Your Saturday morning dose of New York Mets and Major League Baseball news, notes, and links.
Meet the Mets
Sandy Alderson spent some time on Friday afternoon appearing on talk radio shows. First, he had a brief appearance on 98.7 ESPN radio with Mike Lupica and spoke about payroll – he says he'll spend more than $5 million this winter. Then, Sandy hopped on with Mike Francesa on WFAN and went more in-depth, emphatically saying that the team will be aggressive and have new players this winter. We have the full transcript of his WFAN interview right here.
One of the interesting things Sandy mentioned was that he is open to moving pitching should the right deal present itself. However, Noah Syndergaard is almost completely off limits.
Speaking of Mr. Syndergaard, Baseball Prospectus has a fantastic piece on the giant Mets' pitching prospect complete with animated GIFs. You have to be a BP subscriber to see it but it's definitely worth the read.
Toby Hyde writes that Baseball America really liked the Mets' signing of minor league free agent reliever Joel Carreno last week. Well, that's nice to hear.
Finally, Scouting NY has a great piece on the Iron Triangle Chop Shops out behind Citi Field, complete with pictures. With the Willets Point project finally moving forward, it sounds like the chop shops don't have much time left.
Around the Majors
At Fangraphs, Jeff Sullivan looked at the most startling trend in baseball – the rapid growth of extremely hard throwing pitchers over the last five years. Jeff also searched for the value of Yadier Molina.
Bleed Cubbie Blue has an awesome video of baseball in color from 1965. It's a game between the Cubs and Reds in which Cincinnati pitcher Jim Maloney threw a 10-inning no-hitter.
The Tigers and Joe Nathan were said to have mutual interest but Detroit may actually prefer to sign Brian Wilson as their closer.
The Orioles may tradeMatt Wieters or J.J. Hardy to create payroll flexibility.
Jeff Passan reports that the Phillies are willing to give a three-year deal to a new set-up man like Edward Mujica. PhiLOLies.
The Phils may be one of four teams pursuingRicky Nolasco.
Dodgers' reliever J.P. Howell talked about Yasiel Puig being bullied in the Dodgers' clubhouse a couple of days ago but then clarified those comments yesterday.
The Nationals have significant interest in Oliver Perez. NationLOLs.
Yesterday At AA
Who could forget Dae Sung Koo's trip around the bases in 2005 against Randy Johnson? In case you did, Matthew Yaspan helps you remember.
We have free agent profiles for Michael Morse, Hiroki Kuroda, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. He'd eat a large portion of their budget this winter but I'd love to see Kuroda pitch for the Mets.
Matthew also looked at MLB Trade Rumors free agent predictions.
If you read an article or find a link that you think would be a great addition to a future edition of Mets Morning News, please forward it to our tips email address tips@grission.com and we'll try to add it in.