Who is our #1 pitcher?

[YoungStuna]

Syndergaard's floor is probably something like Bobby Parnell, barring injuries of course.

I see Ryan Madson. Fastball/change-up combo.

[NY_Heartbreak]

I see Ryan Madson. Fastball/change-up combo.

If that's his floor, then the Dickey trade was fantastic. I can see a Madson comp. Basically, if Syndergaard can maintain a 95+ mph fastball he'll always have a place on a team. It all depends on whether or not he can command that curveball. I've read that his fastball is also straight like Parnell's btw.

[YoungStuna]

If that's his floor, then the Dickey trade was fantastic. I can see a Madson comp. Basically, if Syndergaard can maintain a 95+ mph fastball he'll always have a place on a team. It all depends on whether or not he can command that curveball. I've read that his fastball is also straight like Parnell's btw.

I heard it can be straight, but it has nasty sink most of the time. Hard to dominate Low-A in every way the way he did as a 19 year old without having great stuff.

He and Madson are pretty much identical if he becomes a reliever. Both have great GB rates, walk few, throw mid 90's, have a good change, and strike out a good amount of hitters.

[NY_Heartbreak]

I heard it can be straight, but it has nasty sink most of the time. Hard to dominate Low-A in every way the way he did as a 19 year old without having great stuff.

He and Madson are pretty much identical if he becomes a reliever. Both have great GB rates, walk few, throw mid 90's, have a good change, and strike out a good amount of hitters.

Yeah true. And again, if Syndergaard only becomes a Ryan Madson, that's still a win. Not as great as a TORP, but a solid back-end of the bullpen piece. Based on his abilities though, he should have a better career than that.

[DisgruntledGoat]

BATA 2...

http://baseballtips.com/pitching-mac...el/bata-2.html

[fanofclendennon]

If TDA becomes an above average catcher and Syndergaard becomes a pen arm, I'll still be happy.

Best pitcher in baseball for an above average catcher? I suppose it depends on exactly how much above average the catcher is.

[NY_Heartbreak]

Best pitcher in baseball for an above average catcher? I suppose it depends on exactly how above average the catcher is.

TDA's ceiling is basically Brian McCann.

[YoungStuna]

Yeah true. And again, if Syndergaard only becomes a Ryan Madson, that's still a win. Not as great as a TORP, but a solid back-end of the bullpen piece. Based on his abilities though, he should have a better career than that.

I agree. His fastball is good enough for him to have a substantial MLB career baring injuries of course.

[YoungStuna]

Best pitcher in baseball for an above average catcher? I suppose it depends on exactly how much above average the catcher is.

At least 6 years of an above average catcher has a load of value. That is his realistic forecast for him though, he could be an all-star too. That is certainly a possibility.

[NY_Heartbreak]

I agree. His fastball is good enough for him to have a substantial MLB career baring injuries of course.

Yeah. It's an exciting time to follow Mets prospects. Idk what that says about the major league team, but still.

[fanofclendennon]

Phrases like "above average" are meaningless. Let's see how good the kid actually is. For all we know he'll be perennially injured or banged up.

Or maybe he'll be the next Buster Posney.

See my sig below:

[YoungStuna]

Phrases like "above average" are meaningless. Let's see how good the kid actually is. For all we know he'll be perennially injured or banged up.

Or maybe he'll be the next Buster Posney.

See my sig below:

If he hits .270/.330/.440 with solid defense at catcher, that's a pretty valuable player. Of course he has the potential to do better or worse than that, so yeah we'll see.

[Wrigheyes4MVP]

I agree with much of what you said. The trade went a long way to fill a gaping hole. Catchers are generally tough to come by, let alone someone with d'Arnaud's reputation. Within a year, we could have turned a gaping hole into a strength. Those are the kinds of moves that turn teams around.

That said, I'm still not sold on the direction this team is going. Ok, so they swapped RA Dickey for the future. Not a bad thing, considering we weren't going to do much in '13 and probably '14 either.

But where was the sense of letting someone like Scott Hairston go? Shouldn't the idea be to build on your strengths, not replace them. And let's take another step back:

Imagine if Jose Reyes who signed for a very reasonable $108 million were still a Met?

See, what is happening here isn't so much building a foundation for a perennial winner in the near future. What's happening is they're putting together a team on the cheap, with the obvious exception of David Wright.

If Ike Davis turns out to be the real deal and gets to the point in a few years where he will command a big salary, do we trade him off too?

Are we going to be a small market team with a revolving door or are we going to hold on to our stars even after they can command free agent money?

