mets ofAmong the many puzzles Sandy Alderson and the Mets’ front office have to solve this off-season is a complicated outfield situation. Most teams carry five outfielders on their active roster. The Mets have eight worthy candidates but too many are left-handed, two are free agents, and about half of them are unproven. Can we find the right mix from among this bunch? Here are three plausible scenarios.

Plan A
The Mets’ best outfielder and best offensive player hands down is Yoenis Cespedes. He’s a gold glove left fielder, passable center fielder when healthy, and a difference maker with the bat. Problem is, he’s exercised his opt out and unless the Mets commit to him with probably the second biggest contract we’ve ever handed out, he’ll be playing for someone else in 2017. If we lose him, we will get a compensatory draft pick, but that’s a small consolation for the chasm his departure would leave in our lineup. Prior to this season, we all though Michael Conforto was going to develop into a middle of the order threat and that Lucas Duda and Travis d’Arnaud would develop into solid hitters around him. None of those things happened and so we really can not afford to lose Cespedes. There are no guarantees, but a big money, short-term deal, perhaps with another opt-out should be offered. Say, three years with an option at $28 million per season. If he truly wants to stay maybe he’ll take it, or at least negotiate from there. Offering him anything beyond five years would be a mistake. It’s going to be hard enough to keep our pitching staff intact in a few years without having a second albatross contract strangling our payroll.

In Plan A, we get lucky and bring Cespedes back to play left field and left field only. Center field is patrolled by a platoon of Juan Lagares and Brandon Nimmo. Right field is handled by Curtis Granderson. Michael Conforto backs up the corners and sees time at first base, DH and pinch hitter. He bides his time until an inevitable injury or 2018 when Granderson’s contract is up. Jay Bruce is traded for prospects or packaged with d’Arnaud for a catcher.

Plan B
We lose Cespedes to free agency. Granderson moves to left and Conforto to right with a Lagares/Nimmo platoon in center. Either Justin Ruggiano or Ty Kelly serves as the fifth outfielder. Bruce is traded.  Defensively it’s solid, but unless Conforto and Nimmo take big steps forward, the lineup is going to suffer greatly.

Plan C
We lose Cespedes to free agency. This time we keep Bruce and plug him in right field with Granderson platooning with Lagares in center, and Nimmo and Conforto battling it out for left field. In this scenario we don’t resign Ruggiano and Kelly begins the season in Vegas but ready for the call on first injury. In this scenario, the lineup becomes lopsided with too many lefties. Even if Lagares and Flores are in the lineup, this team would be very weak against left handed pitchers. Granderson is a career .224 hitter against lefties and Bruce isn’t much better at .226. Meanwhile, Conforto and Nimmo have yet to prove that they can hit lefties at all in the big leagues.

If Plan B or C come to fruition, an alternative might be to balance the lineup by upgrading at catcher or first base with a right handed hitter who can thump lefties, at least in a platoon.

42 comments on “Solving the Mets 2017 outfield puzzle

  • Jerryk

    Bruce is back!

  • Peter

    Put a package deal of Duda, Nimmo and a SP for Arenado. Move Wright to first base. As for trading for a catcher! Who is out there Matt?

  • Peter

    Harvey or deGrom. Though I believe Harvey will be a free agent after 2017 I might include Matz then. Thor is untouchable.

    • Chris F

      and what makes you think Arenado isnt untouchable? He is the face of the Rockies, and one of the best players in baseball. Duda and Nimmo and some broken pitcher that may not recover for Arenado. Who’s that dumb?

      • Peter

        You’re right. I needed to better address quality for quality

  • Eraff

    Don’t you think Nolan Arenado is “Untouchable”…??? …and you’re gonna aquire him for 1 year of Duda, Nimmo, and a Pitcher who has never made 10 straight starts???

  • Peter

    Then you need to add another pitcher and the Mets top prospect Dominic Smith?

    • Chris F

      To get Arenado, you would need Syndergaard, and probably more.

      • Chris F

        Really, as a GM, you have to stand in the shoes of the receiving team…do they need Duda? Nimmo? Smith? or whoever. They dont just want people. In CO, the main issue is and always will be pitching. And for them good, controllable pitching…and to get Arenado, its gonna hurt like hell to get the face of the team with 3 more years of control from them.

        What has he done: 3 GG, 1 SS, 2x AS, 2x top 10 MVP. If the first word out of your mouth isnt Syndergaard, then expect a click followed by dial tone.

        • Peter

          I see your point. Trying to get an impact right handed bat via free agency is going to be next to impossible. Cespedes will look for at least 4 years at 30? million. The Mets would have to give up Thor and whomever. Moving Wright to first should be less of a strain on his fragile back. I have my doubts about Duda.

