IN THE SAME BOAT

Mets & Yanks should be sellers but won’t be

IT IS A BIT of a conundrum the Yankees and Mets find themselves in, mired in mediocrity as they both are, as July approaches and they begin formulating their trading deadline strategies. Neither one of them is likely to be going to the World Series es — and they know it, but that does not mean they won’t both be buyers rather than sellers when the market starts to heat up over the next xt couple of weeks. Because of their presently very imperfect states, the Yanks and Mets need to be dealing with even more of an eye on next xt year than any quick fixes for this season.

While the Yankees’ top priority should be pitching, they ey could also use another bat. With their outfield field and DH situations overcrowded and Mark Teixeira so far having a bit of a renaissance ance at first base, however, the only place where re an upgrade really works for them is third base, ase, especially since they have no third basemen men coming in the system, as scouts all seem m to agree their top prospect there, Eric Jagielo, elo, is going to have to move to first base. Actually, ally, there’s a dearth of third basemen everywhere, ywhere, but assuming the Diamondbacks s are serious about an impending fire sale, le, the Yankees ought to see what the asking king price is for Martin Prado. The versatile satile 30-year-old was a solid .300 hitter ter for four years in Atlanta, and has as been somewhat less in Arizona’s s pitcher-friendly Chase Field. But ut he’s a “plus” clubhouse guy the Yankees could plug in at third base to be covered there here for the next couple of years ears while adding depth to their lineup.

Pitching, howevowever, is where the Yankees are primarmarily focused. They hey can’t delude thememselves about CC Sabathia or Michael Pineda coming back as late-seae-season rotation saviors aviors or even contributing ibuting significantly next ext year. And, as usual, there are no potential impact mpact starters in the system m for the near term. With Manny anny Banuelos hurt again at Triple-A, the new pitching rave ave in the Yankee system is righthander ighthander Luis Severino, who impressed at LowA Charleston earlier arlier and threw six hitless innings in his second start at Tampa last week. ek. But he’s at least two years away and d for the Yankees, who have done an abysmal bysmal job of developing starting pitchers rs f for r d decades d sn now, it is a recurring theme: The closer their prospects get to the big leagues, the less they like them. Still, unless they’re desperate enough to sacrifice John Ryan Murphy, the best catcher in the organization, along with any of their really top prospects like Severino or 6-7 budding slugger Aaron Judge (which would be nuts), they don’t have enough other chips to pry Jeff Samardzija away from the Cubs, or the other available elite No. 1, David Price, from the Tampa Bay Rays — which means they should probably concentrate on second-tier starters like Jason Hammel of the Cubs or the Padres’ Andrew Cashner, both of whom are in their prime and could fit in as bona fide No. 2’s behind Masahiro Tanaka next year.

As for the Mets, with a surplus of starting pitching, they need to continue combing other organizations’ high minors for a power bat, with an eye on going all in on J.J. Hardy next winter if the Orioles are foolish and shortsighted enough to let their All-Star shortstop become a free agent. The Mets’ good news is that their best position-player prospects — outfielder Brandon Nimmo, slugging catcher Kevin Plawecki and second baseman Dilson Herrera have all graduated to DoubleA Binghamton and are seemingly now on the fast track for Citi Field delivery no later than next season.

AN OLD BREW GM

For a guy whose team has just had the best first-half in the 45-year history of the franchise, Milwaukee Brewers GM Doug Melvin is sounding pretty grumpy about the state of baseball these days. Maybe it’s because the 62-year-old Melvin, an old s school GM who values scouts over Ivy Leagu League whiz kid stat geeks, thinks his NL CentralCentral-leading Brewers deserve a little more respect from the Sabermetrics crowd. “There’s this o one guy,” Melvin was saying by phone Friday, Friday “who rates the prospects in every organizati organization, and last year labeled (Brewer second baseman) bas Scooter Gennett ‘just a backup utili utility player.’ Well, Scooter’s only hit nothing bu but .300 since last year and been one of our most important players this year and yet, when th the guy was asked about him again last week, he repeated the same thing; that he thought he was nothing more than a ‘backup utility pl player.’ Why can’t these (stat) guys ever admit th they’re wrong? A lot of them don’t even watch the games. But then everything has chang changed so much in baseball. Everything now h has to be immediate. We live in a world of Instagrams In when, more than any other spo sport, the most important thing in baseb baseball is that you’ve got to be patient.”

Melvin cited his l left fielder, Khris Davis, currently le leading the Brewers with 14 homer homers and 42 RBI, as perhaps the best example of that. It took Davis fi five years to win himself a re regular job with the Brewers Brewers, partly because of his below-average below arm, even for left l field. “This winter I t traded (outfielder) Noric Norichika Aoki, who was on one of our most popu popular players, to Kans Kansas City for (lefty relie reliever) Will Smith, who whose been a key guy (1.36 ERA, 49 Ks in 39.2 IP) i n our bullpen,” Melvin sa said. “I couldn’t have do done that if I didn’t think Da Davis was ready to be an ever everyday productive player for us us.” So the Sabermetric Sa set aside, how doe does Melvin assess his Brewers, wh who, going into the weekend, had the largest lead of any of the first-plac first-place teams? “We’re not great, but we’re not bad either,” he said. “What we are is very balanced in the four im important areas — offense, where we’re second (in the NL) in runs, startin starting pitching, bullpen and defense, wh where we’re considerably improved from last year when we had 24 errors alone at first base.”