The Mets are 58 games into the 2013 season. A miserable season so far, to be sure, highlighted by their dreadful outfield. Much has already been said about the Mets terrible outfield this year. It’s very bad, in case you hadn’t noticed. Not only is the outfield a point of poor performance for the team, it’s been a revolving door. In fact, the Mets have already had nine different players start in the outfield.
The distribution of starts is not equal among each of the outfield positions, though. Lucas Duda has left field locked down and has started 52 games there. Marlon Byrd has started 34 of the Mets games in right field, while Mike Baxter has started 16 of them there. Center field, on the other hand, has been utter chaos. Six different players have started in center field, led by latest ex-Met Rick Ankiel at seventeen. Next in line is rookie Juan Lagares with 16 games. After that is Jordany Valdespin and Collin Cowgill, Las Vegas 51s outfielder since early May, with ten. Cowgill hasn’t started for the major league team in over a month yet he’s started close to 20% of the teams’ games in center field. How did we get to this point?
The Mets started the season on April 1st with Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Cowgill on the roster, both presumably getting the bulk of their time in centerfield. Nieuwenhuis’ inclusion was a surprise to some, mainly because it had appeared that Cowgill had won the center field job and left the Mets without a true backup shortstop. Nieuwenhuis’ time with the team was short-lived, however, and he was demoted in late April after starting only three games and 17 at-bats. He was replaced with Lagares.
Cowgill didn’t last much longer and was demoted to AAA for outfielder Andrew Brown on May 3rd after only ten games in center field. To be fair, neither Cowgill nor Nieuwenhuis excelled in their limited time on the roster. Brown was later optioned to AAA on May 13th to make room for newly signed, and recently released Houston Astros, Ankiel. On June 8th Ankiel was designated for assignment and Nieuwenhuis once again got the call. Yesterday, Baxter was part of a trio of demotions that led to Cowgill being recalled. Have we mentioned that we are still only 58 games into the season?
This tells us two things. First, the talent the Mets have been putting out there has been pretty lacking, to say the least. Second, the Mets have had an incredibly short leash on young players so far this year, at least in the outfield. Young players like Lagares and Valdespin were languishing on the bench, or in Nieuwenhuis’ case in AAA, watching Ankiel strike out at a 35% clip.
The backlash after the Ankiel signing was predictable and understandable: why not just let the young players go through their struggles? Most fans would rather see young players sink or swim rather than watch retreads take away their playing time. Let the kids play. At the very least, stick with somebody for more than a handful of games. If the team is really working towards the future, stifling player development for the sake of a few meaningless 2013 wins isn’t the way to do it.
Look at how the Twins have handled Aaron Hicks. The organization is allowing him to struggle and figure the game out. Why won’t the Mets do this with Lagares? Lagares has had some bad at bats, but he’s never looked overmatched. It’s obvious he has the tools to play in the major leagues. I would pay to see the growing pains. I am not going to pay to see Ankiel, Byrd, even Buck.
Lagares Not looking overmatched… are you sure we are watching the same player?
For the last few games, he’s stepped up some. I don’t know if he’s getting a little better confidence, but he’s stroking the ball okay … hitting some line drives, going the other way, playing the field well. I especially liked throwing behind the lead runner to get the guy out at third base the other day.
Other times, yeah … he’s looked like a 13 year old on varsity.
Duda needs to be shifted to 1B to open up LF. Then rotate Byrd, Cowgill, Nieuwenhuis and Lagares and give them 100 AB’s to see how they do. Evaluate then. It is TC with the short leash and indecisiveness.
Byrd is the only Met OF who is playing above NL average offensivly and defensively. If the “kids” want his job then make them earn it. If they can’t take it away from a 35 year old retread then maybe they don’t belong.
This looks like the last opportunity for Kirk, Cowgill and Satin. If they don’t make it now then why keep them on the 40 man roster this winter?
Rob! Excellent points! If Ankiel can’t play for the Astros what the hell is Met management thinking? Who’s decision was it to sign him? The problem is there is NO plan in place, It’s a hodgepodge of shuffling cards in a deck. I don’t see how SA is going to make a difference with what we are seeing on the field this season. Yes. Let the kids play and learn and build from within, Wasn’t that the plan that was being sold to the fan base?