The New York Mets added minor league pitchers Steven Matz, Jeff Walters, Jacob deGrom and Erik Goeddel to the 40-man roster today, the deadline for shielding them from this year’s Rule 5 draft.
You can check Mets Minor League Blog for more on these guys; I’m not going to spend a lot of time writing about players I’m not very familiar with.
I just thought this would be a nice chance to show off the 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Picks Steve Matz autograph card I picked up for a couple of bucks recently.
With the roster currently full, the Mets will have to remove someone before they can sign a free agent or select a player from another team in the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft.
In other news, Sandy Alderson yesterday offered a weak defense of his decision to delay Ruben Tejada‘s September call up just long enough to make sure he wouldn’t earn credit for a full year of major league service time.
“I think our position is that we have very wide discretion in how we call up players in September,” Alderson said. “In the case of all of these players, we exercised that discretion and brought some up at a particular time and some up at a later time. That was totally within our right to do.”
Somehow, I think that an arbitrator would see things differently if Tejada and his agent do follow through with the grievance process. (I also think Tejada should be focused on proving that he belongs in the major leagues, or he won’t have to worry about when he becomes eligible for arbitration and free agency.)
Tejada, Lucas Duda and Wilmer Flores are all taking part in a voluntary fitness camp for disappointing players in Michigan this month, along with several minor league prospects. Let’s see if any of them are still Mets on March 31st, 2014 and if it has any tangible benefits.
Considering some of the hot stove chatter surrounding the Mets, I would not be shocked if Tejada and Omar Quintanilla end up sharing the shortstop position again next year, despite Alderson’s reported desire to upgrade there.
PaulHadsall.com 