        • Peter

          Where are you going to replace Cespedes’ rh bat? I can see the Red Sox’s making a run at him.

          • Name

            The Red Sox makes no sense.

            They already have Betts and Bradley for 2 OF spots. Then they have top prospect Andrew Benintendi, Chris Young for 1 more year, and possibly Blake Swihart (if they don’t want to use him at catcher)

          • Chris F

            No doubt Alderson has some heavy lifting to balance out this overly LH line up. Id make a play on Wieters despite being a Boras client, and dealing with TJ surgery (I think it was TJ) long term effects. He will get you 20-25 HR and can call a game/throw out runners. Its time to realize the TdA experiment is killing this team. Past that, I have real issues surrounding DWright. I dont believe he is capable of 3B any more, and read that the Mets will not have him learn 1B (but who knows). He no longer a reliable every day player. I still lean to taking with the CWS about getting Frazier. Sure hes homer centric (40 last year), but we need some pop and he can play the position. DWright’s role troubles me deeply. Im not sure what else to say.

  • MattyMets

    Wright to first is an interesting idea and I hope the organization is at least considering it. When healthy enough to play, Wright’s still got great foot work and hands. Most of his errors at third are throwing errors. He could platoon with Duda, who struggles against lefties and see time as a DH and pinch hitter.

    Arenado is a terrific player for sure, but I’m very leery about trading for Rockies players. Their numbers are so skewed by home field and many have not had success elsewhere. If I were them, I’d be very interested in ground ball pitchers. We may have one to spare in Gsellman. But if this team is to pull off a blockbuster, I don’t see Arenado as the guy. Most teams have one guy they won’t part with and for Colorado, he’s it.

  • Eraff

    Whatever the Mets do, the plan should not include David Wright. His health is more than an “If”. They can hope on him as a bonus, not as a plannable part.

  • BK

    Wright to 1B is potentially a good idea. But the outfield is a jumbled mess. Losing Cespedes will hurt, Bruce isn’t good enough to make up for it, the CF options don’t hit enough, and Conforto needs ABs to find out how good he can be.

  • Mike Walczak

    Arenado would cost too much. I’ll say it again, Freddy Freeman is the answer. Plus sign Fowler and trade for Dee Gordon.

    Gordon leading off, Fowler hitting second and Freeman third. That is a nice top of the lineup.

    Wright does have good feet. He should go on Dancing With the Stars.

    • MattyMets

      Mike W – There’s only one Met who belongs on dancing with the stars – Big Sexy Bartolo Colon. We should start an online campaign to get him on there.

    • Chris F

      And Freeman wont cost too much? Thats just as out of this world, maybe even more since its in Division. Which Dee Gordon, the underperforming guy the Dodgers let go of or the 80 game suspension doper? Sorry, thats just so out of bounds reasonable its hard to even address.

  • TexasGusCC

    Can we just trade for Mike Trout and Josh Donaldson?

    I don’t get everyone’s fascination with ripping up this team’s core and minor leagues because they perceive an all-star lineup is a guaranteed World Series win. How about upgrading your manager first?

    May I remind:
    – TDA hit 8th most of the year, he wasn’t your problem. The problem was that Granderson took the first five months off and still batted in the top two spots.
    – The Mets suffered brutal injuries to the middle of their lineup and only when Cespedes was “fully healthy” did they start to roll. Then, Granny woke up too.
    – Also, until Reyes came aboard to add a missing element, the Mets were a station to station, boring ass team, that lacked fundamentals and didn’t make contact to drive in runners but just left a ton of runners on third base with less than two outs.

    Does anyone disagree or did I miss something? The Mets need to put some energy in their lineup, sign their free agents, execute when they have to, stay healthy, and that’s it!

    • Chris F

      Mike Trout and Josh Donaldson, you’re funny Gus.

    • Brian Joura

      While I’m with you 100% on the Trout/Donaldson comment, I disagree about several other points you made.

      TDA was a problem. He may not have been a major problem – and there’s reason to believe he deserves a chance to show what he can do if he’s healthy for an entire year – but a guy with a .629 OPS who couldn’t be used with certain pitchers on the mound is hard to describe as something other than problematic.

      In the month of September, after he came off the DL and when the Mets made their run, Cespedes had a .214/.297/.379 line. They started to roll when the entire team finally started hitting with RISP, not when one person carried them.

      Ah, the continued bashing of Granderson. He didn’t take the first five months off. In April, he had an .818 OPS. He was brutal for three weeks in May. But from May 21 to the end of the season, he had an .843 OPS. Yes, there was a stretch of nearly six weeks in there where again he didn’t hit (.519 OPS from 7/18 – 8/28) but that’s not five months. The season is six months long and Granderson hit awful in the equivalent of two months and did quite well in the other four.

