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The next player in our preseason projection review series spent just over a calendar year and played just shy of a full season’s worth of games with the Mets before being offloaded in the 2017 payroll purge. It’s no secret that Jay Bruce didn’t win the hearts and minds of Mets fans with his performance after the team picked him up at the trade deadline in 2016. He slashed a disappointing .219/.294/.391 with a wRC+ of 82 in 50 games for the Mets to close out the 2016 season. This led many to doubt his ability to play in New York and thus his value to the team heading into 2017.
It seemed like the Mets had been trying to trade the poor guy since they acquired him, and we at Mets360 included our predictions on whether or not we believed he would be sent packing in our projections for him below:
PA – 523
AVG – .245
OBP – .323
SLG – .480
HR – 27
RBI – 84
Traded – No
The Indians claimed Bruce off of waivers just after the 2017 trade deadline, and the Mets got a new member of the relief prospect band they were forming in return. Here’s how he actually did across both teams, with the best and worst individual projections among our group:
PA – 617
Best – Barbieri (631)
Worst – Walendin (445)
AVG – .254
Best – Barbieri (.255)
Worst – Walendin (.228)
OBP – .324
Best – O’Malley (.323)
Worst – Walendin (.288)
SLG – .508
Best – Hangley (.512), Barbieri (.504)
Worst – Rogan (.435)
HR – 36
Best – Barbieri (38)
Worst – Walendin (18)
RBI – 101
Best – Barbieri (103)
Worst – Walendin (56)
Traded – Yes
Best – Koehler, Walendin, Ryan, Netter, Hangley (Yes)
Worst – Rogan, Fox, Joura, O’Malley, Allison, Barbieri (No)
Well, you can’t say we didn’t try. It’s interesting how two of our writers ran away with this on opposite ends of the spectrum, but with the performance questions surrounding Bruce it’s not surprising that most of us really had no idea if he could rebound from his awful NY debut. He did just that and more, slashing .256/.321/.520 with 29 homers and a wRC+ of 120 in 103 games with the Mets before they shipped him out. You’d think a team could get more for a player with his history on such a tear, but of course the Mets were sellers in a market that had little need for the players they were peddling. Such is life.
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He’s back!