The Outfield Situation

Lucas Duda’s emergence this season has been one of the Mets’ bright spots. Although he has regressed a bit in the month of September, he’s still riding a .900+ OPS in almost 200 post-ASB at bats. Even though his batting average has dropped a bit, his OBP is almost 100 points higher than his BA and his K rate has actually improved. After struggling a bit at first, he learned quickly to make adjustments and gained in confidence as the season has worn on. The Mets have serious questions about their OF next year, however the only issue regarding Duda is where he will play, not if he will.

As Jason Bay’s contract and his struggles since he joined the Mets make him impossible to trade, he will almost certainly pair with Duda to man the corner OF spots in 2012. Any talk of him playing CF is absurd and should not be taken seriously. It does however reinforce the ideas that he isn’t going anywhere and that the team is contemplating life without Angel Pagan. For a team looking to save money, Pagan seems to be a likely casualty. He made $3.5 million in 2011 and stands to make at least a modest raise in 2012. My guess is that the front office will look to replace him with a cheaper option. Without sifting through and analyzing specific replacements, they likely can find a Rule V draftee or some team’s 4^th OFer to hold down CF for a year at a .700 OPS. That is not to disparage Pagan or his contributions to the Mets over the last few years. However, at 31 years old he has little or no room for improvement and if he likely isn’t going to be part of the team past next year, his salary slot provides an opportunity to save money and move on now. As mentioned in my most recent post - (http://tinyurl.com/affording2012) - Pagan’s savings added to Pelfrey and Paulino’s salary relief opens up possibilities for the team to improve its pitching.

So, given all of this the OF is shaping up with a LF to RF alignment of Duda-New CF-Bay. Incidentally, why would a team openly muse about playing Bay in CF and not RF? If he could potentially handle CF, RF would be no more difficult to play and it would allow Duda to shift to LF. Given his troubles in the OF (more on this below), Duda should be playing in Left. Although this alignment won’t evoke a lot of confidence at first glance, there is reason for optimism. Bay is experiencing the best 50 AB stretch of his Met career and appears to have worked out whatever bugs there are in his swing with Dave Hudgens. I touched on Duda’s progress above and I expect him to continue next year. Offensively, the OF could be a great offensive asset as a 3-4-5-6 of Wright-Davis-Bay-Duda has the potential to do a lot of damage…I would just hope that the damage the OF does on defense is minimized.

Such a configuration will likely be short-lived though. No matter how Bay performs, I don’t expect him to be part of the team in 2013. If he falls back and underperforms, he’ll likely end out of the loop even earlier with a younger option (Collins’ favorite Nick Evans? A call-up for Lagares) picking up playing time. In that case, the FO will look to move on from him after the season and would probably eat some of the last year of his deal to do so. If he returns to form, it gives Sandy & Co. the opportunity to ‘sell high’ and possibly entice a team to assume most of his deal. Either way he’ll likely be wearing another uniform after next year.

Whomever the Mets begin 2012 with in CF, I expect him to be on the bench by July. Kirk Nieuwenhuis is the Mets’ top OF prospect and continued his movement upwards in their minor league system last year with a great start at Buffalo. If not for his shoulder injury, he likely would have seen MLB playing time in 2011. I expect that he’ll begin the year in Buffalo (if he doesn’t win the job outright) and be up by midseason.

Finally, I also think that Lucas Duda will have a short tenure in a Mets uniform., lasting only through the 2012 season. I’ll be posting in the next day or two “Why Mets Fans Shouldn’t Get Too Attached to Lucas Duda” explaining why I think that when 2013 rolls around, The Dude will be playing in another city. Until then, I expect him to do his best holding down a corner OF spot as well as provide good pop from the 6-spot in the lineup.