In the offseason the Mets showed a lot of faith in Wilmer Flores and Juan Lagares. They showed faith in Flores by not acquiring a shortstop to compete with him for the starting job. And they showed faith in Lagares by trading away Matt den Dekker, the best choice to play center field if Lagares was ineffective. Remember just one year earlier, the Mets acquired Chris Young as CF insurance for Lagares. This year they did the exact opposite.
Flores and Lagares may not appear to be similar offensive players. But neither player has displayed a ton of patience in drawing walks and neither hitter has wowed us with their power. Among the 23 non-pitchers to bat for the Mets in 2014, Flores ranked 10th in ISO and Lagares ranked 14th. Of the nine players to have a worse ISO than Lagares last year, eight did not make the 2015 Opening Day roster. Only backup shortstop Ruben Tejada returned with a worse ISO than Lagares a year ago.
If you don’t walk and if you don’t hit for a ton of power, your only chance to be a good offensive player is to have a high BABIP. Last year Lagares did exactly that, with a .341 BABIP – which got him a long-term contract and his main competition sent out of town. Flores did not, as he posted just a .265 mark in the category. That poor mark led to an offseason of trade rumors before faith won out.
With the Mets showing faith in these two players, they were essentially betting on Lagares maintaining his high BABIP and Flores getting much closer to league average in the category. Either that or a power breakthrough. Or perhaps, optimistically, both.
The Spring Training numbers for both players were encouraging. Flores had a .187 ISO while Lagares recorded a .282 ISO and a .408 BABIP during Grapefruit League play. Unfortunately, neither player has managed those numbers here in the very early going of the 2015 season. The Mets’ offense which was so potent in Florida has been MIA through most of the first five games of the regular season, aided more by opposition errors than booming hits.
And while they have plenty of company, the duo of Flores and Lagares are struggling right out of the gate. In 37 combined plate appearances, they have totaled one walk and zero extra-base hits. And their combined BABIP stands at a dismal .231 clip, one that high only due to their 10 strikeouts, which are not incorporated into the stat.
Everyone understands that it’s just five games and that a two-hit game on Sunday changes things dramatically. The poor start is not the issue; it only highlights the gamble the Mets are taking with both of these players. For a team that allegedly values hitters that draw walks and hit home runs, the Mets are oddly accepting to receive neither from both their starting shortstop and center fielder.
At least Lagares still provides value in the field; Flores has not helped his case defensively here in the early going.
It’s easy for someone who believes in advanced defensive numbers to say, “Don’t worry what Lagares hits – his defense makes him a plus player.” Yet how will the Mets and their fans feel if they’re still scuffling offensively after two months and Lagares has a .223/.266/.310 line because he has just a .277 BABIP? Don’t think that’s likely? That’s what he did over his final 247 PA of the 2013 season. Think last year was different? He had a .593 OPS over a 230-PA stretch in 2014, even with a .315 BABIP.
Those poor stretches in 2013 and 2014 are easily forgotten – or never realized in the first place – since they came after blistering starts. Lagares had an .842 OPS with a .393 BABIP before the 2014 swoon and an .831 OPS with a .429 BABIP in the 35 games prior to the lousy stretch at the end of 2013.
Yet we can take virtually any player in MLB history and find 230 or 247-PA stretches where they weren’t very good. But ideally you want to have something to fall back on when the BABIP gods are not smiling on you to make these stretches not so terrible.
Right now Curtis Granderson is hitting worse than both Flores and Lagares with his .063 AVG. But at least he’s getting on base with six walks in this stretch where he can’t buy a hit. Across town, Mark Teixeira is just 3-16 but he has a double and two homers and is giving his team something even with his .091 BABIP.
Right now the easy solution is to just wait for the hits to start falling in for both Flores and Lagares. And at some point they will. The question is: How long do you wait? Obviously, Flores will be on a much shorter leash. He has almost no track record of hitting in the majors and his shaky defense at short makes replacing him an easy call if he continues to falter.
