Projected Mets 2012 MVP – RF – Lucas Duda

By Mack Ade

I’ve told this story before.

I was hanging out at Grayson Stadium in 2007, shooting the breeze with Greg Mullens, a starter on the Savannah Sand Gnats that year. Mullens had just been promoted that week from Brooklyn and we were talking about playing there in the same town he graduated college (Columbia) in.

I asked him if there was anybody there that I needed to keep my eye on and he was the first to tell me about, as he put it, “the sweetest swing I had ever saw.” He was talking about Lucas Duda.

I went home that night and bookmarked his name, though I have to tell you, his stats weren’t screaming off the screen. He did finish the season with a .299 batting average, but he only hit four home runs. What he did do was lead the team in doubles (20).

I never got to see him play. He skipped Savannah and went straight to Lucy in 2008. A two-level jump did have its effect on his production, but he eventually adjusted and began quite the rise in both power and overall production:

2008 – St. Lucie: .398-Slug/.756-OPS
2009 – Binghamton: .428/.808
2010 - Binghamton: .503/.914
2010 - Buffalo: - .610/.999
2011 - Buffalo: - .597/1.011

Lucas arrived very quietly in Queens well into the 2011 season and started out just as quietly, both on and off the field. Someone asked Jason Bay once what the guy was like and Bay said he didn’t know because Duda had never said a word to him. Coaches throughout his young career had often said they couldn’t wait for him to crawl out of his shell one day, but he never did.

Baseball is one-half talent and the other half … well, some call it attitude. Others say concentration, while still others simply have named it confidence. If you’ve played any sport, you know what I’m saying here.

Case in point: I had a great tennis serve, but my volley wasn’t worth a shit. I could be down 30-love, but if I was serving, I was never worried as I bounced the ball back and forth in my John McEnroe stance. However, put me up 30-love against a serve and I just knew I was going to fuck it up.

Duda had all the talent his huge body could hold, but all he needed was to start believing in himself as a major league baseball player. Terry Collins made a lot of good decisions last year, but none better than allowing Lucas to pay every day at the end of the season. He went .299/.407/.463/.870 in his last 28 games, but it was the final 14 that really charted off the, er, well ... chart: .364/.533/.727/1.261.

Those that have been with him at various promotional events this off season all have reported that he seems like a completely different person that spoke with a whisper when he first arrived at Willets Point.

And, this alone is the reason I say he will be the Mets' most valuable player in 2012.