Bringing in guys like d'Arnaud is the first part of the equation. I agree with you , it was a nice pickup. But will they do what it takes to add on and eventually put the team over the top?

Or will they tease us with nice prospects as the established, productive veterans parade out the door?

That's my concern. In a vacuum, sure, the Dickey for d'Arnaud trade was a good one and it made a lot of sense. But I remain skeptical about what will happen next.

I agree that Sandy messed up the Reyes situation.

I'm still not sure though that signing him was the right move. We will have to see how he performs over the next 5 years or so, to see if he regresses or not. I personally think his athleticism has regressed a bit over the last few years and will continue to do so. With that said, would signing him long term be the right move to make? I think that is a legitimate question.

Between Reyes and Wright I have much more confidence in Wright playing at a high level in the long term, thus is the reason he was worth signing to a long term extension.

What we should have done with Reyes is either sign him or better yet, do exactly what we just did with Dickey...trade him at his highest value. We got Wheeler for Beltran. We got TDA and Syndergaard for Dickey. Imagine what we could have gotten for Reyes if we had traded him during his highest value (trade deadline during 2011). Sandy missed the boat on that one. I also wonder what impact the Madoff scandal had on the 2011 offseason. It seems like the Wilpons are past that scare, but at the time things were looking a bit murky in the waters.

Anyway, back on point to your little synopsis of the Mets direction...I have to respectfully disagree. You make it out to be that the Mets have turned into the Oakland Athletics and that Sandy Alderson was simply brought in to build the cheapest team possible. If that is the case then answer me this: Why even sign David Wright to that contract in the first place? It goes against the idea of building a cheap team. They could have easily traded him for premium prospects. It seems that you are under the impression that signing Wright to that deal was a PR move. I'm sorry, but Alderson does not strike me as the type to make a PR move by signing a player to a long term deal worth 9 figures. Have you ever thought that signing Wright long term was just a good, solid baseball move for this team going forward? Wright fits the Sandy Alderson model of a player and should be able to continue playing at this level for the long term. Maybe Sandy just didn't feel that way about Reyes.

Then, lets analysis the Wilpons. Obviously we can all agree that they know next to nothing about baseball. However, to say they are purely cheap owners who do not care at all about the team's success is not true at all IMO. Many Mets fans make Fred Wilpon out to be Donald Stirling. The truth is that the Wilpons have had a tendency to spend money in the past. We can go back and look at the last 10 years and I can point to countless high spending strategies used by the Wilpons to attempt to improve and build the team. Some of those spendings have worked well...many have not. Overall, employing this strategy has not worked. Is that the Wilpons fault or is it Omar Minaya's fault (or whatever GM is employed if you want to go even further back)?

Whoevers fault it was, that plan did not work. We did have a nice group of big name players, but they were old and after a few good years, that core got broken up. Because we didn't have a strong foundation beyond those veteran big names, the rest of the team faltered when they faltered. Santana, Delgado, Beltran...they got older and less durable. The team proceeded to fall apart. Then we continiously spent more money to replace some of those names. For instance, when Delgado retired...we spent money to bring in Bay. That signing, along with other smaller signings that were still substantial enough (Ollie, Castillo, K-rod, etc.)...just made things even worse.

So in summation, I ask you this question FoC: Why are you so skeptical when it seems that the Mets are FINALLY operating in a way that builds its foundation through talented young difference makers? When is the last time the Mets employed a plan like this, with so many young potential core pieces on the horizon? This is the right way to build a team. You do it with talented youth first. You build the core. We have that foundation brewing for the first time in a long, long time.

Also, who is to say that we won't spend a little when the time is right? (Is this the right time? I would say that after a 74 win season and going into a year where you just traded your Cy Young winner for prospects is probably not an ideal time to spend and improve the team through Free Agency). Is the idea of not signing Cody Ross or better yet, Scott ****in Hairston really a true tell tail sign of the direction this team is going in? I mean, we are talking about Scott Hairston lol. The guy is currently asking for a 3 year deal! Signing him for 3 years would be awful. If he lowers his demand to 2 years then we can entertain the idea of bringing him back, but I think its wise to exercise caution with bringing Hairston (a career 4th outfielder) back for multiple years. I'm with Sandy Alderson on this 100%.

