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Jason Pirdie is in the major leagues. He is the poster boy of what the former Rays regime did with their high draft picks. As a career minor league journeyman, he was summoned when Pagan landed on the DL.

NL Fantasy says: “Jason Pridie got the start in CF with Angel Pagan hitting the DL. I would expect Pridie to split time with Willie Harris while Pagan is out of action”

Dirty Mets says : “Jason Pridie who played center as a call up for DL’d Pagan, had a tough time. It’s not like he had any errors tonight but had an adventure covering some ground on two rockets hit beyond his reach that would result in doubles.”

LoHud says ” Pridie, once a top prospect with the Twins, is more of a glove than a bat in center field. He starts tonight, and it will be interesting to see if he gets regular time there, or if Harris/Hairston share it as well. This isn’t a prospect situation anymore, in terms of Pridie. But maybe, a team with the defensive struggles of the Mets just wants a great glove out there right now.”

Pridie has been showing some power with the AAA Bisons .

This is the best the Mets organization has to offer?

PawSox blog mention on Jason Pridie

Catchy phrase “Pridie and Prejudice“

What a difference a Bay makes. Sure, but what about the Murphy blunder

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In my last post, I told you about my NL Only draft this past weekend.

Of the 11 teams, 4 owners have at least two pitchers that are currently slated to close games. There is one team with no current closers, and the remaining 6 owners have one closer.

Some of top tier players: David Wright $39, Matt Holliday $39, Jimmy Rollins $32, Brandon Phillips $34, Shane Victorino $28, Adam LaRoche $33, Troy Tulowitzski $40, Hanley Ramirez $47, Jose Reyes $25, Cole Hammels $27, Roy Halladay $41, Tim Lincecum $44, Johan Santana $28

A good exercise would be to compare how some of these auction prices stacked up against those from the 2009 draft.

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Some Tape Measure Hits from around the web:

CBS Experts Auction Draft results

Top5 by Position Projections

Mets are fiddling with the Billy B Money Ball approach to building a bullpen with phenom Mejia:

Beane’s “Moneyball” legacy will be remembered for his preference for high on base percentage hitters, among other specifics, but he also shed light on his idea of running a bullpen. If you have a good arm, you can close. Period. So you can chalk Street’s demotion up to another quick hook on the part of management.

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f you look at the National League East, you know the beast of the division in the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies. They have so much troubles, they can’t seem to choose among who gets the demotion to the pen when former Met Pedro Martinez joins the team.

Despite the injuries and all the failed expectations coming out of Citi Field with the Mets, they are still just seven games under the .500 mark. That’s quite a remarkable record considering they have been without Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and Carlos Delgado for a major portion of the season.

With the team in tact last year, they scored 84 more runs than they gave up. In 2009, they have scored 33 less runs (with 472) than they have given up (505). In comparing 2008 and 2009, they have gone from +84 to -33 in the runs scored/given up differential which is 117run difference.

Still, despite the drop off, Jerry Manuel and Omar have this team competitive. How is this possible?

They have almost no home run ability playing in Citi field where Sheffield leads team in Home runs with 10 Home runs, and are last in NL with 67.

Where is the Mets saving grace that has kept them in games despite the drop off in production?

They are 3rd in the NL in OBP with a .341 mark. They lead the national League in stolen bases, and are fourth in NL in total bases with 1443.

So despite the slugging outage this year with Mets, they are getting people on base and moving across the base paths with the small ball type of mentality.

These fill in players are doing quite the job. They certainly have not given up despite being overmatched with their bats against many of their opponents. Makes you think the Mets are bringing this mentality from the movie Animal House:

Bluto: Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he’s rolling.
Bluto: And it ain’t over now. ‘Cause when the goin’ gets tough… the tough get goin’! Who’s with me? Let’s go!

Another positive for the 2009 Mets is their defense that backs Johan Santana and company. The Defensive Efficiency Ratio (DER) measures the percentage of times balls in play are turned into outs by the team’s fielders, not including home runs. The Mets defense is 9th best in NL . with a .696 Also, the UZR (ultimate zone rating) measures the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs, outfield arm runs, double play runs and error runs combined. The Mets are 4th best in the NL with a 27.1

Besides Santana, their is no starting pitcher that has stood out in a positive way. The team is 10th in the National league in ERA that puts them in the bottom tier of the league with a .432 ERA.

All things considered, this is one of the more surprising seasons gone by with the Mets. With this downturn in production, you would think they were on pace to lose 100 games. The Mets were neither buyers or sellers at the deadline.

One thing is evident, this is an array of players who has not shown to give up despite all the injuries and players playing in roles they are not accustomed to. This is what team work is all about. Today, when Parnell takes the mound as the starting pitcher, and Murphy gets his timely hits, take a good luck. As, they are building something here known as team chemistry, and a little bit of luck.

