If you ask who the biggest stars were in Sunday night’s win over the Braves, most people would answer Shaun Marcum, who fanned 12 batters in seven innings, or Ike Davis, who had a two-run single to give the Mets the lead in the eighth inning. Perhaps some would mention Bobby Parnell, who cruised through the heart of the Braves’ order in the ninth inning and who fanned two of the three batters he faced. That makes the unsung star Lucas Duda, who had a three-hit game and scored two runs.

After bottoming out with a 4-40 stretch starting on May 1st, Duda is now riding a 10-game hitting streak. In a span covering 41 PA, Duda has a .351/.390/.541 line. Overall for the year, Duda has an .843 OPS, just eight points behind David Wright’s team-leading .851 mark. However, the narrative for the year has been how Wright is earning his multi-year extension while Duda still needs to step up to the next level and is part of the reason the Mets have been struggling. It makes no sense.

People look to bend over backwards to criticize Duda. Yes, he’s a terrible defensive outfielder but he’s doing the best he can while playing out of position. His AVG is nothing to write home about but c’mon it’s not 1973 when batting average ruled the world. Here in 2013 we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that OBP is more important than AVG and Duda has a .360 OBP, the 24th-best mark in the National League.

Duda has not put up strong numbers with Runners in Scoring Position but that has at least as much to do with opposing pitchers refusing to give him much to hit (10 BB in 42 PA) as with his poor BABIP (.174). And if we’re going to focus on a small sample, why not look at High Leverage situations, where Duda has a .771 OPS – 35 points above league average. Another small sample that Duda has been performing well in is his production hitting cleanup. In 47 PA batting fourth, Duda has a .326 AVG and a .964 OPS.

While people focus on the wrong things and mock him for not being a better outfielder, Duda has been a very productive hitter. He currently has a 137 OPS+, tied with Prince Fielder and Robinson Cano – two guys with big offensive reputations. Now if he could just learn to lay off breaking balls at his ankles, Duda would become a monster.

SP ROUND INTO FORM – The Mets just concluded a stretch of 16 straight days with a game and not surprisingly, the starters began to pitch better while working on regular rest. In their last 13 appearances, despite having 10 games against some of the top offensive clubs in the league – the Cardinals, Reds and Braves – Mets starters have delivered seven Quality Starts. It’s even more impressive when you consider that Matt Harvey has just one and that Dillon Gee is still looking for his first one this season. The trio of Jeremy Hefner, Marcum and Jonathon Niese have each delivered 2 QS in this span, with Niese doing it in just two starts.

The NL has produced 389 QS in 739 games played this year or 52.6% of the time. The Mets, with allegedly just one SP worth anything and while playing a tough schedule, have essentially matched that mark (53.8) over the past two weeks. If Gee can get untracked, the starting rotation could be a strength going forward.

ANKIEL SURPRISES WITH STRONG PLAY – When the Mets signed Rick Ankiel after he was let go by the Houston Astros, the near-universal reaction was – Why? But Ankiel has been a very pleasant surprise, as he has cut his K-rate significantly and has done damage when he has put the bat on the ball. After having a 53.8 K% in 65 PA with Houston, Ankiel has a still-high but much-improved 31.0 K% in 42 PA with New York. Additionally, he has a .564 SLG with the Mets, thanks to a .308 ISO.

Perhaps even more interesting is the “Hot Zone” chart for Ankiel. Fox Sports has a breakdown of how a hitter does in nine zones. Unfortunately, they do not show the raw data – so we do not know if this is just for pitches in the strike zone or for all pitches. But however it works out, Ankiel has some interesting zones. While the best way to attack Davis is on the outside third of the plate, the best place to go after Ankiel is with inside pitches. Fox does a three-by-three grid, with the numbers duplicated here:

.375 .000 .000
.333 .714 .143
.300 .429 .000

There’s no reason for pitchers to do anything besides bust Ankiel with inside pitches.

