you can see it was great, at times, it was literally off the charts, but in

2008 it came crashing down to league average, which

means more balls in play, so more line drives...

So with more balls in play being line drive, one very important pitching stat is bound to go up, BABIP, his career BABIP was .282, in 2007 it was .384 and in 08 it was .327, which is a benefit of the increased amount of line drives. This means that the high BABIP is not because of him getting unlucky because of a bad defense, it is because of the fact more balls were being put in play, and more line drives. He will be pitching in Citizens Bank Park, with a Ballpark Factor of .999 for runs, for HR it has a 1.064, and his fly ball percentage is 35 percent, so with those 35 percent that are on the warning track at Shea, or Citifield, are gone at Citizens Bank.

So expect Pedro to be ineffective, more so than in 08 and 07.

Live Chat 7-14

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Should We Give Livan The Boot?

Many are calling for Jon Niese to take the spot of Livan Hernandez in the Mets rotation, but I say the reason he has been so effective is because of bad luck.

Livan Hernandez in his last 2 starts has allowed 7 ER and 8 ER which is always with any pitcher a cause of concern, but when it is a guy who had been doing well all season, it started to trouble me, why did Livan stop being effective, so I looked into it. The last 2 seasons his BABIP was higher tan his career, which means that he had been getting unlucky, meaning either slow, or bad defense behind was contributing to his high ERA, and more runs allowed. His career BABIP is .311, the last two seasons, it was .347 and this year it was .333, which means that the Mets defense is catching up to balls that Washington, Florida, and San Francisco did, causing him to allow more earned runs, not to mention he faced Philadelphia and Los Angeles, two of the best offenses in baseball.

So why his BABIP higher is lets look. The Mets according to Baseball Prospectus allow the runner to be safe in 30.8% of the time there is a batted ball, which is not good. Furthermore, Wright has struggled, we have had people playing positions they should not be (ex= Fernando Tatis at SS, or Jeremy Reed at 1B).

So I say give Livan a break, and leave him in the rotation.

Top 25 Mets Prospects (1)

I will rate the Mets prospects based on how well I think they will do in the Majors. Niese and F-Mart DO count, I will do one a day for the next 25 days, and this will not be my only post of each day.

Number 1

I believe the Mets prospect that will have the most major league success in his career will be Wilmer Flores. He can hit, and proves it all the time, at the tender age of 17, the Mets have to be careful with him, as we do not want to rush him, or hurt him. In 302 PAs this season in Savannah, he has 2 home runs and 23 RBIs, with a .280/.319/.353 line, which is underwhelming, but it shows a lot that he can hold his own at the age of 17 at Single-A.

His Best Tool

He can hit, flat out hit, like no prospect of the Mets I can remember seeing since Murphy, or maybe even better, he knows what he is doing at the plate, and can develop into a good MLB hitter.

His grade? A

Other Reactions

You already know what I think of the trade, but here are some other reactions, which seem to be quite contrary. (Note: he will bat 5th tonight and play right field, while wearing the number 12.)

Matthew Cerronne says it "doesn't matter", but also adds that he thinks it plays into an overall plan.

Mets Merized (I do not agree) says this means F-Mart and others could be on the way out.

Mets Minor League Blog hates the trade.

Metstradamus rants about it as promised, although he hated the original Church trade, and the Delgado trade.

Andrew Vazzano over at TheRopolitans (who will be on Mets Weekly today), says that the Mets " got a 5 years younger Church".

Eddie D'Anna says that he will give Francoeur a chance.

Braves Blast has there take on it.

Analyzing Francoeur

So when we traded Church for Francoeur, many people saw it as two indetical players, I say Francoeur is better.

Many people say Church has an even arm to Francoeur, but I say Francoeur has a better arm. A stat Baseball Reference uses is called kills, and holds, which says if you throw a runner out its a kill, if he holds its a hold. Francoeur has 4 kills, while Church has 1, evermore, Francoeur scares runners, with 28 holds, to Church's 28, so it is even.

Offensively Church has a better line. Francoeur has more upside, that is all I can say on that. Also Francoeur is more durable.

Breaking News: Mets Trade Church For Franceour

Update 6:47

New line-up Pagan, Cora, Murphy, Wright, Reed, Tatis, Schneider, A. Reyes, Nieve

Update: 6:44

Cash was also sent to ATL

Man am I gonna have trouble spelling Francoeur, or however you spell it.

He is hitting .250/.282/.352 Church: .282/.332/.275

Why Pagan Will Be Huge

Today the Mets sent down Nick Evans to make room for Angel Pagan, who has been very good for the Mets over the last two seasons when healthy.

He has hit .275 in 08, and .333 in 09, driving in a combined 16 runs, and compiling OBPs of .346, and .429, he has stolen 4 bases both years, and still has not been caught as a Met, which makes him a great leadoff hitter, which is something the Mets have not had since Reyes went down. He has a line this year of .333/.429/.405 and the rest of the league would have compiled a .264/.338/.417, which means that even though his Slugging Percentage is down, being a leadoff batter he does not have to have a high slugging percentage.

This year he has drawn a walk in 13.7 % of his ABs, when Reyes had a 10.8 % before getting injured, which means that Pagan gets on base about as much as Reyes would, meaning that maybe he can spark the Mets, and with Murphy moving up to 3, and getting hot we might have a shot at this division yet!

Sheff, and Ollie

I am riding high after a Met win, and I have caught up on my sleep and am ready to sit down and post.

Gary Sheffield has been the most underrated player on the Mets this year, and without him we would have been out of it a long time ago, as he has been the fourth best player this year based on Baseball Prospectus's VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). He leads the team in home runs, and has been the closest thing to a cleanup hitter the Mets have had, and without him, Wright would have no protection in the line-up what-so-ever.

Gary Sheffield is even better then I thought, and when I looked deeper into it I realized what a steal Omar got. His MLVr, which is how many more runs than an average player he contributes to, is .234, which is .4 less than David Wright, who many say has been our best hitter. He has an AVG of .283, and in similar situations the league would bat .263. His SO/BB is 1.06 which is okay; his career average in that stat is .79. He has an RBI every 6.1 ABs, and a HR every 18.8.

Oliver Perez went 5 innings of 2 run ball, which by all means is fine with me, but other people say that the 7 walks make it not as good as it really was which means that he will be back to bad Ollie soon. If we look deeper we can see that him, and the rest of the pitching staff held the Dodgers to a 2-11 with RISP, which is huge, and they left 12 on, and the highlight of Ollie's night for me was when he got a soft liner from Ethier with the bases loaded and two outs, when the old Ollie would have walked him, or allowed a hit.

So for Ollie, the future is bright.

Alexis Rios

Alex Rios is a player that the Toronto Blue Jays have said recently, because of Roy Halladay’s contract being up after next season is expendable. I am a big fan of Rios, not for his five tools, but for the statistical value he gives to your team. He is a well built outfielder, who can hit for power, and hit, as well as run which is something we could use at the leadoff spot.

He is having a bad year, with 9 homers and 37 RBI, and his line is .260/.316/.417, which is not good, but he is capable of better as 2 out of the last 4 years he had an OPS of .850. His K/PA ratio is 1K/6.38 PAs, his career is 5.92, so he is not striking out as much, and his BABIP is .287, and his career BABIP is .324. He has walked 24 times, and has been struck out 55. His walks are way down, they should be a little higher, and the OBP would be where it should be.

He is not walking this year, but if you put him on the Mets now, he would be tied for the team lead with 9 home runs. He could play right field, or left (and even center in Beltran’s absence), and cover a lot of ground, and hit for some power