The Wright time at Shortstop for the Mets?

If you're at all a Met fan, and follow them to any degree, you should be well aware they're hurting at the SS position. Of course Jose Reyes was allowed to say Siō-nara by Sandy Alderson and the Wilpons, leaving all Met fans feeling at the very least, a little bit betrayed by both sides. Along with that feeling of betrayal came time to hold your breath and hope Ruben Tejada would be up to the job and not fall onto the interstate in batting average (or as we old-timers call it, the Mendoza line, based on the Atlanta Brave SS Mario Mendoza who had a lifetime .215 Avg, and hit .198 or below in 5 of his 9 Major League Seasons).

Well, Tejada had a pretty good start to the season before slumping a bit, but played solid if unspectacular defense, and at least until he was injured, he was actually hitting better than Jose Reyes was for the season. Unfortunately, Tejada did get injured, and did so while Ronny Cedeno, who was supposed to be his backup, was also still on the DL. The Mets turned to Jordany Valdespin who, in 21 at bats made the Mets long for the days when they had Buddy Harrelson or Rey Ordonez hitting, having put up a whopping .095/.136/.238, with an OPS of .374, and an xOPS of .510. Of course, that's not even considering Valdespin's personal problems.

After Valdespin failed, Justin Turner played some SS until Ronny Cedeno came back, but both Turner and Cedeno are now injured. With Valdespin's “valdue spinning” into a death spiral, the Mets were forced to turn to Omar Quintanilla, who at the young age of 31 has actually has produced in his 2 games as a Met, with 3 hits in 8 ABs, but given his past performance in his 530 major league ABs, putting up a very Mendoza-esque .215/.270/.289, with an OPS of .558 and an xOPS of .829, one can hardly expect him to do much more than be a Rey Ordonez clone minus the defensive prowess. To put those numbers in perspective, Mario Mendoza had a career OPS/xOPS of .507/.752, Honus Wagner .858/1.249, while Troy Tulowitzki thus far has career numbers of .868/1.232, and Jose Reyes .777/1.188.

So where does that leave the Mets in the meantime? Well, the Mets have Zach Lutz down at Buffalo, a third baseman who quite frankly is ready for the majors, or at least is ready, in my opinion, to be tested at the major league level. Thus far this year, Lutz is posting a line of .307/.413/.466, .879/1.292 down at Buffalo, and from 2009-2011, Lutz has hit 41 Hrs in just under 900 ABs.

David Wright is certainly capable of playing SS. He won't be the Wizard of Oz or Omar Vizquel, but he played there earlier this year and did just fine. He's a good enough athlete, and smart enough to play SS for the short term, and most importantly, if he can play SS well enough, he would represent a huge upgrade offensively, and it's my own personal belief the Mets would have a greater positive run differential with Wright at SS and Lutz at 3b than they will with Wright at 3b and Quintanilla at SS. Wright didn't seem to mind playing SS and he didn't look at all uncomfortable there, at least to me. The way I look at it, if Don Kessigner could play SS

Such a move is also not without precedent. Hubie Brooks, who had his best years with the now defunct Montreal Expos, started out at 3b with the Mets, but was only really thought to be outstanding because of his ability to play SS. In fact, the only reason the Mets were able to land Gary Carter was the Expos' correct belief Hubie Brooks would play a passable SS, and he most certainly did. Howard Johnson is another Met 3 bagger to play SS on occasion, and seeing as a major league SS only has ~4.5 chances per game, with <1 of those being difficult chances, there's absolutely no reason Wright shouldn't be able to fill in there, at least until the Mets get back one of their better options in Tejada, Cedeno, or Turner.

The Mets are relatively loaded at 3b, with Wright, Murphy, Lutz, and a surprisingly well performing Eric Campbell down at AA Binghampton, not to mention Wilmer Flores who's performing well at High A in Port St. Lucie. Because of this, and because of the paucity of good hitting shortstops in the Mets system, I believe it would a great time for the Mets to experiment a little bit, and see how David Wright handles SS. His throwing problems have been fixed thanks to Tim Teufel and with Wright's work ethic, I believe he has the necessary skills to play shortstop, at least at an acceptable level. Considering Wright's offensive production, and the upgrade it would be over anyone the Mets have in their system capable of playing SS, Wright wouldn't have to play particularly well at SS to be acceptable. As long as he made the plays you expect a SS to make, and there's no reason to think he wouldn't, it seems to me it is indeed the “Wright” time for the New York Mets at SS.

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On Tuesday night, Jeremy Heffner showed us precisely why the Designated Hitter rule is the worst thing to visit baseball before Free Agency. When a pitcher can hit a Homerun, or as the occasional Met pitcher like Walt Terrell can hit 2 homers in a game, a pitcher has a chance to make a major contribution to his team's scoring. Every other player has to both play the field and hit, so it has always seemed arbitrary to me to allow a team to have effectually a permanent pinch hitter. Tom Glavine had a career hitting line of .186/.244/.210, .454/.698. Those numbers are very close to Mario Mendoza's career numbers. Considering Glavine only won 305 games, I think it's fair to say, had he been an average hitter he either wouldn't have reached 300 wins, or would have had to pitch another season or two to do so. Heffner is only the 2^nd Met pitcher in their history to hit a HR in his first season in the majors. Paul Wilson is the other and did it in 1996.