NIGHT AND DAY FOR BURKE? – The Mets picked up Greg Burke on a minor league deal this winter and he made the team out of Spring Training. But Burke was soon sent to the minors after getting off to a rough start. He was recalled in mid-May and now has seven appearances both before and after his demotion. Here are his splits:

Pre – 7.1 IP, 7.36 ERA, .385 BABIP, 3.35 xFIP
Post – 6.2 IP, 0.00 ERA, .222 BABIP, 2.78 xFIP

It looks like Burke has been a completely different pitcher if you just go by ERA. But we see by xFIP that he’s been similar in both stints with the Mets. It’s just that in May, Burke is having much better luck with balls in play and he has a 100% strand rate this month after having a 30.8 LOB% in April. If we go by xFIP, Burke has been a worthwhile reliever for the club in both stints and overall he has a strong 3.08 xFIP.

ANYONE SEEN RECKER? – Backup catcher Anthony Recker has been with the Mets all 47 games this season. Yet in that span – nearly 30 percent of the season – he has just 26 PA. Backup catchers will always rank low in this category, as managers will use them as a PH only as a last option. But even for backups, Recker’s total is very low.

It’s hard to compare him to recent Mets backups because the team frequently used a platoon at catcher. But if we go back to the last year before Josh Thole made the Opening Day roster, we see that backup Henry Blanco had 45 PA thru games of May 26th. And Blanco did not play a game until April 10th. Todd Pratt, the backup to Mike Piazza in 1999, had 79 PA by May 26th. With John Buck no longer on a record pace for homers, manager Terry Collins needs to give Recker some more playing time.

METS LAG IN DEFENSIVE CATEGORIES – The Mets rank near the bottom in the National League in both Defensive Runs Saved and UZR. Their (-15) DRS leads only the Cardinals while their (-14.6) UZR is the worst in the league. Duda catches all the flack but he has a lot of company with 17 players/positions overall feature a negative DRS. Duda checks in with a (-6) DRS, with Ruben Tejada (-5) and Buck (-4) close behind. Jordany Valdespin also has a (-5) but that’s split among CF (-2), RF (-2) and LF (-1). Valdespin’s (-5) comes in 132.1 innings in the outfield, while Duda’s (-6) comes in 355 innings. But Valdespin looks athletic so he does not catch anywhere the same grief Duda does.

15 comments on “The underappreciated Lucas Duda, Rick Ankiel’s start, Greg Burke’s luck turnaround

  • Peter Hyatt

    Three cheers for Greg Burke. I spoke to him at Spring Training and was impressed with his intellect and his candor about his family, moving around, adjustments, and so on. He was a nice guy that we (my family and I) could not help but root for to make the club and do well in the bigs.

  • Tommy2cat

    Hi Brian. Nice article, as usual. Funny how most fans didn’t notice that Duda was one hit (a triple) from hitting for the cycle. By contrast, Ike was credited with two hits, when one of them was clearly a gift from the official scorer, who apparently didn’t see Dan Uggla turn a routine throw into an adventure.

    Otherwise, you hit on all of the major points. If it was my team, Duda would be at first base, and Andrew Brown would be patrolling left field once he recovers from an oblique strain.

    • Brian Joura

      Thanks Tommy!

      I know Brown gets a lot of votes for PT in the outfield but I wasn’t very impressed by what I saw. I’d still rather give Cowgill a real shot (yes, I know he’s not hitting in Triple-A) because he has a chance to be a league-average OFer but it seems that ship has passed.

      Probably not even on the table right now. Ike’s “two”-hit game bought him another two weeks in the majors.

      • Name

        Gotta love short sample sizes.

        Cowgill was sent down because Sandy determined in 52 PA’s that he wasn’t good enough to be on the major league roster.
        But Ike will probably be on the roster for the next few weeks because in 3 PA’s yesterday he had 1… I mean “2” hits. Yes. Let’s completely ignore his 2-44 and instead base him off his 2-3 instead.

        • Chris F

          “Let’s completely ignore his 2-44 and instead base him off his 2-3 instead.”

          That does indeed seem to be the “Mets Way.”

  • […] by bjoura [link] [1 comment] Source: Reddit   No Comments.   « GAME […]

  • Chris F

    I’ll take Cano or Fielder. OPS+ may be the same, but the old fashioned RBIs for Duda tell story. So does Runs.

  • steevy

    Ankiel is a below average ballplayer,a fourth or fifth outfielder on a decent team.A ph with some pop on a good team.

