With it becoming more and more evident every day that Wilmer Flores is likely to be the 2015 Opening Day shortstop, the Mets used the Winter Meetings to fill a few gaps in their roster – a second lefty out of the bullpen (Rule 5 draftee Sean Gilmartin and Scott Rice re-signing on a minor league deal) and a righty-hitting outfield bat (John Mayberry Jr).
While none of the moves could be categorized as exciting or even bold, they are good moves by the team, particularly in the case of Mayberry.
For parts of six seasons, Mayberry was a hated member of the Philadelphia Phillies, before being dealt at the August 31st Waiver Trade Deadline. In 1400 career PA, Mayberry has hit .241/.305/.429 and has been exactly league average, according to wRC+, which is exactly 100.
The consensus with the Mayberry move is that he was brought in to play the outfield on those days where Michael Cuddyer moves over to first base to give Lucas Duda the day off against a tough lefty.
Against southpaws, Mayberry has well in his career, hitting .269/.324/.533 with a 130 wRC+, which is slightly better than the career numbers of Hunter Pence, for reference. Having that kind of production come off the bench late in a game (even with the pinch-hitting penalty) or making spot starts as part of a platoon is tremendously valuable.
The bigger question becomes though, will Terry Collins leverage Mayberry in a way that optimizes his value to the team?
We’ve seen many times over the past five seasons, Collins has not shown to be an effective manager of platoons. Just remember how badly the Lucas Duda/Ike Davis/Josh Satin situation was handled last year. Or his lefty bullpen management forever.
This is why the notion that Collins is a puppet of the front office and that that is a bad thing is confusing. If Collins really was just a proxy for Sandy Alderson, he would be able to efficiently and properly run a platoon. Alderson would give him the marching orders, and Collins would follow. Unless the marching orders are contrary to what Alderson’s publicly-held beliefs are, it’s hard to see this being the case. More likely it’s Collins managing the way that Collins wants to manage.
The other question in there is why shouldn’t a manager and a general manager be on the same page about how a roster should be utilized in a game and throughout the course of the season? The GM puts together a roster with a certain vision, but if the manager can’t or won’t execute that vision, what good is the team?
But I digress.
Adding Mayberry deepens the bench and the lineup against lefties, which is always a good thing, especially in the current MLB run-scoring environment where pitching rules the day. If Collins utilizes him properly, he should be a valuable piece on the 2015 Mets.
Now if only they could solve the black hole at shortstop.
I’m glad we have the time to worry about loogys and right handed bench depth, especially when we have major holes in the starting club. Flores is not a mlb shortstop. We have the worst up the middle defense perhaps in all the land. The Dodgers gave up run producers and replaced the middle infield and catcher in a matter of hours. Years later and we are talking about Tejada and Flores. It’s maddenimg beyond words. Given we are a light hitting team, you’d think going with strong defense to complement pitching would be a natural fit. Listening to SA from the winter meetings it makes you wonder why he goes or ever addresses the media. He has the sincerety of an ambulance chasing lawyer (apologies to ambulance chasing lawyers). Looks like another winter of discontent.
TdA, Duda, Murph, wright, Flores, Granderson, Lagares, Cuddyer. Really that’s the change to get to 90 wins? Oh I forgot. John Mayberry Jr.
Upgrade shortstop and this team could surprise some people.
Eduardo Escobar was the 14th best MLB shortstop by fWAR with a 2.3 in 2014. Even when presented with an affordable option Alderson passed.
Peralta, Tulowitzki, Desmond and Aybar were the shortstops with 4+ fWAR.
The Mets can’t afford these guys. In fact every shortstop with a higher fWAR than Escobar the Mets can’t afford.
I am with you Chris F, Flores and Murphy give me defensive shudders.
Is Escobar this year’s Matt Joyce?
l know you are pulling my leg Brian but I’ll answer seriously. No.
All Escobar would do is be an upgrade over Tejada and a better fall back for Flores whom the organization wants to play shortstop. It would have cost the Mets a starting pitcher and prevent them from trading for a better option like Miller. Therefor I can’t fault Sandy for not pulling the trigger. If the winter of inactivity continues and Gee needs to be salary dumped then revisiting that trade is a possibility.
I realize the Mets hope that Flores will be the next Peralta. IMO a team preparing for a playoff run should not be putting their hopes on a player that, at this time last year, was not even considered a shortstop.
