As the season starts to drift away once again, the Mets must start to take a step back, take stock, and decide who has delivered and who has not. The pitching has actually been worse than expected, ranking very well among the league’s best in ERA, but terrible in walks issued. Due to the extreme ups and downs in the pitching, we will keep this out of the grading system and just stick to offense. The positions will be ranked on how well the players have hit, fielded, and even how they ran the bases. (Only players on the current 25-man roster will be mentioned).
Catcher:
Starter: Travis d’Arnaud
Back-ups: Anthony Recker
Grade: C-
d’Arnaud hasn’t lived up to the hype since being called up (even going back to last season), but he isn’t the only one struggling. The backups didn’t really fill the gap while d’Arnaud was in the minors, which makes sense because they are technically backups. All-in-all it hasn’t been a good season for Flushing backstops, but d’Arnaud has been on the rise recently. Running the bases isn’t expected for catchers.
First Base:
Starter: Lucas Duda
Back-ups: Eric Campbell
Grade: B+
To start, the backup players at first base were upgraded after Josh Satin was sent down and Ike Davis was sent to Pittsburgh. Defensively, Duda has been a little bit better than past years and is starting to make fewer errors. Offensively, Duda has been head and shoulders above not only his past seasons, but is easily surpassing Ike Davis since the trade. Duda has been nothing but a force in the plate – especially in June with a .956 OPS.
Second Base:
Starter: Daniel Murphy
Back-up: N/A
Grade: A-
Offensively and defensively, it is all positive regarding the progression of Murphy- especially the attractive .300+/.350+/.400+ slash line. The only thing keeping Murphy from a perfect score is his reckless base running.
Shortstop:
Starter: Ruben Tejada
Back-up: No current backups
Grade: C
Tejada has been up and down, left and right, and has made enemies from a fan perspective in the past two years. But gosh darn it, he has gotten the job done since May 30th with a .289 batting average and a .385 OBP in the past month. He has earned his spot over the disappointing Wilmer Flores. Many thought he would progress on the bases, but this is not the case. His defense has been solid as usual. There is still a mountain to climb for his job to be re-earned, thus the average grade.
Third base:
Starter: David Wright
Back-up: Eric Campbell
Grade: B-
Wright has had a weird thus far. At one point his slugging percentage looked like Tejada’s, but his hit total was no laughing matter; since then, he has fallen off a cliff and onto the DL watch. Technically, he is having a better-than-average offensive season for a third baseman, even though he has fallen off by his own standards. We can only hope that he comes back with the usual punch that he has had for the past decade.
Left Field:
Starter: Eric Young Jr./Chris Young
Back-up: Kirk Nieuwenhuis
Grade: D-
Where to begin? Defensively, Young Jr. has been above average while Young has been below average. On the bases, Young Jr. has been brilliant, but Young has gotten caught in key situations while converting a legitimate 70% of stolen base attempts. Offense is where it gets fun. Both players have posted sub-.650 OPS and both have struck out quite a bit, with Young Jr. walking a little bit more and having a much higher OBP and BA. At this point, it seems bad to beat a dead horse, but Young needs to get it together.
Center Field:
Starter: Juan Lagares
Back-up: Kirk Nieuwenhuis
Grade: B+
Wow. That is the word that describes Lagares thus far this season, both good and bad. Lagares has been an absolute force in the field. He has not impressed while on the base paths, but he makes up for it with his rejuvenated bat. A .285 batting average impresses because not only did he prove everyone wrong, but has done it in style. The only thing keeping him from an A is his health.
Right Field:
Starter: Curtis Granderson
Back-up: Bobby Abreu
Grade: A+ (since April 23rd)
First, let’s talk about Abreu. This man is ageless! The ironic part about this phenomenon is that he has been much better as a starter rather than as a bench player. As a starter he has a .885 OPS, but as a substitute it remains Omar Quintanilla-esque at .434. Now on to Granderson. Since April 23rd he has posted a .269/.387/.466 slash line, which is shockingly close to his career norms. Defensively, he has scuffled recently in the sabermetric field, but passes the eye test. Granderson is becoming a leader on this team and this signing is certainly not Jason Bay 2.0.