      While Reyes was clearly the best baserunner on the team, he didn’t wow us with fundamentals or make the rest of the team start hitting better with RISP. And what happens when he doesn’t post his highest ISO since 2008? He had declined four straight years in the category and then puts up the third-best number in his 14 years in the majors. That seems like something we shouldn’t be counting on again.

      I guess I agree with your overall point – that they don’t have to do a giant makeover and trade for All-Stars at every position. But my opinion is they have some serious evaluation issues for their own players and there are a bunch of different ways this team could shake out during the hot stove season.

      • Chris F

        you agree with trade for Trout and Donaldson?

        Im curious how that gets pulled off.

        • Brian Joura

          I took Gus’ comment to be sarcastic and I agreed with that. The idea that you can just pull off numerous mega deals is crazy talk.

          • TexasGusCC

            Brian, I agreed with all your points in response to my post, except one. And, I’m sure you expected it.

            My first quote, popularised in United States by Mark Twain, who attributed it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

            I don’t think it’s necessary to get too deep into numbers regarding Granderson, because we saw at least 80% of the games, and most of them in the same game chatter. While his OPS is what I would yell from the rooftops in order to trade him, we all know he wasn’t good overall for most of the first five months. His RISP of .036 through the beginning of September left the Mets in many holes because the led the team in plate appearances for this category. It’s easy to look good when the pitcher isn’t too careful, but he didn’t have 24 HRs and 30 RBI’s in early September by accident. When the pitcher is bearing down because it’s an important situation and pitching from the stretch to better control their location, that’s when you need to see your players step up. Granderson was terrible. He continuously struck out on low inside sliders and we were fortunate when he coaxed a walk; and while his career numbers with RISP aren’t this bad, he’s reaching a point in his career when numbers tend to start trending down. We lamented not moving him during the off season and we shouldn’t make the same mistake twice because as Branch Rickey said, “It’s better to trade a player a year too early than a year too late”. Moving him now will probably get you the equivalent of a compensatory pick, which you won’t get next November and you don’t need him in 2017. Nimmo should give you similar value.

            I think Curtis Granderson is the best person on this team to reach any player, from the youngest to the oldest. He is Chicago cool, smart, and joyful Make him player/manager or trade him.

            • Brian Joura

              I assume you’re using the “Royal we” because you’re sure not speaking for me.

              • TexasGusCC

                I used the word “we” three times because this wasn’t my thinking alone during the summer, but said over and again in our chatters and other game threads, like MMO. The numbers I’m referring to are numbers that were emphasized by the ESPN announcers and most of my memories comes from listening quite a bit to Josh Lewin driving home from Houston, so there was attention noted to this particular player’s struggles. Just looking at his OPS is just a falsIfying of how he struggled to come through for the majority of the season.

                • Brian Joura

                  No, it’s most definitely not “falsifying” anything. It’s just not measuring what you want it to measure.

                  Despite all of his struggles coming through in the clutch last year, Granderson still had a higher WPA (which is much closer to what you want to measure here) than Asdrubal Cabrera.

                • TexasGusCC

                  Granny’s numbers were .317/.444/.673/1.118 with a WPA of 2.297 from August 29th until season’s end. Prior to that however, for the season they were .220/.311/.417/.728 with a -1.778 WPA! An amazing month to get his numbers up to respectability. But, we disagree and that’s fine.

                  I really like Granny as a person and he hustles like crazy. But, I don’t think he will be more valuable than either kid, Nimmo or Conforto, over the whole year.

                  On the other hand, Bruce has to go.

                  • Brian Joura

                    I think you’re making a mistake saying that the Granderson of April and the Granderson the last 1/3 of May, all of June and half of July was a bad player. He was good to great in those time frames, even with his horrible clutch performance, which we know is more luck than skill.

                    You want to remove his best stretch of the year without removing any of his bad stretches. This seems a less than ideal way to evaluate him. Let’s turn it around and remove his worst stretch (7/18-8/28) and keep the rest of the year. We do that and we have a .258/.366/.515 for an .881 OPS and a 2.48 WPA. And that was 78% of his PA. Take away the best stretch and the worst stretch and you’re left with a guy with an .802 OPS.

                    He had two extended stretches where he wasn’t good and three extended stretches where he was. The extended stretches where he was good outweighed the ones where he was bad. I understand that he wasn’t clutch in 2016. But he was in both 2014 and 2015. FG rates his clutch performance in 2016 as “below average” while they rate his clutch performances in 2014 and 2015 as “great.”

                • TexasGusCC

                  I don’t think luck is a whole year’s worth of a sample size, but I can live with your approach.

                  I think in the second half he purposely tried to just make contact with RISP and two strikes. What a novel concept, and that is the aspect that most sticks in my craw with him.