All I am saying is that everyone in this forum knows that Sandy Alderson is a very competent and cerebral GM. However, it seems that many of you do not entirely trust his true motivation and overall goals. It seems that you think he was hired by the Wilpons to build a cheap team so that they could save money. I disagree with that notion for all the reasons I expressed above...starting with the David Wright signing...and continuing with this team's current plan to add as many young, talented difference makers as possible. I just don't think that being cautious in the idea of signing Scott Hairston to a multiple year deal means that this team is being cheap just for the sake of being cheap. Thats not my barometer of this team's direction. We won't know what this team will do in terms of spending, but I think its a bit of an unfounded assumption that this team won't spend when the time is right. The time isn't and hasn't been right during Sandy's tenure here so far.

I just don't think Sandy was simply hired by the Wilpons to build a cheap team. I think that a huge part of bringing in Sandy Alderson was to build a team the right way...from the ground up. And, so far...I am happy with this new direction because its a direction that I believe in and a direction that we didn't use and execute properly with Omar Minaya, Jim Duquette, or Steve Phillips.

Once again, I apologize for writing an essay, but I had to get this off my chest once again because I believe that right now there is a lot of overly sensitive and unfounded negativity spreading throughout this forum. With the amount of young impact players in our organization, there should be a lot more optimism amongst Mets fans, but there isn't because its the same old Mets to some people. I feel your pain, but when you really take a step back and look at what the Mets have going for them in terms of building a strong young core...they are doing an excellent job. I am impressed and I think the reasons for doubting this plan are based on unfounded sensitivity and memories of past failings. I think its just a bit unreasonable to just assume that this plan of building from the ground up with young talent is just a PR move to hide the "true motivation" of this team: To stay cheap and pocket the savings.

[Wrigheyes4MVP]

Wow, that took a lot of energy out of me. lol

[fanofclendennon]

Wow, that took a lot of energy out of me. lol

And because I appreciated all that hard work, I made a point of reading every word of it before I responded.

Excellent point about Hairston wanting 3 years. I was unaware of that demand. A guy like Hairston has to be brought in year to year. Heck, part of me is just waiting for him to test positive anyway. He did things at the plate these last two seasons he hadn't done at anytime in his career. Have to laugh. It wasn't too long ago when mine was the loudest voice in this forum calling for his release since he was either striking out or dropping fly balls.

Next thing I know he's turned into a poor man's Babe Ruth, especially against lefties. I'm hard-pressed to remember anyone turning around like that. Still, I thought it incumbent upon Sandy to resign him considering the state of the rest of our outfield. But if the demand is 3 years, then I agree: Waiting him out or even bringing in an APH is the right move.

You can draw an analogy to Luis Castillo who was brought in toward the end of the 2007 season to help sure up second base. After the season, this gimp was signed to 4 years. Made no sense to me at the time. Later i heard they were afraid another team was going to sign him, I think the Astros. The answer of course would have been to wish the Astros luck, sign an APH, and wait for a better, younger option. So I concede your point on Hairston.

Now, why should I think that maybe Sandy was brought in to build the East Coast version of the Oakland A's, especially since the Wilpons historically always spent a lot of money? Because when they were spending money, they were backed by Bernie Madoff's wishing well. Whatever they tossed in, they got 18 percent more. As far as they were concerned, they were spending Monopoly money.Everyone thought the big issue was how much the Mets would have to pay after being sued by Irving Picard. The bigger concern was how would the Mets operate without those guaranteed 18-percent returns. I believe that's what we're finding out now.

Again to your point, the David Wright signing would run contrary to my assertion about the second coming of Moneyball. But imagine the uproar if both Wright AND Dickey were traded. The organization would have taken a hit from its fan base from which it would have taken a miracle to recover. Nothing short of a championship run within the few seasons would have saved them. The media would have killed them and no one would buy their tickets.

Sure, signing him was also the right move but so was either trading or re-signing Reyes. Did Sandy have a temporary bout with Alzheimer's in the Reyes debacle or was he worried about taking a hit by trading a potential batting title winner mid season, the same hit he was concerned about if he didn't re-sign Wright?

See, he could save face, somewhat, by saying that while he wanted Reyes all along (B-crap), his demands were just too rich for his blood. There was no face to be saved by not ponying up on David Wright.

Sure, it's not out of the realm of possibility that both those moves were made independently for sound baseball reasons. But for the time being, I remain skeptical.

While I like the Dickey trade, I still want to see what's going to happen next. A lot of people are making analogies to the Mets in the early 80s, bringing in young talent and then finishing it off with expensive veterans like Keith and Gary.

Let's see if the Sandy Wilpons will bring in expensive veterans to put us over the top, and let's see if the young talent they've brought in are extended after they become eligible to hit the open market.

Only when that happens will i be convinced it's all about winning.