Coming into the season, Daniel Murphy had a lifetime .766 OPS with a slash line of .292/.339/.427 in 1,742 PA. So it shouldn’t be a big surprise that on games thru May 16th, Murphy has a 775 OPS with a slash line of .297/.335/.439 in 158 PA. This is essentially who Murphy is as a hitter. What is surprising is how he got here.
Murphy started the year off on fire, with a .966 OPS in his first 18 games. Then he hit the skids, notching a .362 OPS over his next 65 PA, which included an 0-17 stretch. But in his last four games, Murphy is 10-16 with four doubles. He’s hitting the ball to all fields and my favorite moment was in Thursday’s game when he almost came out of his shoes while attacking a ball which he lined right back through the box for a solid single.
Early season streakiness aside, Murphy overall is doing with the bat pretty much what was expected. Our preseason projection was for Murphy to have a .780 OPS. The unexpected part is what he’s doing in the field. Murphy currently sports a +2.3 UZR which has helped him to a 1.1 fWAR, which ties him with Ian Kinsler and Brandon Phillips as the seventh-best second baseman in MLB. Murphy is giving the Mets an above-average performer at what has traditionally been a tough spot for the club to fill.
ARE STARTERS TOO MUCH ALIKE? – Last year in the first half of the season, the Mets were able to give opponents varied looks with their SP. R.A. Dickey confounded hitters with his knuckler, Johan Santana was a lefty with great pitching know-how, Jonathon Niese had the big curve, Dillon Gee threw four pitches for strikes and Chris Young worked the upper half of the strike zone while every other pitcher worked at the knees.
But in 2013, there’s not much to distinguish Gee, Jeremy Hefner and Shaun Marcum. Hefner throws a little harder than the others but none of them are overpowering and no one in the trio features a trick pitch like Dickey or an unusual approach like Young. The bad weather and the off days are being blamed for the poor results from this group – but could it be that their styles necessitates them being separated in the rotation?
MINOR LEAGUE INJURIES – Zack Wheeler dodged a bullet when nothing structurally wrong was found in his collarbone/shoulder area. Still, he’s going to miss a start, which gives him plenty of company among the team’s top prospects. Here’s a list of other prominent prospects who’ve missed time down on the farm, a grouping which probably is not even complete.
Travis d’Arnaud (foot) – out since 4/17
Matt Den Dekker (wrist) – out since beginning of the year
Michael Fulmer (knee) – out since beginning of the year
Darin Gorski (unknown) – out since 4/26
Luis Mateo (forearm/elbow) – out since 4/15
Cory Mazzoni (elbow) – returned on 5/6 after missing a month
Brandon Nimmo (hand) – out since 4/29
Domingo Tapia (hand) – out since 5/5
POWER OUTAGE FOR DAVIS – With Thursday’s 0-for-5 performance with four strikeouts, Ike Davis has now gone 66 PA without hitting a homer. His last HR came in his final at-bat in the game against the Dodgers on 4/25. During last year’s struggles, Davis went 68 PA between homers in a stretch from April 18th to May 9th. After homering in back-to-back games, Davis followed up with a stretch of 93 PA without a HR.
WARTHEN CREDITED FOR NIESE TURNAROUND – We have never been shy about asking what Dan Warthen has done to help pitchers during his tenure here and on more than one occasion we have asked for his dismissal. So, it is with great surprise that we heard prior to yesterday’s game that Warthen and Jonathon Niese had an extended bullpen session where Warthen worked on the struggling lefty’s mechanics. SNY showed video of Warthen holding Niese’s pitching arm at various slots, indicating where he should be when he released the pitch. Niese went out and had his best start since Opening Day. Thumbs up to Warthen for fixing a problem.
I always wondered what a pitching coach is really supposed to do. Warthen came through in the Niese instance. I also read somewhere recently that he slightly tweaked the grip Matt Harvey was using on his slider, allowing it to become the devastating weapon it is now. Perhaps fans are too critical because, like me, they really don’t know what a pitching coach does? Just a thought on Harvey Day!
Some stats about the starters.
Niese:
In games with normal rest : 5 starts (1 cut short by injury) 2-1, 2.17 ERA
In games without extra rest: 4 starts 1-3, 10.24 ERA
And we know this one on Gee.
Home: 1-2, 2.35 ERA , .222 BA
Away: 1-3, 11.34 ERA, .417 BA
Also Hefner:
Normal rest: 3.60 ERA
Non-normal rest: 7.36 ERA
I am only a nominal stat guy … I can’t hold a candle to guys like Brian Joura and David Grovemen. That said, I seem to remember from the 80s a Bill James piece, suggesting that infielding stats were highly correlated to pitchers.
It seems to me that TC/SA have built a team of GB pitchers, almost specifically to overcome the shortage of quality OFs on this team and leverage Tejada, Wright and Davis.
Anyone want to chime in on that line of thinking? That Murph’s fielding is more pitching dependent than a sudden surge in defensive ability?
I think the fact that we have more GB pitchers is purely coincidental rather than intentional. I also think that there are more GB pitchers in the league than FB pitchers so it’s more likely to have more GB pitchers anyways.
Not too sure how defensive metrics works, but I can see how if someone gets more chances, they would rate higher on defensive metrics.
The only metric that rewards defensive players for more chances is Range Factor, which merely divides chances by games.
UZR and DRS compare the types of plays made (and not made) by the fielder and compares those to how often similar plays would be made (not made) by the rest of the fielders at that position in the league. You can get detailed UZR information here:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-fangraphs-uzr-primer/
And DRS info here:
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/defense/drs/
What I meant by chances are that if you don’t get the chances to have a great play, then your UZR/DRS can’t go up. You can’t be rewarded for doing nothing, right?
So if only get “routine” or easy plays, i’m assuming that you won’t be able to have a high UZR/DRS.
So I think what Jerry and me are trying to ask if Murph’s defense is truly better, or is it because he’s gotten more opportunities than others to have great plays because bad pitching usually leads to harder hit balls which means tougher fielding plays.
From a theoretical POV, sure what you say can be true. But if we look at the breakdowns available on FG, we see that Murphy has improved across the board. He’s improved significantly on turning DPs, his range has improved substantially and his best improvement has come through not making errors. Last year he was in negative numbers in all of these categories and right now he is positive in all three.
Through repetition and improved positioning, Murphy has simply gotten better at the position. How many times did we see him playing in shallow RF in 2012 compared to this year? That positioning really hurt him. He had always displayed plus range in the infield and last year he was terrible.
I think the range will continue to be good, especially compared to last year. We’ll see what happens with turning the DP and errors, though.
I’m with Name in that I think it’s more coincidental than intentional.
The NL average for ground balls this year is roughly 46.4% while the Mets’ rate coming into today is 47.9%. The SP that Alderson brought in were Hefner and Marcum and Hefner’s GB% is 45.4% and Marcum’s is 32.9%
However, the RP that Alderson brought in this year – with the exception of Lyon and Laffey – all have GB% over 50. You could argue that was intentional but I think that it’s more of a case where Alderson took the best guys who would sign for minor league deals. Atchison, Burke, Hawkins and Rice all fit the bill and none were guaranteed more than the $1 million that Hawkins got if he made the majors. Even Lyon was guaranteed only $750K.
[…] the worst came early this year when Gorski was sidelined with an injury. In a note detailing how many of the club’s top prospects were on the shelf, I was able to find injury information on […]