                  • Brian Joura

                    Look at David Wright’s “Clutch” scores. Six years he’s been in positive numbers and seven years he’s been in negative numbers. Look at Derek Jeter – eight years in positive numbers and 12 times in negative numbers.

                    I know people struggle with the word luck. Feel free to substitute whichever word you like. Random works.

                • TexasGusCC

                  In the first half, with RISP, he struck out over 40% of the time.

                • TexasGusCC

                  Hmmm, look at the time I posted the last comment and the time you posted yours. When I posted the follow up, I hadn’t seen yours or would not have continued with an addition to the previous line of thought. But, the order of the postings is interesting. Maybe a glitch when you keep replying and it can no longer take replies?

                  • Brian Joura

                    You posted the second follow-up at 10:46 and I posted mine at 10:56

            • Metsense

              Granderson had a wRC+ 114 which would rank him third among National League right fielders and fifth among centerfielders. He also had a 2.6 WAR. That is pretty good among his 2016 National League peers. Without Cespedes, the Mets can ill afford to trade away 25+ home runs, 2.6 WAR player for a compensatory type prospect. Nimmo should not be expected to put up Granderson’s 2016 numbers in his first year. The Mets are hoping that Conforto some what fills Cespedes’ spikes and it would be rather risky to expect another young player, Nimmo, to fill Granderson’s.

  • Metsense

    Right now it is LF Conforto/ CF Granderson/ RF Bruce and when a lefty is pitching Lagares starts in CF and one of the starting three gets rested.
    Wright, Cabrera, Reyes, Flores and TDA also will be starting vs LHP therfore there will be six right handed bats starting vs LHP.
    The obvious upgrade would be at catcher so free agent Matt Wieters would be an upgrade over TDA. The second weakest position is Wright at 3B because of his durabilty but I highly doubt that they will bring in a Wright replacement over the winter. A more subtle approach is to sign Walker so that if Wright goes down then Reyes slides over to third.
    The Mets would still be competitive for the division with Bruce-Walker-Wieters.
    Cespedes on another short term/high pay is a good alterative but how fast can it be done? The Mets can’t wait on Cespedes.

  • Jimmy P

    McCutchen is available, but because of pitching injuries, Sandy can’t make a positive trade flipping of them. They are all way undervalued now except for Noah, and he must stay.

    The injuries to Harvey & Wheeler, his two main chips, tied his hands.

  • MattyMets

    The lineup needs tinkering for sure, but the key to next season is to get the rotation healthy. It’s hard to imagine ever getting 162 starts out of Harvey/deGrom/Matz/Syndergaard/Wheeler but how about 140? If we could just have one stinkin season when none of them need arm surgery, this team wins 95+ games regardless of whether we have a B or B+ lineup.

    The main reason the ’86 Mets won 108 games and the WS was not Strawberry/Hernandez/Carter. It was Gooden/Darling/Ojeda/Fernandez. Each started at least 30 games and threw 200+ innings. Even Aguilera, the fifth starter, started 20 games and threw 142 innings. If you’re wondering who picked up the remaining starts, that would be Bruce Berenyi (7), Rick Anderson (5), Randy Niemann (1), and John Mitchell (1).

  • Eraff

    What is this imaginary idea that the Mets will offer Ces a Substandard commitment of Years and Dollars??? …and why is it couched as “if he really wants to stay……..”??????

    They have the clearest identifiable need for this player, and he’s identified himself as capable to their task–Pay Him!!! He’s gonna get 28-30 per year over 5 years…deal with it!

  • Peter F. Hyatt

    I think character matters more than most today, though Curtis’ age and decline cannot be discounted.

    I don’t know if Cespedes gets the huge contract anticipated, but I don’t think our OF is the crisis some believe.

    Expect Conforto to have a bounce back year. Nimmo to continue his development. Bruce to provide power, low oba. I hope Juan Leg. is healthy and hits. I don’t want to give up either Conforto or Nimmo in a trade.

    I think Harvey comes back strong, but with free agency looming, trade to Colorado or other hitters’ parks would be a jolt at Soros. Hey, we have to laugh sometimes.

    TJ Rivera may prove to be the versatile handyman every good team needs, and I don’t think David Wright is coming back, though he may try.

    Interesting chatter in NY: Cespedes is two years old than claimed. (He also speaks fluent English, which really got under Sandy’s skin). He has ticked off a number of managers and coaches in the league, and Sandy hated the communication through his “people.” Our W-L record with him in the line up cannot be underestimated, so we need Conforto to do what most of us believe he can. I think he is a .300 hitter with 30 HRs, 40 2DBs and 90 Ribbies.

    It is going to be a fun year.

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