Reds sign Mesoraco

[Hit-n-Run]

The Reds signed Meso to a 4 yr. $28M deal avoiding all his arbitration years plus one. IMO, I'd liked to have seen a couple years added to the deal to lock him up until he's 32.

This deal makes much more sense to me than chasing the golden goose Cueto has become. It'd be hard to imagine the Reds forking out $150M plus to a pitcher and being able to sign Meso and possibly Frazier to contracts throughout their prime years.

 

[kylezengel]

Love the deal. The Reds underused Mesoraco during the Hannigan years, but it seems that now they finally understand his value as a player. Getting Cueto has certainly become an even bigger stretch now but hey you can't get them all especially as a small market team.

 

[JohnU]

Mesoraco really only became a big-league catcher when he realized the job was his to take. Price gave him that chance and he's done very well so far. As catchers go, great arm ... is learning the pitchers ... still not a great catcher.
If he hits, he'll be somewhere else on the field in a couple of years.
Cueto will walk or be dealt. I am betting that he walks.
Long-run, the Reds need to sew up some hitting and if they can get a quality bat that they can sign, maybe he will be traded.
These days, good pitchers will get you to the playoffs. Great pitchers will cost you too much to make the effort worthwhile. What MLB needs is guys who can hit and nobody is getting that done.

 

[redsfan03]

Good signing. Get them while they're young. Mes still needs to take that next step, but he has improved every year in the league. I'm thinking 2015 could be a breakout year for him (though last year could be considered one as well). I love his attitude - we need more guys like him on this team.

 

[Redsfan1507]

These guys all make too much money.

Don't get me wrong- I like Mesoraco...BUT- fans are always happy when they sign a guy coming off a good year, and whine about it a few years later when they are injured or underperforming. All of us were happy when they signed Griffey, Arroyo, Harang, Votto, Phillips, Bruce, etc....and were ready to run them out on a rail when they suddenly got old and overpaid before their contract was up.

To be honest, I find paying a defacto platoon player sitting every other game $28 Million ridiculous, even if it is the current market rate. I'd feel a lot better about Mesoraco if they found a way to get him 500 at bats- considering he hit 25 HR in about 350 AB and change. Either he has to be durable enough to catch 135-140 games a year, or they need another position to hide him at for 35-40 games a year...of course, stats aren't always linear- meaning he wouldn't neccessarily be a 40 HR guy with another 150 at bats- but when your alternative is sitting him on the bench every other game for a guy that is going to hit 8 HR a season, you gotta see it as a self imposed deduction of offense. Playing 1b is catching, of sorts, without squatting...but of course, the guy you want playing there is owed a quarter Billion dollars, so I'm hoping Mesoraco isn't getting 40-50 games there this year....I'd vote for a nice, safe, un-demanding OF spot...say LF, where the Reds have perennially played long shots and has beens since George Foster or Kal Daniels, or Adam Dunn if you considered him a player of value.

I get where they are going with Mesoraco. I also know the farm is the answer to all problems- the Reds had 2 #1 catchers in waiting and traded Grandal ( and a few others) to get Latos- who helped the Reds, but not to win a post season series, and wound up with only a couple of non descript minor leaguers in return. I hope they kept the right one in Mesoraco- he has a stronger arm and was more defensively advanced than Grandal- who was viewed by most to be the better projected hitter, albeit maybe not without PEDS.

Cueto was a name not many people knew when he suddenly became the next big thing, on a team without many/any quality starting pitchers at the time. It took Homer Bailey a lot longer to live up to his hype, and then as soon as he got the big check, he's lame... Now they're both expensive...one is signed, and one might walk...so where's the new Cueto ? I wouldn't hold my breath believing he's in Goodyear this year, or that he's one of the 5.00 ERA newbies they got in trade.

Long term contracts are a catch-22. Teams sure look like geniuses when they let a player walk before the big payday, and replace him with a great, cheap, hungry farmhand. Others look like chumps paying a guy $20 Mil a year for 8 years that wind up hitting like a crippled utility player. To be honest, I'd take my chances not extending to avoid arbitration- if he gets $5 Mil more than you want to pay, he deserved it didn't he ? At least you're not hung out 4 more years if he suddenly starts hitting like B.J. Upton. If you can avoid free agency with an extension, I buy into that more... by that time you've got a couple more years sample size on the guy and you still aren't betting the farm on a 5 year deal.

