Michael Conforto and Asdrubal Cabrera are moving in opposite directions

Ideally, you want your best players getting the most PA. As you might imagine, things haven’t exactly been ideal so far for the 2017 Mets. Only one of their top five players in PA is off to a good start in Jay Bruce. This is due to injuries to their good players, slumps by guys expected to be good and the imperfect distribution of talent that led Michael Conforto to start the year in a reserve role.

Conforto leads the team with an 1.116 OPS yet is only seventh in PA. He should move up in the latter category, as Gary Cohen gushed during Saturday’s game it’s hard to imagine any scenario where he won’t be a regular going forward. That’s definitely true here on April 30. Yet we have to remind ourselves that last April Conforto had an 1.118 OPS after 86 PA and then proceeded to post a .174/.267/.330 line over his next 262 PA. And that was with the platoon advantage the overwhelming number of times.

But while an ounce of caution is merited in Conforto’s case, let’s not pretend we aren’t seeing some real improvement, either. Last year’s hot April was produced with the benefit of a .411 BABIP. This year, his mark in the category is a more normal .314 – giving hope that while the power may not be sustainable, it’s not so dependent on the hits falling in. Additionally, according to the PITCHf/x Plate Discipline numbers, Conforto is swinging at fewer pitches outside of the strike zone and more inside. That’s resulted in an uptick in his BB% and a decrease in his K%.

All winter, Mets fans dreamed of a way of getting both a center fielder and a leadoff hitter on the team. So much virtual ink was spent on plans to import someone like Dexter Fowler or Andrew McCutchen. Here in the early going, Fowler isn’t matching last year’s strong season and McCutchen has not rebounded from last season’s disappointment.

Meanwhile, in an extremely tiny sample, Conforto looks just fine in center field. In 46.2 innings in center, he has a 0.4 UZR, which extrapolates to an 18.6 UZR/150. Absolutely no one should make any determination based on this. The only thing we can say is that what we’ve seen has been fine. This follows up last year’s tiny sample, where he was even better. You string together enough tiny samples and all of a sudden, it’s not tiny. While we’re nowhere close to that point, we can also say he’s looked good in left field, too.

And out of necessity, Conforto has been installed as a leadoff man. In eight games in the top spot, he has a .444 OBP. Which is head and shoulders above what either Jose Reyes or Curtis Granderson were doing when they led off. Reyes has started to hit and there are calls to move him back to the top of the order. But that shows people’s fascination with speed. The key to being a good leadoff hitter is to get on base and only once in his 15-year career has Reyes truly had a good OBP. Since his magical 2011 season, Reyes has a .331 OBP in 2,679 PA. That’s not awful; it’s just not good. Since 2014, he has a .318 mark.

Conforto is no one’s idea of an ideal leadoff man and center fielder. But hands down he’s the Mets’ best option for both roles. He (rightfully) started the year as a reserve looking for playing time at any position. With his performance, he’s earned the right for two important roles. Everyone needs to quit fighting it and looking for reasons to change Conforto to fit their pre-conceived notions, to pigeon hole him into a corner outfielder who bats lower in the order. That’s not the hero Gotham needs right now.

While Conforto has moved up in the pecking order, the play of Asdrubal Cabrera should result in a move in the opposite direction.

It’s a reasonable assumption that Cabrera is playing hurt, gutting it out for the good of the team when so many other players are unable to go. That should earn him our respect and admiration. Cabrera came to the Mets with the reputation as an outstanding teammate and everything he’s done in his year-plus in Queens confirms that.

But, let’s not consider that all of those positive qualities means he has an unalienable right to play shortstop and bat second. During Saturday’s game, Ron Darling said that the team should flip Cabrera and Reyes defensively “yesterday.” Undoubtedly, that’s influenced by Darling’s experience as a pitcher. But who better than a former pitcher and a guy who watches every game with what’s best for the team’s vaunted pitching staff to make that observation?

Cabrera did not have a great defensive reputation when he came to the Mets. Last year he had, for him, a strong defensive season. Both his critics and detractors would say the same thing – that he caught every ball he got to and made throws to first with a strong and accurate arm. Of course his range was the big issue, as he simply didn’t get to balls that younger, more athletic shortstops did. His supporters would minimize that issue and point out each and every time he made a good play. And he made quite a lot of those good plays. It’s just that he let a lot of balls go by, too.

This year, a detractor might say that he fields most of the balls that he gets to and delivers an accurate throw to first. So, we still have the issue of range but we’ve added a bit of uncertainty with both the glove and with his arm strength.

Would Reyes make a better defensive shortstop than Cabrera? Perhaps. The Mets would likely gain some range and they would gain arm strength. But how much reliability would they lose? In a curious way, it might make the team better by Cabrera being a better third baseman than Reyes. The announcers constantly talk about Reyes’ reluctance to play close and his hesitancy to field balls that a third baseman should. It’s likely Cabrera would be better on both counts.

Cabrera leads the team with 97 PA. Unfortunately, he’s posted a .632 OPS in those trips to the plate. The average National League number two hitter has a .790 OPS. That’s a lot of offense to be sacrificing in a key spot in the order. And it’s not like they’re making it back up on defense, either.

The one saving grace for Cabrera in the early going is his performance with ducks on the pond. In 12 PA with RISP, Cabrera has a .636 AVG, with 9 Runs and 8 RBIs. He’d likely come up with more RISP if he was batting lower in the order.

At the end of last year, Cabrera had great success batting second, nestled between Reyes and Yoenis Cespedes. But what worked last year hasn’t had the same payoff this year. Some will advocate for staying the course, that what happened a year ago will happen again if we give it enough time. Perhaps they’re right.

But what happened in August and September last year is out of the ordinary for Cabrera and expecting it to happen again seems overly optimistic. From April through July last year, Cabrera had a .718 OPS. From 2013-2015, he had a .712 OPS. Why should the default decision that what he did in 165 PA trump everything else he’s done recently before and since?

He deserved a shot here in the early going, in case a little Daniel Murphy action was headed his way. However, that does not appear to be the case. My preference would be to drop him in the order and look for more production. Of course, that’s easier said than done. There’s no one on the team screaming out to hit second. Push comes to shove, Travis d’Arnaud would be better served hitting second than eighth. Another option would be to move Neil Walker there, to “try to get him going.”

We come into the season with expectations of players and sometimes those are met, sometimes those are exceeded and sometimes they fall short. It’s more art than science in how to react in each situation and the last thing you want to do is change things every other day. But while you don’t want to run around like a chicken with its head cut off, you don’t want to do nothing, either.

In my opinion, it’s time to embrace Conforto as the team’s center fielder and leadoff hitter. And it’s time to move Cabrera to third base and drop him in the batting order. Conforto needs regular playing time and the way he fits best on the 2017 Mets is leading off and playing center. And we all expect the Mets to have a different shortstop sometime soon. And it’s more than okay if that future is now, even if it’s not with the ultimate shortstop of the future.