Considering how far down the team is in the standings, I’m seeing too many high grades for my taste. I’d give RF a B- at best, Wright a C, Tejada a D and Duda a C+.
Would you mind clarifying the LF writeup? Not sure which Young is which.
For a team 10 games under .500, the grades are pretty high.
As to Murph leading the league in hits but getting an -A for base paths, we are looking at a guy who is being aggressive to manufacture a single run. I’d rather see the aggression than the passivity.
Granderson gets an A+? This is because he hits his career average? Is this a new grading system?
Chris Young continues to get at bats, no matter how awful he is. I don’t understand that.
Our manager needs to go, too.
“The pitching has actually been worse than expected ranking very well among the League’s best in ERA, but terrible in walks issued”
-I think you meant to say the Starters rank among the League’s worst in ERA.
Not sure if you’re grading based on pure production or expectations.
Based on my expectations, Murphy/Lagares A+, Tejada B+,Duda B, Granny B-, EY C, CY/TDA D, Wright-F(i expected a lot from him).
Really the big letdown of the year is our from next crop of SP, as Wheeler/Montero/Thor/Mejia have not lived up to their preseason billing and Gee having missed 2 months. ERA-wise, bullpen has been nothing short of brilliant (6th in the NL) but they have blown a lot of leads including a few heartbreakers.
Very nice article, it will be interesting to see how d’Arnaud plays the rest of the season. Hopefully when you grade d’Arnaud after the season, he’ll be getting a B+ or above. I think he’s going to start living up to the hype after the All-Star break.
And I thought we public school teachers were guilty of inflating grades; perhaps so, but nothing like the figures I see here! As things stand right now, I would be grade the position thusly: 1B= C I like Duda, but still…. 2B= B Murphy has been less streaky then years past offense wise, but if you grade the whole player, defense and running skills; then he’s better then avg. SS= C- or D+ For a person not wanted, he’s doing OK, so I’ll go with C-. LF Yeah, no better then a D. CF= B Lagares has been a pleasant suprise with the bat, but he’s still got a ways to go. I agree that staying healthy would perhaps up his score a bit.
RF= C+ Granderson was oversold to us, and he’ll never live down his horrific start (much like Beltran), perhaps by years end he’ll be a B-. C Where does the C- rating come from? Forget expectations, this has been a solid F so far this year when the numbers are in. I’d settle for a D from Recker and or D’arnaud for the year.
As bad as the grades/offense has been, blame has to go to the manager and general manager who has mismanaged what has been given to him. I thought that by spring training, the Duda/Davis controversy would have been settled. If Flores was to be given a shot at SS, why was time not spent in winter ball to prepare him, and why keep Tejada around? Keeping underperforming dead weight around hoping for a turnaround seems to be the trademark of this franchise. Why bring up rookies to then just sit on the pines?
I guess it’s no suprise that Mets management gets a resounding F by me.
+1. Dead on target there.
If, as you say, you are ranking on productivity (as opposed to expectation) … well, baseball ref tells us this year the average overall production has been .251/.314/.388 to a .703 production.
If B is average, you need to produce to that level. 9 players generated signficant ABs above that level.
You can get more granular, we can find that assessed on positional WAR we are
15th of 15 at C 50% TDA
10th of 15 at 1B 70% Duda
3rd of 15 at 2B Daniel Murphy
8th of 15 at 3B David Wright
12th of 15 at SS 66% Tejada
6th of 15 at LF
4th of 15 at CF 50% Lagares
8th of 15 at RF 70% Granderson
If B is average, and average would be 7th of 15 … then C is failing and SS is a D. Most everyone else is B-.
FWIW? Chris Young, when given the chance to play CF, has produced to an .850 OPS in over 80 PA.
But the bottom line is this, and I’ve said so many times here: we have the worst depth of any team in baseball.
The “incremental improvement” from Sandy hasn’t delivered. Over half the ABs on this team are unable to produce to a 660 OPS.
It would be worse, but for some incredible improvements by the bottom four or five. We could still be talking about giving the majority of the ABs to players without a .600 OPS.
I’ve always thought of a “C” as an average grade.