By trading den Dekker, the Mets have painted themselves in the corner with Lagares. While Kirk Nieuwenhuis showed excellent ISO numbers last year, his extremely high K% makes him a very risky play over an extended stretch, even if you believe he’s capable of handling the position defensively. John Mayberry Jr. has already been exposed playing center on a regular basis and is best suited for the lefty-masher role while playing an outfield corner.
With Granderson and Michael Cuddyer in the outfield corners, the Mets need someone with Lagares’ defensive chops in center field. They also need him not to be a sink hole offensively. The sad truth is that even if he is a sink hole, they’re going to play him because they have no other acceptable option.
Which means the pressure is on Flores. And by extension it’s on Sandy Alderson, too. No one wants to see Tejada get 100 starts at short this year. If Flores doesn’t hit, the Mets will have to go outside the organization for a shortstop, unless you think Matt Reynolds can duplicate his .400-something minor league BABIPs from a year ago.
Many ragged on Alderson for being a “semi-active GM” for neglecting the major league roster via the trade route. Then he goes out and makes two trades for the current team, even if they were for low-leverage lefty relievers. How will Alderson react if Flores proves incapable of being the team’s everyday shortstop, regardless if that failing is offensively or defensively? Will he get the shortstop equivalent of a LOOGY or will he aim higher?
But we’re not at that point yet. We’re just five games into a 162-game season and it’s not time to panic. Still, it’s important to recognize the pink elephant in the corner. In a season where all interested parties are demanding playoff-caliber baseball, the Mets are depending heavily on guys who have all of their eggs in the BABIP basket.
The BABIP gods can be fickle. It’s entirely possible Lagares again posts a .341 mark (even if only 15 players in all of MLB exceeded a .330 mark in both 2013 and 2014, a group with 14 All-Star appearances) and all is right in the world. And maybe Flores can finish the year with a .300 mark in the category and show that the comparisons to Jhonny Peralta are spot on. But Alderson needs to be formulating the plan on what to do in mid-to-late May if neither of those things are close to happening and a season that was supposed to be spent contending is instead slipping away.
In the meantime, all we can do is have faith that those two-hit games are coming sooner rather than later.
I believe in Lagares. I think the sudden lineup change could be a factor in all of this. The team was hitting in ST with Lagares hitting leadoff. Now you put him in an RBI slot of the order and he’s struggling. The lineup should be the following:
Lagares
Murphy
Wright
Duda
Cuddyer
Granderson
d’Arnaud
Flores or Tejada
Pitcher
That offers the right left combo the team likes, situates the power hitters in RBI spots and puts Lagares back where he was comfortable in ST.
Scott why do you think Alderson decided to put his 2 cents in after all the success the team had during ST? Defies logic.
I have more confidence in Lagares simply because he appears to have the ability to not let his offense affect his defense. Flores is barely adequate at SS. What we see is not going to get any better. Just an average SS with limited range. If he doesn’t produce offensively then the Mets are going to have to make a decision sooner rather than later. How long is Sandy going to stay with Flores? One month? Two months? With Colorado playing well TT isn’t going anywhere. To paraphrase Meatloaf, one out of two aint bad.
It’s hard to imagine that a Center fielder that is preventing runs against at a clip in the “other worldly” category could be considered as somehow having the team “painted into a corner”. I take Lagares 10/10 times over denDekker who is ultimately a 4th outfielder. The two cant be mentioned in the same breath. Defense is critical, that the fact we are seeing live time with costly error after costly error. In a world where offense is thin League wide, excelling at defense plays. Flores worries me because his defense is a hot mess, which for shortstop is a disaster. Everyone keeps saying he has a great arm. I’ve never seen it. He routinely throws short putting a lot of stress because of short hop attempts by Duda. He is wild under stress. If that cannot be solved, then we have real trouble.
The Mets as a team are hitting < .200. That stinks. This lack of offense mess isn't on Flores and Lagares. If Granny's average doesn't change but all he does is walk all season, it would be horrific. Nothing can convince me walks are somehow the key to offense. Murph looks equally bad at the plate and in the field. On top of team average, the record is something to look at: we could easily be 0-5 right now. We took two games capitalizing on mistakes, and good teams do that, but good teams also make commanding wins. We do not have any element of the power offense that we saw Spring Training. Aside for d'Arnaud, no one is hitting. Even hitting Strasburg mainly came from dunkers, not hard hit balls.