  • Metsense

    Two points above with one solution. For now move Duda to first and Davis to Vegas. This is a bad defensive team and this needs to be rectified before the young arms arrive and have the stress of 4 out innings. Poor defense sabotages good pitching. I knocked the Ankiel pick up because it seemed like a change in direction for the front office. The reality is (as Jerry Grote pointed out) he is an average major league LH platoon CF, something the Mets didn’t have. Isn’t it more important to try to win at the major league level and develope at the minor league level?

  • chris

    Duda is still ALL potential. He’s like Pelfrey: a head case. And he’s not playing out of position, because there is no position he could play well. LF is the easiest position to play, and he’s struggling there. He’s been a butcher at first base. He has a decent arm but throws exceedingly poorly. He’s lousy at judging anything other than a routine fly ball. He made a nice catch last night (5/28) but he almost ran himself out of the play. OBP is important but you don’t need a cleanup hitter with 30+ HR potential trying to draw a walk every time up. Up to now, he’s taken all the best hittable pitches he’s seen. Nice to see him starting to swing at first pitch strikes. He has great offensive potential. He needs to start delivering. Maybe he’ll come around. Sure hope so…

    Ankiel’s done well so far but he is a whiff machine, more K’s than H+BB in his career. Not unusual for a player with something to prove to start well with a new team. I’d have brought Nieuwenhuis back up. Wouldn’t be any worse than Ankiel at the plate and as good, if not better, in center. Or, I’d let Valdespin start. Doesn’t make sense to sit a guy with his kind of power just to teach him a lesson in humility. You’re a NYC big-league club trying to win games, not a nursery school. He’s not learning anything getting only 5 pinch-hit ABs per week. Play him or send him to AAA and let him play there. When Ankiel goes 0-for-4 in 3 or 4 straight games with 10+ Ks, he’ll be cut.

    Tejada looks like he’s considering a career outside of baseball. If I’m Collins, I’m starting Turner at short 2 or 3 games just to get Tejada’s attention. Something’s gotta be done with Tejada ’cause right now he’s a ball-and-chain, and looks totally disinterested in improving.

    Davis is an enigma. I know they don’t wanna shame him by sending him down but maybe 2 weeks at AAA will help him AND the Mets. Mets can live with him hitting .250, but not .150, especially since he’s not half of Hernandez with the leather, very disappointing in the field.

    Love the Mets and their recent scrappy 3-game winning streak but it’s just a matter of time before they drop 6-7 in a row again. Things need to be shaken up. If that means Davis to Las Vegas for awhile and getting Hefner, Marcum or Gee out of the rotation in favor of a fresh face with a fresh arm, well, why not? Mets are on pace to have their worst season since ’02. I can’t believe the manager, coaches and ownership will be happy to just fritter away the remaining two-thirds of this season with the current 25-man roster and be content with possibly losing 100 games. If that’s the case, then fans need to turn their backs on the team.

    • Brian Joura

      Duda has a 115 OPS+ in over 1,000 PA in the majors and currently has a 132 OPS+. Sorry, that’s not potential that’s actual production. It’s ridiculous to say he’s not playing out of position when he came up as a first baseman. What little he’s gotten to play first in the majors – he’s been a league average performer for the position.

      • steevy

        Yeah,I don’t know where you would get “butcher” from his time at 1st base.He wasn’t bad at all.

      • Jerry Grote

        The details, we’re far apart … but in general, the tenor I agree with.

        This is an ideal time to do the things you need to do, and you have plus excuses to do them. Experiment. Try out some new blood. Don’t be hobbled by “Davis is our 1B, Tejada is our SS”. Find out if Lutz/Satin/Leathersich (yah, I said it!)/Wheeler/whomever can play this damned game.

        Bring guys up and try to find something new. For Pete’s sake, look at St. Louis. They are bringing up everyone that’s tried on a uniform in the minors.

        • Brian Joura

          I like the Cardinals comparison. We should study what they do and look to emulate it as it seems like they have good teams on a yearly basis. In the 13 years before 2013, they finished above .500 12 times, made the playoffs nine times and have two World Series titles.

          There’s an organization doing it right.

  • […] examine a few statistics from FanGraphs. However, as Mets360′s own Brian Joura discussed earlier this week, Mets starting left fielder Lucas Duda is quietly putting together a solid if unspectacular year. […]

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