The Mets have pitching, the Cubs have Addison Russell so maybe it is time to seriously consider upgrading the shortstop position for 2016 and beyond by at least asking what it would take to land Russell.
Paying the price for Addison Russell (who I really like) doesn’t make sense to me. The club invested heavily in Gavin Cecchini and Amed Rosario and has to believe that one of them will come through in the next few years. Why invest in a prospect who’s not ready now and who will block those two?
I think because both of these guys are still at least two years away, they are forgotten more often than not.
While it’s possible Escobar has turned the corner, there’s also a good chance 2014 was his career year.
Career .358 SLG in the minors, and he posted a .406 mark last year. Also had a .336 BABIP last year, which if it falls to a “normal” .300 mark will cause his numbers to regress.
Defense is just a tiny bit better than Tejada’s according to UZR. But he doesn’t even have a full season’s worth of data.
Was a decent prospect in 2011 ranking just inside BA’s top 100 and a top 5 guy in the White Sox system so he could very well be a late bloomer.
A platoon would be the obvious way to go.
Lucas Duda career vs LHP: 212 avg .291 OBP .317 Slg .608 OPS .105 ISO
John Maberry career vs LHP 269 avg .324 OBP .533 Slg .857 OPS .263 ISO
Terry is Sandy’s guy. Sandy hired him, then extended him, and at every juncture voices his approval of the job that TC has done.
Sandy’s first move as a GM was to replace Tony LaRussa with Art Howe.
Let that sink in.
Meanwhile, Theo Epstein makes a very tough, difficult move and gets Maddon when he becomes available. He wants talent, and isn’t afraid of an independent thinker.
Sandy wants a corporate yes man, happy and grateful to have a job, rescued off the trash heap of history. There is no way on Earth that Terry Collins is crossing Sandy Alderson in any way, shape, or form.
It’s hard to imagine a manager being less powerful than Terry Collins, who is more shoe-shine boy than autonomous thinker.
Granted, Sandy probably lets TC make a lot of little, day-to-day decisions. But they meet often, probably daily. If he wasn’t happy, as the boss, he would speak up — or else he’d be an inept boss. It is crazy to me that anybody on the planet could blame Terry for decisions and let his boss off scot-free.
That’s pretty much my impression too.
To describe Flores as a black hole at short stop can only be interpreted as meaning he will swallow up every ground ball that comes his way?
Honestly, the dramatics over Flores’ defense has become unhinged. I’ll eat a lot of crow if we’re a month into the season and the mets have lost more than a game or two due to shoddy middle infield defense. Murph and Flores will easily create more runs than they allow with their offense. And Flores will finish the year as a league average defensive short stop.
#teamflores
” Flores will easily create more runs than they allow with their offense”
You’ll eat more crow with that statement.
Yep
i promise to man up and face the ridicule if im wrong. will you as well?
Or… let’s just pray for a legit SS so that no one has to eat crow.
But if we have to judge Flores, and if he’s the full time SS and if sticks there the entire season my projections are
.230/.280/.340 9 hr’s.
-5 UZR at SS
I’ll man up if Flores outproduces at least 2 of the 3 slashes by 20 points.
That is an extremely pessimistic tally. Steamer has him going .255/.296/.401 with 14 homers, and his “everyday” numbers from August and September were even better at .266/.306/.426 with 5 home runs in 181 PAs. The whole September Numbers argument has little weight when it comes to Flores, as he was under a focused microscope those two months. If he was going to crack under pressure, I imagine he would have already. His defense will probably be worse than league average, but he doesn’t appear to be a wasted bat.
I actually thought about revising some of the numbers down after i posted.
Steamer… is useless for young players with few MLB numbers under their belt. If you want a good laugh, take a look at what it projects for the already retired Reese Havens…
September numbers mean jack to me. Hell, Tejada outhit Flores during September. Take away the 2 HR game against Brad Penny and his SLG drops 40 points.
I realize i’m really pessimistic even among pessimists Heck if i had my way i wouldn’t carry him on the 25-man roster.
I understand your point about Steamer not always being accurate with younger guys, but they numbers they have aren’t that far removed from most realistic projections for Flores. However, I know it has been much easier with these Mets of late to simply assume the worse and hope to be surprised. That strategy could pay off big with Flores.