Best news of the week: Mets have not signed Torrealba after all, and have broken off negotiations. Somebody – apparently his agent – obviously screwed up big time by leaking this as if it was a done deal.
6 thoughts on “No Yorvit”
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Wow. That’s great news. Now they just need to confirm that they are indeed not targeting David Eckstein, and I can come off the ledge now.
Actually Eckstein as a second baseman would be great. He has a Brosius like quality that makes his teammates better. I love a guy who comes through, and is the type to say, “Never played catcher, but if we need one, get me some pads.”
But we do need a catcher. As Casey once said, we’ll have a lot of passed balls without one.
I can’t understand why they don’t just try Ramon Castro as the everyday catcher. Yes, I understand he is somewhat injury prone. Fine, sign a backup type to fill in when needed. But Castro is better han Torrealba anyway.
It is similar to Heilman – the Mets have it set in stone what they think the guy is and stubbornly refuse to take a shot to see if he can be something more. It’s so annoying.
Actually Eckstein as a second baseman would be great. He has a Brosius like quality that makes his teammates better.
He also has a quality of being a not particularly good baseball player. He doesn’t hit for power, has no speed, is not a very good defender, and doesn’t have a particularly high on-base percentage. He has been the leadoff hitter for some very good offensive Cardinals teams, and never once did he even score more than 100 runs for them. His OPS+ is consistently well below 100, and at his age it’s not likely to improve.
Look, I know the guy is “gritty” and has heart, and he runs around the bases growling at his opponents, but he’s a completely overrated player that might be the absolute worst option at second base for the Mets. On what planet is this guy worth $8-9 million per year?
Please, pass.
Al, Heilman is a setup guy because Omar, unlike Aaron himself seems to realize, is fine once through a lineup. And Castor is a fine replacement, but doesn’t hit well enough to start, and doesn’t stay healthy enough to last more than 85 games or so.
Castro last year was a bit like Lo Duca in 2006, in that he had a very good offensive year that significantly exceeded his career averages. I’m not sure if we can really expect to see that again, but I’d be comfortable with Castro platooning with someone else, though to be honest I’m not sure who that someone else will be.
This morning I contemplated that with the return of Sanchez and perhaps Burgos or Padilla, the Mets might have enough bullpen arms to justify trying Heilman out in the rotation again. I’m not crazy about the idea, but it just might be something to consider. I just might prefer Heilman to Silva, assuming that’s one of the other options.
As it is, I’m okay with a rotation of Pedro, Maine, Perez, El Duque, and Pelfrey. The Mets simply don’t have the chips to get an ace, and I don’t think they should spend those chips on a Joe Blanton type. And the FA market flat out stinks. So that just might be the rotation we see next year. The problem is that we can all but rest assured that somebody is going on the DL for an extended time, and we can’t be stuck with another Jose Lima or Dave Williams is a fill-in. Maybe Sosa gets to be the fill-in starter again. There are worse options.