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From the TBO, Maddon with the use of his number crunching data gave Aybar the rare start:

“I cannot take credit for that,” Maddon said. “This is something we do back at the office, and we really crunch numbers and do so many things. Willy came out on top versus Greinke.”

Aybar went 4-4 with the game winning hit. Madddon was key in letting Aybar know the ball that went through his legs was simply bad break, and to forget about it. And that he Did!

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I never did understand why the Cubs parted ways with their valuable spark plug Mark DeRosa in the off season. As other players can fill the void, but You win With Mark DeRosa . At first look, it seemed the Cubs were dumping DeRosa’s 5.5 million salary. However, the Cubs GM Hendry has admitted in recent interviews that he was attempting to reduce the number of right handed bats in the cubs lineup : Soriano - R, D. Lee - R, Theriot - R, Soto - R, A. Ramirez - R

I guess the lack of a left handed bat it what sent DeRosa packing. The number of times Ramirez has gotten hurt over the past few years in reason enough to keep DeRosa around as the ball club was not helped in any way with the players the recieved from the Indians for DeRosa.

As a club, the Cardinals always bring in that solid veteran that helps them go over the top and win the division title. This deal giving up a former #1 pick Chris Perez out of the University of Miami who throws in the high 90s is a decent player the Tribe recieved. But in this case, Ryan Franklin is the defacto closer and with another hard thrower in Jason Motte, this was a deal the Cardinals could afford to make.

Mark DeRosa is signed only for the season. However, they have had the void at third base for much of the season, and this will certainly solidify their infield. DeRosa can fill in all across the field, and his 50 RBIs and 13 HRs will fill in nicely.

The Indians did pretty well as far as value, but not as fit. With Kerry Wood signed in the off season as the closer, Perez will have to wait his turn and that could be a while. For now, he is just another arm for the bullpen. This signals that the Indians are throwing in the towl and building for 2010 and beyond.

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As much as I want to lay into the Neal Harrington regime of the Pittsburgh Pirates for trading away the recent face of the franchise in Nate McLouth, its clear they are running the team in what is best for the team in the long term. In this case, McLouth opened up a lot of eyes last season with his breakout year, but seems like he was never in their long term plans. They signed him to an extension in the beginning of this year, as it was a deal that would neither hurt his overall value, nor was it one that would prevent them from locking up one of their other cornerstone players.

The Pirates have properly allowed Andrew McCutchen the time to develop in the minors leagues, despite looking like he could contribute to the big league club the past two years in spring training. With the emergence of Pirates OF Nyjer Morgan as an everyday player, it seems the Pirates were using the strategy of selling high on McLouth. Its not clear if the Pirates were actively shopping McLouth. It does seem like they jumped in on making a deal pretty early in this trade window over the next month or so. I am not sure there was a better deal out there to make on McLouth.

Based on what we saw in the offseason with the Padres shopping of Jake Peavy for young talent, its not so easy to find a trading partner. Sure, the Braves had much greater talent in their organization to acquire, but they were holding onto those players. The players the Pirates recieved are decent prospects. In particular, Gorkys Hernandez has the potential of emerging into just as good of a player that Jordan Schafer will be.

The Pirates used a similar approach that Andrew Friedman has used in changing the face of the franchise of always acquiring pitching arms to throw into the mix. Charlie Morton has a small sample size at the major league level, but he is sure to get an opportunity to impress with the Pirates. Pitcher Jeff Locke has drawn the praises of Baseball Prospectus and John Sickels in their writeups on him this off season.

All things considered, this is a trade you can’t really properly evaluate today. Two years from now, I think this is a win win deal for both organizations. Its clear to me with the acquisition of McLouth for the Braves, it signals the end of the Jeff Francoeur in a Brave uniform even sooner than once believed. In the Pirates case, when your are building for 2011 and beyond, and you are offered several players that will help the franchise to better improve the overall talent, you make the deal.

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With the MLB draft on Tuesday, I participted in the Mock draft at MVN Outsider and selected for The Tampa Bay Rays http://mvn.com/outsider/2009/06/mlb-outsider-mock-draft-tampa-bay-rays-select-andrew-oliver.html

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There has been a lot of fallout after the Mets firing of Willie Randolph as their manager. I personally thought the relationship between Willie and Reyes had run its course. It seemed like Willie’s first project after taking the job 3 years ago was taking Jose under his wing.

I listened to Mike Silva’s podcast last night and he thinks Backman is the man for the job as his personality and moneyball approach would be a nice fit.

It seems Big Tony was overstepping his role as Omar’s right hand man. He was influential and divisive force in getting in the Wilpon’s ear to remove Randolph.

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