The Mets have no money and a glaring need for RHB. Given those two realities, it is a little strange that we have not heard more about plans to find playing time for Josh Satin. While he’s defensively challenged, Satin has hit everywhere he’s played in the minors, including a .286/.391/.442 line in 527 PA in Triple-A Buffalo last year.
Last year, Satin was primarily a first baseman (79 games) but he also saw time at 2B, 3B and DH. It seems just a bit strange that they did not try him in the outfield, even for a single game. The same organization that had no qualms about playing Lucas Duda, Daniel Murphy and Jordany Valdespin in the outfield has seemingly drawn the line at Satin.
Okay, so they didn’t want to move him to the outfield having never played a single game in his professional career. That makes some sense. So, let’s send him to Winter Ball with an outfielder’s mitt and see how it goes. Well, as of the morning of November 25th, Satin has yet to play a single Winter Ball game anywhere, much less show up in the outfield.
There’s probably a good reason why the Mets have refused to play Satin in the outfield. He is not fast and he doesn’t have a particularly good glove – you would prefer your outfield converters to have at least one of those qualities.
But as we’ve mentioned more than once, these are far from ideal times and they demand creative solutions. It’s hard to imagine Satin being worse than Duda while patrolling the outfield – it just seems like his bat would make it a gamble worth trying in Winter Ball with the idea of continuing the experiment in Spring Training as long as he didn’t lose a limb or something else extreme.
Perhaps the organization has already cut ties figuratively with Satin. Currently, he’s not even on the 40-man roster. He was this time last year, but he was removed last June when the Mets needed the spot to promote Pedro Beato. Satin went unclaimed and returned to the Mets.
Satin is in a tough position. If he’s to have any kind of career in the majors, it will be because of his bat. And he’s got good but not great minor league hitting stats. In another organization, he might get more of a shot, but with the Mets he’s caught up in a numbers game. New York also has Daniel Murphy in the majors with a similar skill set and the minor league system contains Wilmer Flores and Zach Lutz as corner infielders without great gloves looking to get by with their bats.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the .391 OBP he posted last year. While he did not hit particularly well against southpaws in 2012, he still managed to notch a .388 OBP against lefties, despite a .223 AVG against portsiders. Here’s how some Mets OF did in OBP against LHP last year:
.304 – Duda
.286 – Nieuwenhuis
.250 – Valdespin
.182 – Baxter
Since our Christmas tree is unlikely to have a righty-hitting OF sitting under it, the refusal to try to get Satin to fake it in an outfield corner for 50 games is a bit puzzling. I expect him to remain with the Mets after the Rule 5 Draft and I hope they give him the opportunity to play OF in Spring Training.
If he falls on his face – so what? He goes back to the minors as infield depth and nothing is lost. But the upside is that he can be a useful platoon bat from the right side of the plate, an area of need for the 2013 Mets. It’s disappointing that a potential low-cost solution seemingly was not even explored. Even if the odds were stacked against this being a success, Satin still has a greater chance to contribute for the Mets in the majors as an outfielder than anywhere in the infield.
I did a little search on Satin, and it looks like they already tried him in the OF last winter. Most articles i’ve seen are that he left for performance reasons and didn’t say much about how well he did defensively.
Indeed, he played some OF in Venezuela in 2011. The stats I just looked up on MLB.com showed he played 14 games last winter but do not say how many were in the OF. And while he hit just .146, he had a .407 OBP in those 14 games.
http://mlb.mlb.com/milb/stats/org.jsp?id=nym&y=2011
Maybe they tried him in the outfield already and found out he couldn’t handle fly balls.For the Mets to acknowledge that information would diminish his trade value(if there is one). Over the years the Mets organization appears to have had better luck in their evaluations with their pitching draft choices as opposed to their outfield picks. Why does this team have so many DH’S when they’re not in the AL? Wouldn’t they be in a better position to trade some of these players Lucas Duda? Then force them to learn a new position at the major league level? It’s like trying to cover up your mistakes and compounding them by starting players who are unfamiliar with the position. I thought that was what Winer Ball was for.
There might be a place on the bench for Josh Satin but he would have to beat out the current incumbant backup 1B-2B-3B, Justin Turner. I think Turner is better. Turner may end up being the backup middle infielder in 2013. Satin then would be competing for the 1B-3B backup spot with Zach Lutz. Maybe he gets a roster spot through that route but the Mets have been playing Murphy as backup at 1B and Turner as backup at 2b and 3b. In that scenario both Lutz and Satin are not needed. The Mets starting pitching is their strength and a poor defense will sabotage it. I’ve been advocating getting Duda out of the OF so I certainly would not want another defensively poor OF added in Satin. Alas, there really is no place in NY for Josh Satin.
Satin has a place on the Mets but they likely filled it with Brian Bixler.
It’s sad this is what Mets hot stove 2012-13 has boiled down to!!!
I went to a few met games in 2011 when Josh played first base and he did a nice job filling in and digging out poor throws by the other infielders. They seem to give other guys a chance when they struggle, but not Josh. Hopefully he plays well in his spring training invite, cause the mets really need right handed bats, and he would be a good bench guy.