It's easy right now to begin the doubting…Flores, Lagares, Granny, Wright, Murph. It's also too early to know much. The Mariners look like hell. Kershaw got killed last night. The Phillies have a better record than the Mets. The Nats are riding a wave of depression. The NL East is literally upside down. I think the first real health check in comes at the end of the month. I'm hoping we see the messy noise of limited data begin to point to the team we are expecting.
I think Lagares should be the CF as long as he’s healthy because his defense is that good.
But what if it’s June 1st, the Mets are a game under .500 and Lagares has a sub .600 OPS? Do you think that management is going to be happy with him?
In no way is this guaranteed to happen. But we should be prepared for it as a potential outcome.
That’s all.
Of course not. But here’s the deal, Lagares is the center fielder and that’s not going to change, which is especially true given the poor defensive skills of the power hitting corner outfielders…that glove and arm are more needed than ever. Of all the places this team needs offensive production, worrying about him over the players paid big bucks to make crooked numbers is misplaced. What if Wright and Cuddyer together have <10 HR? I guess I just see worrying about Lagares production on offense to this point as misplaced.
On defense, individual plays he routinely makes have the potential to be game changers. I take 0-4 at the plate and one of his catches with 2 outs and bases packed over him being just another outfielder but getting a walk and a double and was left on base…and have that ball in the gap land.
And then in today’s game, Granderson gets on with a walk, steals second and scores the go-ahead run in the 8th inning. There are multiple ways to be valuable.
I agree 100%.
The problem as usual is that the Mets higher ups always try to re-invent the wheel before starting the season. This team was hitting the cover off the ball with a conventional lineup. So what do they do? switch it completely on the first day of the season. How is that working so far?
Granderson is paid to drive in runs, not to take walks. But even on your story, Lagares and Flores are the problem when Granderson is hitting .67. Wright is back to striking out almost every other at bat and Cuddyer is doing the same.
You want blame? blame the idiots in charge of the Mets who must always change things around even when they had a great spring training. Why not carry the same lineup that was working?
Too much logic, these are the Mets and screw ups are the norm.
I specifically said that Flores and Lagares have plenty of company.
If next Sunday Granny is still hitting .061, I’ll focus on him if no one else has discussed it.
The blame is not on these two players – it’s on management for its seeming belief that Lagares can repeat his BABIP and that Flores can improve his. It’s a gamble. We can debate if it’s a defensible gamble (and in the case of Lagares with his GG defense, my opinion is it is one) but I don’t think there’s any way you can look at it logically and not be concerned.
Joe you’re right. Why fix it if it isn’t broken?
Thank you all for voicing my concerns. How can you put players in a lineup that is working and then change. Why bother with Spring training.
It is simply too early to make judgments on the offensive side of the ball.
Regarding defense, I think that’s fairly consistent and more easily “knowable.” It’s also why Lagares and Flores don’t belong in the same headline.
With Flores, I am reminded of how many catchers struggled on offensive side of things during their first few seasons. The defensive responsibilities are simply too overwhelming, so offense takes a back side. Poor Wilmer — who may not have the skills in the first place — is expected to begin his first full MLB season as a strong hitter out of the box. In the best world, it could take him a few weeks, months, years to settle into his true offensive levels.
As far as playing the SS position, I have always had serious doubts about SA’s disrespect for defense in general. Nothing about the Flores/Murphy combo up the middle has quieted those concerns. Flores obviously needs help that Murphy simply cannot provide.
Indeed. I’d extend the problem to saying Murph needs the help that XXXX? cannot provide. The middle infield is a wreck.
Going to the original question. I have faith that Lagares is going to be a good player and that his contract will be seen as a reasonable for the next few years. I do not think that he has leadoff hitter skills and is misplaced there.
