With each new season comes similar storylines for some of the Mets players. One of those players is Mets captain and superstar David Wright.
On last night’s telecast, SNY’s Keith Hernandez made mention of a problem that has contributed to long stretches of issues for Wright. That problem is Wright’s tendency to make his swing longer. For the fans that follow this team on a regular basis know that this isn’t something new. Over the past three to four seasons, Wright has gone through long periods of time where his swing just isn’t what it should be and he struggles.
Most of the time this swing issue can be linked to a rough period for the Mets offense, meaning that Wright is trying to do too much at the plate, causing his swing to get longer and getting his hitting rhythm out of sync.
Last night in particular, Hernandez pointed out Wright missing a pitch he normally crushes on a nightly basis and went through the replay and showed the long swing that Wright currently has.
In addition to that, Wright is opening his shoulder quicker on breaking pitches, which throws his whole swing off.
But like mentioned before, this isn’t something knew for Wright. When the offense is struggling and the media is talking about it a lot, Wright tends to want to do it all for his team and that can spell these kinds of streaks.
With Granderson struggling behind him and the rest of the lineup struggling to hit well at home, Wright feels it is all on him to try to fix it and get the teaming going again. It’s the captain’s nature to want to put it all on himself and be the leader.
At some point Wright will fix his swing, take the ball the other way more and have more success. But this points to a larger problem for the Mets.
Consistently, Wright hasn’t had enough protection and offense in the lineup behind him to be comfortable. That leads to these problems, year after year. There’s signs of offense that can produce on a daily basis, but it hasn’t shown up enough this year. This is the best Mets roster offensively in a while, yet Wright is struggling again.
It’s going to take some outside additions plus the in-house options playing better (which includes playing the best players everyday #FreeLagares) for all this to be put together and for the Mets to start winning ball games again. Citi Field is becoming a distraction for a struggling offense when the players need to work within the dimensions. Line-drives are a player’s best friend, especially in a big park like Citi Field.
The more this offense struggles, the more distractions and excuses will surround the team. That won’t help this team win, especially with a 90-win goal already in place. David Wright is the key here. Get players behind him playing well, let him get comfortable and he’ll start hitting like he knows how to. All of that leads to more Mets wins. If this trend of hitting poorly at home continues, the season could be lost in a flash and nobody wants that.
Never should have signed him overated. Trade him for shortstop and relef pitchers put murphey on third ed young jr 2nd base
He’s not overrated. He’s been one the best players in the game for years. He’s been bad this year. But Murph at 3b and EYJ at 2b is certainly no solution.
I would be curious to see his numbers when Delgado was here as opposed to Duda and company.
The lineup in designed terribly. Chris Young is protecting Wright lately while offering zero in the way of production. At the very least Duda should be behind Wright, or maybe even put Wright in the 2-hole, and put Murphy behind him for a little while.
What about:
EYJ
Wright
Murphy
Duda
Granderson
Lagares
Flores
Young
P
Haha, nevermind, I put down four outfielders. I’m drunk apparently
Sadly this was Keith protecting Wright. He has 2 problems now in addition to the one he’s had since his beaning (susceptible to any hard stuff up and in and being moved off thr plate). His bat has slowed considerably over the last few years made worse by Collins being fundamentally unable to tell when you actually SHOULD rest a player. So not only does he have bailing problems due to the above – he can get beat by good fastballs down and over the plate that he drove hard in his mid 20’s.
Finally, because of the first issue the league knows how to set him up for breaking stuff down and away thathehas always had trouble with. That’s the primary reason for his increased strikeout rates the last five years.
When he was protected bt Beltran and Delgado pitcbers couldnt take the chance of putting him on, plus Reyes in front of him on the bases guaranteed middle middle fastballs.
When the Mets get rid of Collins and the so called batting coach things will turn around for Wright and the team. This idea to take and select a pitch to hit is a bad move. Give the batter a chance, a strike out swinging is better than a called third strike.
Wright has 17 strikeouts looking compared to 32 swinging. That’s a 34.7% rate, down from 38% last year and 40.2% in 2012.
Swinging k’s in excess are a function of a lack of situational hitting. With 2 strikes you don’t look to drive something you hit it where it’s pitched. A skill that seems to have been lost. Everyone should have to read Charley Lau’s book.
Hire bob Oheda manager. Keith Hernandez hitting coach ron darling pitching coach fire coaching staff play Campbell Lagsres granderson every day
David wright never hits in the clutch. Eric Campbell playing great terry collins rewards him by replacing him with the 7 million dollar stiff young terry collins ba humbug
Ever since wright went in home run derby his numbers went down he is not a superstar just a good player his best years are behind him. He was better when Reyes was with him. Reyes should have been resigned.