Channel Your Inner Alderson: What Moves Would You Make?

There are any number of articles posted online grading Sandy Alderson’s offseason performance at the helm of the Mets’ brain trust making personnel decisions.  While there were some divisive moves like the contract extension for the downward trending performance of Terry Collins, the Chris Young overpriced contract for what he’s recently delivered and jettisoning popular Justin Turner, most agree the Curtis Granderson deal was necessary to provide the left handed power that Lucas Duda and Ike Davis have not consistently supplied.  The Bartolo Colon deal also gets more praise than condemnation given its short duration and the fact that in the latter stages of his career Colon has performed BETTER rather than deteriorating.

However, by anyone’s measure Alderson’s grade (to use academia’s preferred terminology) is “Incomplete”.  Going into the offseason it was clear they needed help in the outfield, in the starting rotation, at shortstop and at first base.  While he’s addressed the first two deficiencies, with Spring Training looming about a month away it appears that 2014 will begin as 2013 did with Ruben Tejada at short and the two headed lefty monster of Ike Davis and Lucas Duda fighting it out for last man standing at 1^st base.  Considering that the team lost a Cy Young contender in Matt Harvey, then dispatched two of their better bats in the same deal to Pittsburgh, replacing them with a 40 year old and a pair of “sluggers” coming off Mendoza-like performances, some would say there’s little reason for optimism.   

It’s not as if Alderson hasn’t tried.  He asked for the moon from the Brewers, Pirates and Orioles, but thus far has been rebuffed.   Oddly, for a team chock full of good pitching prospects, his demands have been for more pitching.  Theoretically obtaining still more pitching would make it somewhat easier to deal from this surplus to fill other holes, but thus far he’s had no takers.

For awhile it seemed as if Daniel Murphy might be on the trading block for reasons of desirability to other teams and economics as he stands to earn close to $6 million in arbitration.  Losing Murphy would open up 2^nd base to AAA slugging leader Wilmer Flores who is right now ticketed to repeat the same level he dominated in 2013.  However, if the media reports are accurate, no one ever got serious in discussions about Murphy or maybe it was the Mets who realized that hard workers who can play multiple positions and whose game evolves year-to-year (such as adding stolen bases in 2013) are not that easy to find. 

The inertia regarding unresolved personnel moves is palpable and the fans are fairly frustrated.  The Mets have invited quite a few of their notable prospects to the big league camp this winter, but the odds of a Rafael Montero or Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard coming north are about on par with Lucas Duda successfully stealing a base.  Jenrry Mejia seems to be the odds-on favorite to win the 5^th starter’s job until either his arm falls off or the SuperTwo deadline passes, at which time some of the other talent might be headed to LaGuardia. 

So, if you’re the GM and can make controllable moves with the personnel currently on the roster what would you do?  You can’t force trades to happen, but you can suggest who you would market more aggressively to other GMs.

For example, take the man without a position, Wilmer Flores.  He had 9 RBIs in his first 27 big league ABs and hit .321 while leading the PCL in RBIs last year.  Do you make a spot for him in Queens, send him to back to Sin City or try to peddle him to a team in need of a 3^rd baseman or DH who might cough up a shortstop in return?

Between Ike Davis and Lucas Duda, what do you do?  Davis is the better glove and has shown at different points in his career the ability to hit for average and for power.  Duda had one period of batting .290 but never approached this lofty level again.  Davis hit .286 in his return from Vegas and was batting .302 over the start of his 2011 campaign before his mysterious ankle injury shelved him for the rest of the year.  Davis also responded what seems a decade ago (but in actuality in 2012) with 32 HRs.  Duda’s high water mark is 15 (twice).  As down as I am on Ike Davis, the posturing from the Mets about making Duda “the man” must be strictly about money as there’s no way to evaluate the two of them and conclude Lucas is the better choice.  Duda should be in the minors or cut loose as he he’s not valuable enough with the bat to keep on the bench and he’s not versatile enough to play multiple positions.  (We’ve all seen him in the OF – shades of Roger Cedeño!)  If, by chance, you keep Flores on the team and send him to Vegas, then have him play 1B every day in anticipation of another Davis swoon.

What about shortstop?  Tejada is a right handed version of Omar Quintanilla with a somewhat better bat until what hopefully is just the aberration of 2013.  He’s not a good enough fielder to justify his role on that basis alone.  He’s certainly not a good enough hitter with almost no power.  For a slender guy he doesn’t steal bases.  On a good team he’d be a decent backup for two middle infield positions, but on a 70-75 win team should he be the starter?  Personally, I’m tired of the same old, same old and Ruben may be (for me, anyway) the odd man out.  If you can parlay Flores into a AAA shortstop who can step into his rookie campaign in 2014 to replace Tejada, so be it.  Failing in that, I’d see if what Collins said about Flores improving his quickness after fat, er, conditioning camp is true and tell him to try a shortstop’s glove one more time.  Yes, he’ll cost the team some runs for sure, but he’d produce at least double the number Tejada would.

What about the leadoff position?  I keep having this nightmarish vision where Terry Collins has a pencil he uses to fill out the lineup card along with a well-worn eraser as we know the man is loathe to put the same players on the field two games in a row.  However, in this dream written in permanent Sharpie is the name Eric Young while Juan Lagares and his magical glove and arm are never seen again.  For his career Eric Young, Jr. has a .325 mark in OBP – not exactly the stuff of Shin Soo Choo or Rickey Henderson.  Do you want to know what Juan Lagares has done over his minor league career?  .322!  For negligible difference of .003 I’d say challenge Lagares to play every day and lead off to see if he can deliver unless, of course, that hypothetical shortstop the Mets acquire in the Flores trade is a better candidate.  In Las Vegas last year Lagares had a .378 OBP, so it’s within him to deliver. 

The likelihood of any of these scenarios actually happening (other than Mejia being the 5^th starter) are fairly nil, but at this time of the off-season when the only game on tap is salary arbitration roulette, it’s something to ponder.