legacyme3 : I guess you guys shouldn't have let Babe Ruth go then huh? If it boils down to luck I mean? kidding man. It's only a little more than two months until football. That's my solace right now. Even though I still watch almost every game. At least, I start watching them. Soon it'll be interesting again if things keep up and they start bringing guys up for a shot at the big club in August.

I'm really surprised at what's going on with jd Martinez, especially recently. The guy rose his average by 60 points in just 2 months and after just 85 team games he has a career high in home runs and is on pace for nearly 50. Not to mention that for the entire season overall, he's one of the best outfielders available.

zanderlex : PEDs?

Ferdinand : I personally don't think so, his home runs and runs are on pace to be double than what they were last season, but his batting average is still down by by 30 points and his doubles were cut in half. It's not like his power is just coming out of nowhere, he's converting his doubles into home runs by hitting them just a bit further. If he was taking peds, I feel his home runs would have gone up while his doubles would have at least stayed the same, because he would be turning fly ball outs to home runs, and a lot of them.


Basically if you see someone on peds, you see a massive jump in production, but in this guys case, he was already good, and just got a little bit better.

zanderlex : But you just said he rose his average by 60 points dude?

Ferdinand : Yeah, in 2 months, not over the course of the year or overall. In May his average was less than .210 and in 2014 his average was higher than .310.

His average is down by 30 points, but it went up by 60 since May. The highest his average has been this year is like .320 and now its less than .300.

zanderlex : I gotcha. Well, it is baseball. Just like guys can get into a slump, guys can get on a roll and play above their heads for a while. Wait and see if he keeps it up after the break. That will tell you more.

I'm surprised by how the Mets finished the first half, especially when it comes to power. They went more than 400 at bats without a home run and then exploded in their last series. In fact, at the start of the final game, someone hit a home run and they said that was their 7th home run in like 70 at bats. Just having a player hit a home run every 10 at bats is incredible, having the entire team average that is just insane. To top that off, from them on they hit another 3 in that game.

So, I was looking at the Mets outfield lately and how bad they were and I was wondering how much of a great outfield they could have had if they weren't careful with spending and trading. The Mets literally had a chance to have the best Outfield in baseball had they went through with all of their trade and signing opportunities instead of saying that they were too risky.

Right now the main outfield has hit .250 with 36 Doubles, 25 Home Runs and 85 RBI's in 2015 and are making a combined 25 million dollars. The Outfield they could have had is hitting .288 with 52 Doubles, 61 Home Runs, and 171 RBI's, while are making a combined 31.25 Million dollars.

Here is how they would have gotten each outfielder and who they are.

A few years ago, before all the hype surrounding him, the Florida Marlins offered Mike Stanton to the Mets for Daniel Murphy. This was before Stanton was awesome, and the Mets thought that Murphy wuld be better in the long run.

Before the start of the 2014 season, the Mets were looking into singing Nelson Cruz, but after a month, they felt the 16 million he would get was just too much for them to take on so they signed Chris Young instead for 7.25 Million dollars. Just weeks later, Cruz ended up signing for just 8 million dollars.

Before the start of the 2015 season, the Mets were on the verge of trading Zack Wheeler to the Red Sox for Yoenis Cespedes. In the end, they ended up signing Michael Cuddyer instead, and felt that both Wheeler was too much of an important pitcher and that they could not take on Cespedes because he would have to be a backup.

It's just insane how many times the Mets end up losing on great deals because they get too worried about what could happen.

zanderlex :

Sad thing is, the Red Sox would have done that trade.

And even sadder? It would make us better, even though he'd be out basically the entire year.

Because Rick Porcello has been f***ing horrible this year.

patar4097 :

I don't know what magic bag he had in Detroit, but can you send it to us?

legacyme3 : I know the Red Sox would have accepted it, because after the Mets started the offer, the Sox were actually the ones who requested Wheeler, but the Meys signed Cuddyer in the middle of the negotiations. It's sad, and everybody wants the entire Mets office out now.

zanderlex :

Anyone could have told you signing Cuddyer was stupid.

Not only did it cost you a good offensive talent (Cespedes is an all star level talent, Cuddyer sucks), but it also cost you guys a draft pick because of the QO. The Rockies used that pick to sign Mike Nikorak.

Nikorak is a good looking talent the Mets could have used to replenish the farm system after losing Wheeler in a Cespedes trade.

