Okay, so far we have first baseman Ike Davis a lock for the 25-man.
Let’s take care of the obvious next… 3B David Wright.
It’s true that Wright hasn’t had a wonderful CitiField career so far, but that might change in 2012. I got a peek at the new dimensions going into the park and it seems to be being done with the primary emphasis on improving David’s HR and RBI totals. If you spray chart Wright’s hits this past season and put the changes that are being implemented in right-center, that alone looks like there would have been 11-14 more home runs last season if this all was done in the 2010-2011 off-season.
Defensively, Wright had a horrible end of the season, but I’ve been there in Central Park leagues. I played third for years and once for a terrible team in the summer of 1977. We started the season in dead last and got worse from there. Defense was the highlight of my game, but not that year. No, you lose a fair amount of your defensive edge when you’re down five runs in the first inning and it looks like it’s going to rain. You suck a lot more when your team has already been eliminated from the playoffs and you still have to play nine innings every night. Players won’t tell you this, but, trust me.
Wright is still Davey Baseball in my book and I can’t see the Mets trading him before this season. Now, jump to September 1, 2012 and the Mets are 25-games out of first place, and I think this piece would have a different story line.
We happily place Wright on the 25-man and slot him into the 3rd spot in the lineup, ahead of 1B Ike Davis. He and Ike currently represent the heart of the lineup, which (with no disrespect to them) doesn’t say much for the overall Mets lineup. But’ let’s remember that these guys outscored the Milwaukee Brewers last season.
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