I have zero faith in Wilmer Flores. If he continues to play SS I think he will allow hits (and therefore runs) at an alarming pace. In recent years the two worst fielding shortstops have been Jed Lowrie and Jhonny Peralta (although the latter has seemingly improved). I believe Wilmer is poorer at the position than either of them. And while he’ll eventually outhit a lightweight like Ruben Tejeda it’s doubtful that his bat will make up for everything he gives away in the field.
I think that’s a reasonable opinion.
If on May 15th both Flores and Lagares have a sub .600 OPS, it won’t be Lagares they’re looking to replace.
If Wilmer starts costing Matt Harvey games, he won’t be quiet about it.
The revolution often starts with whispers.
A team that expects to make the playoffs should not build the team on hopeful expectations. Instead it should be planned on previous performance and possible worst case scenarios in order to increase the playoff odds.
Lagares is a potential budding star in this league but offensively has only shown that he can be average over a full season. The plan should have been to expect the 2013 Lagares but nurture him by allowing him to lead off vs LHP since that is his strength. Otherwise plan to bat him seventh vs RHP where his speed could be utilized to build runs. It would be a mistake to bat Lagares 8th because his poor plate discipline would allow the pitcher never to offer anything good and Lagares would get himself out. So if you end up with the 2013 Lagares you have a hole in the batting order and a “problem” in the offense but still have a bWAR 3.5 starting player. If he meets hopeful expectations then he becomes your full time lead off hitter. He should be eased in , not forced.
Flores is another story. If Alderson believed that Flores was a very good major league hitter that was going to provide a .750 OPS with 20 home run potential then he should have cleared a spot for him at second base. There is nothing wrong with a playoff team trying a rookie shortstop if he has pedigree. Flores so called pedigree was in his offense not his defense. Flores is a better defensive second baseman than Murphy. Therefore, when putting together the 2015 team Sandy was hoping Flores would be an adequate defensive shortstop. That was poor planning even if Flores meets those expectations. I do realize that the Mets choices last winter prevented them from making a significant upgrade like a Castro or Tulo but not to bring in an available minimal safety net like Eduardo Escobar (who was better than the twice failed Tejada) was poor planning.
There was a lot of trading this winter and the Mets did have enough pieces to get involved and restructure and improve the team. Sandy chose not to so unfortunately that leaves us with faith and not options.
This is why I think Lagares can make it.
http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=5384&position=OF&type=battedball&pid2=5384&ss1=2014&se1=2014&ss2=2014&se2=2014&cht1=hittype&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL
He uses all fields, and really only pulls during homeruns. He also had quite a few extra-base hits to deep right that could turn into homers as well. I certainly understand the regression aspect, but he could also just get a little stronger and muscle ball out more often. He is still 26 and not quite at his power prime. I think good hitters make their BABIPs higher. I don’t know if Lagares is there yet, but he at least comes with the backing of league-leading defense if absolutely nothing else.
Flores, you have me worried on though.
Lagares shows tremendous offensive Talent—but the first 450 ab’s and the second 450 ab’s look too much alike. It’s time for that to change. His BABIP appears to have been almost entirely Luck Driven. I’ll be disappointed with sub 700/710 ops results— he should get to 720-740 or so. At 660-680 he’s a major downer—and he’s a “mistake” if he doesn’t get above that.
Flores?…he’s all ugly, all; the time (for my eyes) with the bat. His stats may say hitter…that may be circumstantial. My eyes don’t “spy a hitter”, to borrow a Keith phrasing. I don;t know if we’ll ever see good looking ab’s from him—maybe we will see production—that wouldn’t be ugly.
The thing I don’t get is why anyone throws him fastballs in the strike zone. He seems to be a pretty good FB hitter and struggles with offspeed stuff. Until he proves he can hit a slider or a curve, I don’t know why you’d give him fastballs to hit.
Brian…I’m guessing that you’re talking about Lagares. My comment is that he’s certainly not forcing anyone to throw him Fastballs/Strikes/”Hitter’s Pitches”.
Yes, I was talking about Lagares and your comment is spot on. As fans we should be very happy about that.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood, or maybe you’ve “typo’d”— I think his missing component is forcing pitchers to throw strikes/fastballs, Hitter’s Pitches to him.
He can be a very nice offensive player with “an approach”…