While there are countless things about which to criticize
the manner in which the Mets go about doing business, there has been lately
nary a whisper about the decision to pay $60 million to one Curtis Bay, er,
Granderson, to patrol a corner outfield slot for the Amazin’s. His frigid start made you long for the
offensive prowess of an Eric Young or a Ruben Tejada, but then something
clicked when he went into the leadoff spot and he seemingly found whatever he
was missing and all was right with the world.
Or is it?
For laughs I went back and took a look at what Jason Bay did
during his tortured tenure with the NY Mets.
Over a 162 game average according to Baseball-reference.com he could be
expected to provide the following:
.234 Batting Average
15 HRs
70 RBIs
15 SBs
146 Ks
.318 OBP
.367 Slugging Percentage
.697 OPS
If we extrapolate Curtis Granderson’s 2014 stats for the
rest of the season we get:
.225 batting average
22 HRs
64 RBIs
12 SBs
151 Ks
.334 OBP
.398 Slugging Percentage
.732 OPS
See any painful similarities? Both are seemingly nice guys, good in the
clubhouse and hard workers but neither provide the type of production
commensurate with their paychecks. The
Mets seemed to be in nearly as much a hurry to sign Granderson as they were to
sign Chris Young. There were many other
options available and the normally patient Sandy Alderson may have made a costly Omar Minaya-like mistake.
To be fair, Granderson in the leadoff role is not getting
the RBI opportunities Bay did hitting more often in the middle of the
order. However, when Granderson was
batting cleanup it was when he was at his worst. Did the Mets envision a $15 million per year
leadoff guy when they pushed papers across the table for Granderson to
sign? Probably not.
It seems like the best way to recover from this mistake
would be to sign someone to play SS or LF who can slot in at leadoff and move
Granderson into a more productive spot in the batting order where hopefully he
can regain the run producing form that saw him average 29 HRs and 81 RBIs in a
typical year.
5 comments:
Signing nice guys can cost you.
Hopefully, this multi-millionaire will progress, and not regress, during the remaining 3 1/3 years of his Bay-like contract.
I do recall talk of his having his early horrific slump accentuated by long fly balls that died deep in right field the cool spring April air in Citi Canyon. Bring the fences in this off-season to help the Grandy investment not look like a bust one. If he picked up another half dozen homers and several more doubles, his #'s would hold up far better to the intense scrutiny that is Metsville.
That picture tells it all, too, big smiles from Sandy and Curtis and a grimace grin from the payer of the bills.
I hope I'm wrong, but Jose Abreu went for the same kind of money and I screamed from the rooftops to sign him. I never quite understood the rationale for overpaying for people coming off down seasons -- Young, Granderson, Wright, Francisco...
Reese, they are perhaps too enamored with past memories, as the large emphasis on Jackie R when Citi was built probably showed. Abreu and Byrd signings instead of Grandy and CY would have thrust this franchise forward.
There's a reason those lightning-in-a-bottle signings don't usually net good results. Marlon Byrd is the exception to a scrap heap pick-up that worked. R.A. Dickey is another. However, for those few you have the Bobby Abreu, Jose Valverde, Kyle Farnsworth, John Lannan, Shaun Marcum, etc., that just wasted roster space and kept younger players from having an opportunity.
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