Fallen Angel
Only a week ago, many of us were excited by the hot hitting of Angel Pagan. He was scorching the ball, hitting close enough to .500 to remind us of spring training stars such as Butch Huskey and Darren Reed.
However, it appears now that Angel has fallen to Earth.
Pagan is now down to .333, more than 100 points less than this time last week. We can say that it’s merely a minor slump, a few bad bounces, a bit of poor luck — after all, he has only 60 at-bats, so of course his average will drop drastically after going, say, 2 for his last 17.
In reality, it’s more like this: Angel Pagan is regressing to the mean, to his true capability.
For the first part of March, Pagan was “in the zone”, and it was fun to watch. But it wasn’t something that was going to continue forever. I still hope he will make the team, though I have a feeling Brady Clark will get that last roster spot. But it’s now clear why the Mets were looking for an outfielder, even though they seemingly already had one ripping the cover off the ball.
I’d imagine (and hope) that Brady will make himself as versatile as he can.