While a lot of attention is rightfully being directed
towards the Mets’ roster shortcomings in the bullpen and behind the plate,
there is something of a surplus of options when it comes to how the outfield
and first base positions will be assigned in 2019. Let’s take a look.
All Lefty Outfield
We’ve seen this configuration during the 2018 campaign with
Brandon Nimmo, Michael Conforto and Jay Bruce suiting up alongside one
another. Conforto and Nimmo are probably
average to slightly above as corner outfielders. Bruce is passable but slow. There is no true centerfielder here and we’ve
seen both Conforto and Nimmo both get trials out there. This arrangement gives the Mets their best
offensive production but comes at the cost of defense.
Speaking of Defense…
Play Conforto and Nimmo on the corners and see if Juan
Lagares’ new hitting approach that led to a fast start with the bat before his
annual injury that cut short his season is sustainable. If so, then you can get a true centerfielder
out there which should only help make Conforto and Nimmo into more effective
outfielders when assigned to play the less challenging corner positions. Of course, then what do you do with Jay
Bruce?
Who’s on First?
There are so many ways to go here. If you choose the second outfield alignment
then Jay Bruce likely will get the opening day nod at 1st base. This approach allows his bat to be in the
lineup and coincidentally allows the team to stall the service time clock on
Pete Alonso.
Pounding Pete is possibly the right handed power bat the
Mets need to balance out their lineup, but playing him at 1st base
then relegates Juan Lagares and his Gold Glove defense into the 4th
outfielder status.
Dom Smith showed during his second call-up for August and
September that he can indeed be a productive bat. He’s probably more adept with the glove at 1st
than Jay Bruce but likely wouldn’t produce quite as much offense. Of course, you don’t know which Smith you’ll
get – the one of high average and moderate power or the one with high power and
moderate average. One thing’s for sure,
he plays 1st base a whole lot better than he does the OF which, to
be fair, asking him to learn the position on the fly was setting him up for
failure. Now choosing between Smith and
Bruce is more than just potential vs. proven.
It’s minimum wage vs. $14 million per year for the next two years. Smith may have more life here than you would
have thought as his trade value is still pretty much nil but Bruce could
potentially be swapped for someone else’s bad contract.
Then there’s Wilmer Flores, the man of a thousand positions
who plays none of them particularly well.
His bat plays in a better-than-James-Loney way, but his best attributes
to apply for the job are familiarity and right handedness. Unfortunately, as he approaches his final
year of arbitration he’s going to be costly and with bench pieces like Lagares
earning $9 million it’s possible he will be wielding his bat for another
team.
So now it’s your turn.
If you were making the outfield and first base assignments, who would
you slot where? It’s easy to say just go
out and sign a real centerfielder like A.J. Pollock, but then the already
crowded outfield becomes even more so.
If you do that, then the other 29 teams know you are in a desperate
position to dump salary and the already modest returns you might get for a Jay
Bruce or a Juan Lagares become even less likely to include anyone of
quality. At some point you have to
factor Yoenis Cespedes into the mix as well, though that may not be until
August or September.
Have at it.
13 comments:
Too bad right handed bat Cory Vaughn could never hit. He could do all else. He'd have been a good fit.
Wuilmer Becerra must be wondering what things would be like if he hadn't gotten hurt - never the same after that shoulder injury.
And if Champ Stuart had hit .336 and not .136 in 2018....etc.
Travis Taijeron? Same "couldn't hit enough" problem before he left.
Tim Tebow must wonder why he is a lefty bat, too.
Terrible job turning out right handed outfield bats, Mets, terrible job.
Put Rosario in CF and Gimenez opening day SS?
Only in-house solution I can think of.
Is back to the old alignment: Conforto LF, Nimmo/Lagares CF, Bruce RF. You then alternate Bruce at 1B a couple of times per week until Pete is ready.
The Mets simply have to find a way to get rid of Bruce. In a perfect world it would have been nice if the two LH power bats were Conforto and Bruce and the two right handed power bats were Cespedes and Pete.
But that all goes out the window if Bruce is still here when Cespedes comes back.
Morning Reese -
I would have to take a long look at Lagares in CF. This does push Bruce to first which would make him the starter there on opening day.
As I have said before, I would trade Alonso to Miami. And please don't tell me that Peter O'Brien has the same potential as Alonso. He hit ,216 last year in the minors and turns 29 in July.
