Morning Report – 4-22-14 – 2014, Third Base

1964 World's Fair

Coming Up –

        10am – Christopher Soto - Astros Call Up OF George Springer, Help Out The Mets.

        12 noon – d’Whit - Who's the PTBNL? Reviewing 2013 Pittsburgh Pirate Draft Picks Round 1

          2 pm –   Baseball America - College Top 100 Hitters

           5pm -  Jeff Hoffman, Aramis Garcia, Skyler Ewing, Sean Reid-Foley, Alex Jackson

          8pm –  RHP - Jeff Hoffman - East Carolina

We lost power here on Easter Sunday, which resulted in blowing out my router. I’m still waiting for someone to come to my house and install a new one (welcome to small town America), so most of my writing for this report (Tuesday) is being written offline on Sunday night.

The Mets will either be one game above or one game below .500 when you read this; however, it will still be a flawed team.

We spend a lot of time on this site discussing what we feel the Mets do right or do wrong, but let’s stop and realize something before go forward.

The 2014 Mets are playing without their best starting pitcher and probably one of the best in baseball (Matt Harvey), their primary closer (Bobby Parnell), a very serviceable starter who could be productive as a long reliever (Jeremy Hefner), and the most productive outfielder on the team (Juan Lagares). They also have played with a leadoff hitter (Eric Young Jr.) with a below-average OBP and three starters, SS Ruben Tejada, RF Curtis Granderson, and C Travis d’Arnaud have hit far below projected levels.

And yet… the team is either one game below or one game above .500.

You know, after reading what I just wrote, I’m surprised this team has won a single game this year!

As a writer, I can’t get excited or depressed about this team, but I haven’t seen that many examples of them being blown out to the point that the eventual end of the game could be predicted early. Saturday’s game was a perfect example of a game that looked like the Mets lost three times. The good news was they remained competitive throughout the pitching breakdown that was going on, on the field.

I believe the plan should remain to finish at the .500 percentage level at the all-star break, sell off Bartolo Colon (if anyone wants him), probably also sell Chris Young for a long term shortstop, and call up both Rafael Montero and Noah Syndergaard, who seem to be fermenting a little at the AAA level.

There is one adjustment you can make to this plan. What if Chris Young proves out to be a good 2014 sign? The Mets are short in outfield talent and it wouldn’t kill them to think about offering Young an extension through either the 2015 or 2016 season.

Lastly, hopefully the Mets will continue to tinker with the pen. We just came off eight wonderful scoreless innings in the Sunday game, but this represents the exception. Jeurys Familia still looks shaky at best and things would work much better if the Mets could find another lefty. I’m hoping we’ll see the return of Vic Black soon and maybe the new kid from Pittsburgh will join him as well.

A work in progress.

			G	AB	R	H	BA	OBP	OPS
MLB	David  Wright		18	76	9	24	0.316	0.369	0.751
	Daniel Murphy		16	72	10	21	0.292	0.307	0.64
AAA	Zach Lutz		18	67	13	20	0.299	0.44	0.858
	Wilmer Flores		15	62	8	16	0.258	0.338	0.709
AA	Brian Burgamy		12	42	5	12	0.286	0.434	1.029
	Dustin Lawley		12	45	6	9	0.2	0.25	0.583
A+	Jairo Perez		6	24	4	9	0.375	0.4	0.858
	Robbie Shields		2	9	1	3	0.333	0.333	0.667
	T.J. Rivera		14	60	12	23	0.383	0.422	0.989
A	Jeff McNeil		14	50	7	16	0.32	0.397	0.957
	Victor Cruzado		13	42	8	8	0.19	0.32	0.653

It’s no big secret that none of us, including the Mets front office, have had any worries about third base in quite a while Sure, David Wright (.316… all batting averages quoted are end of games 4-20) has gone down with a couple ticky-tacky injuries, but he has always bounced back in the quickest amount of time and he has also always produced quality numbers over the length of his career.

The other great thing to put in our back pocket is the fact that he’s under a Mets contract through the 2020 season. This is a positive thing. I wish I could say the same about the Mets other lengthy contract, but, at least, Wright’s has proven to be an asset to the team.

Players like Wright have the ability to change the direction of how a team drafts. It’s not a coincidence that you haven’t seen the Mets draft anyone to challenge Wright at this position in the past five to seven years. Still, new would be a good time to start to look to the distant future, as well as check out some of the guys that could be called upon in case of any lengthy injury to the Captain.

Wright’s backup in Queens is Daniel Murphy (.292) (which is fine if both stay healthy), but, trust me, Zach Lutz (.299) would be pulled from the Vegas game in a New York minute and put on a plane to where the next Mets game was scheduled. I wish the Mets would pay Lutz more than the AAA rate. He’s such a valuable insurance policy for the team, especially since no one is currently pushing him in the system.

Lutz’ backup is actually Wilmer Flores (.258), who is now the primary shortstop for the Fifty-One’s (is that how you call them?).

Binghamton shares Brian Burgamy (.286) and Dustin Lawley (.200) at third, though Lawley is trying to break through as a future Mets outfielder. Obviously, as you see, he’s not off to the kind of start everyone had hoped for this season.

Jairo Perez (.375), a newcomer to the Mets is now your primary St. Lucie third baseman with Robbie Shields (.333) ready and waiting in the dugout. Frankly, it’s too early to tell if we should keep an eye on Perez. Standing in the background is T.J. Rivera (.383) who has had the lion share there this season but is now playing first base.

And lastly, Savannah adds two non-prospects to the list, Jeff McNeil (.320) and Victor Cruzado (.190).

Summary:  There are a couple of interesting names in the extended camp (Jhoan Urena, Pedro Perez); however, this might be a good time to take a good look at someone like Notre Dame’s Jack Flaherty or Sprayberry (GA) HS’s Michael Chavez with their 10^th pick in the draft. Neither one of these two project as a top 10 pick but they could do worse.

Past that, look for more Wright and, hopefully, no wrong coming from this position for years to come.