It was a hilarious miscalculation by the Mets FO, and the only way it's justified is if Wheeler gets you more down the line.

legacyme3 : Even if he can get us back down the line, that's still a year and a half lost for us at the minimum.

legacyme3 : Well, Porcello didn't have it at the end of the year, so it isn't like he was leaving while on top of the world. If the Tigers do have something positive to take out of this year, and the multiple disappointments it has brought, it's been that Iglesias and Cespedes have both been good, so there's that. So, thanks for that, but I don't know what could be done in return. But other than that, Verlander had another trash start, Green and Simon haven't been good, after starting off with so much promise, and the bullpen is just not reliable. But J.D. has been outstanding, and with Miggy out, he'll need to keep it up. We're under .500, so to get even a shot at playoffs, we pretty much have to get the most favorable trade at the deadline ever, that is, if we are still buying. But selling makes sense now as well, considering with how this team is, there just doesn't seem to be any logical reason to think they could win it.

patar4097 : JD really has been outstanding now, bed one of the 10 best OF in baseball, and didn't he hit like 12 home runs in a month earlier in the year? He has to end up being one of the top runners for MVP of you ask me.

patar4097 :

Wouldn't want anything for Iggy or Cespedes. Cespedes was going to get traded regardless, because he wasn't going to start over Mookie or Hanley, and we seemed dead set on playing Shane Victorino.

As for Iggy, he's been great, but our SS has actually been better, according to the numbers. So Iggy wouldn't be playing for us, either. Besides, the trade of Iggy got us Peavy, which helped us make the playoffs and win the WS in 2013.

I really love what the Mets have been doing over the last couple of days in the trade department. There haven't been any big trades like the ones happening elsewhere, but in terms of big act now trades, this is easily the biggest series of trades that the Mets have had since they traded for Johan Santana many years ago.

Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson have already helped the team a lot in the offense category. As a matter of fact, during just their first two games as a Met not including today, they combined to hit 4/13 (.308) with 1 Home Run and 2 RBI's. Then the Mets went on to get Tyler Clippard to greatly boost their bullpen and already has 1 scorless inning with the Mets and the Mets are still trying to get one more big bat by the end of the week and are looking into Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes, and Jay Bruce.

Getting any one of them would greatly improve the Mets who are already doing great thanks to these trades and are now just 1 game out of 1st place

"but in terms of big act now trades, this is easily the biggest series of trades that the Mets have had since they traded for Johan Santana many years ago."

That last big trade the Mets made many years ago for Santana involved them sensing Carlos Gomez and now they just got him back for Zack Wheeler. Literally two consecutive years apart between big trades and it's the same guy

   Well, the Tigers are apparently sellers now. With how they have been playing recently, it makes sense. They must have not seen a chance at getting better, so selling off David Price to the Blue Jays for pitching prospects, and Soria to the PIrates for an A ball short stop/ outfielder, which was really all we could get for him, makes sense. Cespedes I'm sure will be gone by this afternoon as well, because right now, keeping him wouldn't make any sense after we got rid of one of our two consistant arms in the bullpen, and our ace pitcher.
   In some other trade news, some older deals include the Astros being buyers, which I don't think anybody expected at the start of the year. They picked up Kazmir from the A's, who will be a great addition behind Keuchel for their rotation. The 'Stros also picked up Carlos Gomez, so it seems like this was definitely a win for them this year.
   The Royals were able to seal up Zobrist as well as Queto from the Reds. And another big trade involves the Blue Jays getting Troy Tulowitzki. And lastly, Cole Hammels seems to be off to Texas, where the Rangers will try to compete in the crowded AL West, getting a starter that should be a great part at the top of their rotation. However, the trade still hasn't been completed, so I the possibility of it falling through is there I guess, but I really don't know the chances of that happening.

zanderlex :

Shout out to the mets, who have an incredibly impressive starting rotation.


Now on to the jays.

We traded reyes (who has been garbage defensively), promising prospects hoffman, castro, (and some random) for troy tulowitzki and latroy hawkins. This has greatly improved our defense and he has been better offensively than reyes as well. What it did do though is make us slower on the bases. The jays also traded blue chip prospect norris (who pitched a great game for detroit), boyd, and another lefty pitcher for david price. He threw a gem for the jays in his first start.

Smaller trades were made on deadline day for the seattle reliever lowe for some prospects I didnt that that highly of. Lowe has had a rough start with the jays, costing us the game against kc. Jays also traded for ben revere for a couple decent prospects. His start with toronto has been a disaster as well, going hitless so far and causing toronto to put danny valencia on waivers (which was a laughably dumb move at this point).

Fortunately, lowes poor performance out of the pen against kc has been the lone rough spot in an otherwise exciting time for the jays and their fans. They have now taken over sole possession of the second wildcard spot and are 1 game back of the angels for the 1st wildcard spot. Toronto will face the yankees for 7 games in the next 2 weeks and those games will very likely have the feel of a playoff series. There is exciting baseball ahead for toronto for the first time in years.