I really like what
I am reading about that hitting coach Kevin Long has
been saying to the press this past week. One of his particular statements stood
out to me when he was asked if the Mets are better than last year’s .239 team
average, which ranked 28th in the majors:
“You are what you are.
We’ll see if we can get that number to increase. At the end of the day, it’s
really about scoring runs. We need to maximize our ability to score runs.
There’s some intangibles that come along with that. There’s base running.
There’s situational hitting.”
I talked a little about
this last week when I mentioned that the Mets will learn this year how to win
ballgames. Hitting over .239 is a good goal, but winnng 89+ games is a better
one, and frankly, you can do this hitting .239 if your hits are preceded with
runners in scoring position.
You also need a
considerable increase in on-base percentage, which Long addressed when he
talked about Juan Lagares. Lagares hit well
above the league average in 2014 (.281 vs. .250), but still needs improvement
on chasing bad pitches. Stop that and your walks increase, thus increasing your
OBP.
Long also seems to know
the limitation of the talent on this team so don’t be surprised you don’t see
more platooning than you expected. Guys like John
Mayberry Jr. were born for a platoon system and again… no one is going
to care at the end of the day who was in the lineup if you win the game.
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