Prisoners to “Potential?”
Nice win last night. An encouraging outing by Jenrry Mejia and Lucas Duda hits two homers. Duda’s heroics coming the day after he was named the starting first baseman.
Maybe it’s age, but the cynic in me wonders what both of these players will do for an encore. Is this the beginning of a solid, 25-start season for Mejia, or will he once more land on the DL with yet another arm ailment? Does Duda continue to hit for power and maintain a high OBP, or was last night an alluring flash in the pan, with his two homers representing about 40% of the round trippers he will hit between now and mid-May?
Jeff Wilpon aside, this is the crux of the Mets’ problems: they don’t seem to be able to effectively gauge what they have in the players on their roster. As one of the posters on this site pointed out recently, the Mets get greedy with players they think they can get big time production from at a low cost. When that goes south, there is no backup plan. Example A is Ike Davis. It is painfully apparent that they have overvalued Ike, letting a 32 home run season and a few acrobatic catches cloud their judgement as to his true worth as a player. Daniel Murphy, Ruben Tejada and Bobby Parnell are also good examples of this, flashes here and there but no consistent performance. Couple this with critical flaws in each player’s game and you get what we are most likely in store for this year: another losing season.
I favor backing up the truck and getting rid of any player not named Wright or Harvey. Instead, I think they will peddle the Fool’s Gold that was last evening as a sure sign that a turnaround is underway.
As far as backing up the truck, this team needs a leadoff hitter, a change in hitting philosophy, and a shortstop. That’s it. no team has or needs all-stars at every position. Wanted Jose Abreu, but, unless another difference maker is available… Although difficult to find, if the Mets can get a Segura or Andrus at SS, you have:
SS
Murphy
Wright
Granderson
Young
Duda/Davis/Satin
TDA
Lagares
Pitcher
That’s a nice lineup, with pretty good defense in most positions and a good starting rotation. Even the bullpen is not atrocious, just the lefties in it.
So, where will the Mets find a shortstop, leadoff hitter, and new hitting philosophy? And how will they acquire these assets?
I disagree re: the bullpen and the defense — the former is atrocious and the latter is adequate at best. And the starting rotation will lose at least 2 or 3 to injury by midseason. Niese, for sure, will be out for significant time with his shoulder and elbow issues, and I’m not ready to count on Mejia to be healthy through more than 10 starts.
This ship is sinking fast.
The hitting philosophy has hamstrung the younger hitters and many young hitters on the team have regressed in the past few years as their aggressive nature has been taken away. What are athletes always told? Stay aggressive! Well, they are being stripped if that.
To be fair, from what Ive read at different sites, nobody seems to be sure who to keep. Of course, blogs just go by stats, while the Mets live with these guys, so they should have a at least a head start.
Another question that comes to my mind is, how many teams are there that really excel in talent evaluation? The Cards, the As and the Rays, before it was the Twin. Thats not too many. The Mets have traditionaly been good with pitchers.
The followup question would be, what would those teams have done. Would the Cards have dumped them both as some suggest the Mets should do? I hate the idea of letting them go and have them become stars on another team, or trading them for peanuts with the same results. The Nolan Ryan trade or Ken Singleton come to mind.
In the end, is this a Mets problem or this part of a baseball/sport problem?