Eduardo Escobar's struggles and the early success of the young third baseman have forced the Mets' hand. Let's hope that this is the start of something big for Brett Baty.
Depending on what's going on in my life, it usually takes me two or three days to write one of my posts for this blog. I'm not a very slow writer, but the free time I get to put into this project is fairly limited right now. What keeps me going at all is how much I enjoy writing in general and how much I also love baseball, particularly Mets baseball.
As I sit here now, it's Sunday afternoon. Later on, the Mets will play Oakland in the final game of their series after just squeaking by the A's in Saturday's contest. When I began this piece a couple of days ago, the Mets still hadn't promoted Brett Baty from Syracuse. That all changed today, with the news that the young third baseman would join the team in LA tomorrow. While that was good news, indeed, it necessitated that this writer would need to make wholesale changes to a post that was 90% complete. However, never have I been happier to do a lot of extra work.
I had a funny feeling, barring a dramatic turnaround from Eduardo Escobar, Baty would be promoted before the Mets returned home on April 25. Escobar sat yesterday after going 1-5 in Friday night's shellacking of the Athletics. Although the double Eduardo hit in his last game finally lifted his 2023 OPS+ out of negative numbers, sitting at 7 at just under 50 PA is a number that the Mets clearly can't live with any longer.
The Mets haven't been setting the league on fire with their bats in the early going. They've faced some strong pitching staffs in this young season: Miami, Milwaukee, and San Diego, although the Marlins haven't lived up to expectations so far. But the Mets have had plenty of chances to score runs, they just haven't been getting the job done.
As with the times they struggled last season, it's the bottom of the batting order that's failing to deliver much offensively. The worst culprits are Tomás Nido (-24 OPS+) and Escobar, but they've had plenty of "help" from other players who have received ABs, including the now-injured Omar Narváez (78 OPS+) and Luis Guillorme (71 OPS+). Guillorme had a nice game Friday night (2-3, 3BB), but was 0-3 manning third in Escobar's absence on Saturday.
Look, other than Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor, no one in the lineup is producing what you would hope for, but Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte seem to be coming around. A couple of days ago, I thought Jeff McNeil was a short hot streak away from producing as expected, but his 0-8 in the first two games against Oakland pitchers is forcing me to revise my thinking. He's got some work to do to get back to being the hitter we all know and love.
3 comments:
I continue to believe Alvarez needs another year in AAA.
Even his outs are routine.
I concur Mack regarding Alvarez. It's like Mets brass wants to will him to greatness, but he does not look quite ready yet. Narvaez might not be back much before the All Star Break it looks like. That type of calf injury recovery is hard to predict in timeframe.
Wouldn't it be great if either Tomas Nido caucght on fire hitting.
How about an "out of the box" idea here.
Danny Mendick has played every position but first base and catcher in his MiLB career. That means that he probably has naturally very good athletic ability, since not everyone could have done that.
So why not groom him at the catcher position (like down at A Ball first) since he has had batting consistency prior in his baseball career and some power hitting.
Geesh, Alvarez has played 3 games. It’s not like Nido is doing much.
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