Baseball America has Peter and Gimenez in its mid-50's of BB's top 100 prospects.
Very thorough piece Reese. The first thing I must say is you need Flores to cover second base in case McNeil has problems. He isn’t a proven all-star just because he has had two good months. Flores is insurance and can stand at third base too.
Gimenez will be in the minors, or traded to Miami with Petersen for Realmuto (my thoughts).
Smith or Bruce, not both. They are the same player. But, at the present time I don’t think they can part with one yet. That buys time to see Alonso, too.
Lagares is the best centerfielder in MLB. The best doesn’t sit, especially if his bat has awakened. You better find out before another team does. Only if the Lagares option doesn’t pan out, do I go to all lefty outfield. But, forget Cespedes this year. He may be back in August, but what do they do until then?
Alonso is the first baseman until he proves he isn’t. His numbers jump off the page, and quite honestly when you look at other players’ numbers, I must wonder what the heck Baseball America was thinking making him only #58.
Lastly, there’s plenty of room on the roster for a cleanup. Sewald, Peterson, And all the free agents will give way to promising youngsters and free agents.
My feeling is LaRacque is the front runner because of his Cardinals connection and his implementing “The Cardinals’ Way”. We all know the Mets’ Way is a cliff.
I guess we will have to live with our mistakes in 2019, which include Bruce.
Mack whats with the fascination of trading Alonso and worse for a catcher who is only a allstar because the position across baseball is so awful...
You tell me we are trading Alonso for trout, Nolan arrenado, or lindor then you have my attention but all we talk about is the Mets not developing you power players
Here is one and all the talk for trading him for a guy who hits 17 hrs and about 70 rbi position be dam...
You want a catcher how about offering Lugo and a pitcher say Kay for like a Salvador Perez
Lugo had a great year and look at the haul Miller and Chapman got
You want change you need to deal from strength or lose something you don’t want to lose.
What do we have at 1b? Nothing except Alonso who even if he fails is no cost.
Eddie
I have seen so many players hit 25+ home runs at the AAA level. That's one tool.
Alonso is not capable of playing first base at a major league level.
His fielding is sub-par at a major league level
He can not run at a major league level
And his arm is too weak at the major league level
Eddie, the key here is 'major league level'.
I would love him to be successful in Queens, BUT... his best asset right now is his trade value
Agree with Mack. Alonso greatest value is a to a DH club--and my target is Perez. I'll double down on Reese & see if can secure Melancon for Bruce.
My FT OF is Nimmo, Lagares & Conforto until Ces returns.
And the C.Ball tells me that of Rosario, Gimenez & Mauricio, Ronnie becomes the CFer.
Well Mack I can’t say your wrong because from my own eyes I have not seen Alonso play but to hear he won a defensive player of the month at any level of professional ball tells me he is probably passable or that entire league voting for the award doesn’t know what they are doing. He doesn’t have to be top 10 defensively at 1b if he can hit. How about the 25th best defensive 1b in the majors. After all what was Duda and he was awful.
And we do not have a better option? If Bruce can do it I can take my chances that a guy with power potential making 300k May be able to pan out. The old saying is if you can hit we’ll find a place for you to play.
And since the love affair for Realmuto is such. Here is a trade Rosario and Kay or another pitcher.
SS is a position we have depth and a pipeline.
I still only see avg ball player and he may have upside to another team with his second half.
Rosario can be your chip... and you can have your catcher
But I am on record we do need a catcher but a avg one. There is no such thing as a top 10 catcher today since there are only about 5/6 in the league worth a dam...
For me I love Reese idea of trading Bruce for Melancon since he may be able to rediscover his stuff under Eiland and we get rid of a guy we should never have even traded for the first time.
Lagares can NOT be counted on to be the Mets CF.
Heck, he can't be counted on to play more than 40 games in a season as a starter or bench player.
He would be the 1st player removed from my roster.
I've never seen Peter Alonso play other than the highlights of his homeruns, but I would not be so quick to trade a guy with that kind of power. He could be our Aaron Judge. A guy who can hit it out of any park and who wont be intimidated by Citi Field's dimensions. And with recent talk about the commissioner being open to having the DH in both leagues, we could have Alonso as our DH in a couple years (fingers crossed) if his defense at 1B is really that bad. Plus if AL teams think hes a DH then they wont want to give up much of value for him anyway so he would be of more value to us.
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