A better farm makes just saying no a lot easier.

 

[JohnU]

In Mesoraco's case, I don't think his surge in power is an outlier but I will be real surprised if his career average is more than about 20 HR a year with a .265 or so BA. What other metrics can be used to evaluate him depend on where he hits in the lineup and how much rest he needs from catching.

 

[Redsfan1507]

I think Mesoraco could be the best hitting Reds catcher since Bench... That's not saying much, because other than Joe Oliver, there hasn't been one since Bench that hit much, at all.

Mesoraco hit 25 homers in just over half the at bats of an everyday player that doesn't walk much...even with very few reasons to pitch to him, considering the usual on deck hitter with Meso at the plate. Meso mostly hit strikes... This phenomenon speaks to the relative ignorance of MLB pitching, although I expect a MLB adjustment to Mesoraco this season might suggest more pitch arounds, with the hopes that whoever taught Jay Bruce his plate "discipline", will work the same whiffaholic magic on Meso. I hope he's smart enough to take the walk in those cases. Bruce wasn't.

I'd like to see Mesoraco hit 3,4 or 5 in the lineup, with someone hitting behind him that could either hit above .260 or hit more than 20 HR....(God forbid one guy could do both and not be in the top 3 in the Reds lineup). I think he has a better chance of building instead of backsliding that way. I honestly see Phillips as no better than a 6 or 7 hitter if he still refuses to walk while hitting under .270 with no more HR or SB potential than he has. Hamilton is the only leadoff hitter choice, Frazier isn't a 2 hitter, but maybe the "new" Joey Votto is. Jay Bruce just has to make more contact and hit more HR than last year, or he's a 7 hitter at best. Byrd isn't a contact hitter either, but he's probable to hit for a higher average than Bruce and hit more HR than Phillips. I'd hit Cozart 9th if Leake was pitching. It isn't a prospective bad lineup- I just dunno how many they are going to need to score to win, when Cueto, Bailey or Leake isn't the starting pitcher.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I'd say the best hithing catcher between Bench and Mesoraco would probably be Eddie Taubensee. Weird career path for Eddie. Drafted by the Reds, struggled for five years, left unprotected and the A's took him in the rule 5 draft. Bounced around a few years struggling and the Reds reacquired him in a trade. Then out of nowhere he had 6 or 7 descent years and then fell back into oblivion.

A lot players in the 90's seemed to improve overnight. No one in the MLB front office seemed to notice.

 

[JohnU]

Hope springing eternal, as fans we have to wish against the odds that this team will have an aggregate batting average above .240 but there's not much chance that will happen. Votto could make a dent in that but the parts of his game that work are the parts that beat him -- he's not going to swing the bat.

Everybody else will.

whiff whiff whiff ... so we are back to Mesoraco and Frazier again and those guys are great supplemental players in a batting order, just not the guys who ought to be generating the offense.

Maybe what we have is good enough ... I think 85 wins is a reachable goal. It might be good enough for 5th place.

We can't really talk about any one player without considering the product as a whole. Meso and Frazier stepped up nicely in the roles they had to play. I'd like to see some of the high-button contracts do a little more of that this year. Injuries are one thing ... injuries to the guys who rank 1-4 for the top 4 contracts in team history* ... something fully different.

*-Does Griffey count?

 

[Redsfan1507]

I think KGJ is still getting $10 M in deferred money this year from the Reds, so I think that counts.

Most of us wouldn't have missed many days work if it meant losing $200, a day much less the $120,000 per day Votto makes...I guarantee, Votto wouldn't have missed half a season last year if he didn't get paid for being absent. Votto wasn't injured- he was experiencing "discomfort" in his quad. Johnny Bench said he wasn't sure if there was a DL when he played- they wrapped a sore quad and played, maybe rested at 1b instead of catching for a game or two. Good thing Joey gave up catching- he'd never play.

I think Mesoraco could and should catch 115-125 games. If he was hitting like last year, I'd find him another position for an additional 15-25 games...especially if my LF tandem was on pace for .235/9 HR.