Saturday, July 28, 2007

Current Met Starters, Ranked by OPS

Wright 3B .875
Gotay 2B .850
Alou LF .831
Reyes SS .830
Beltran CF .823
[Milledge] .819
Delgado 1B .757
Green RF .725
LoDuca C .679
[Valentin] .676
[Gomez] .636

A few lessons:

1. Milledge is contributing in a very real way (basically hitting as well as Beltran) and should get 3rd OF playing time right now (between replacing Green against LHP and spelling Beltran and Alou).

2. Gotay has been hitting great, we all know that. There's a strong argument that his trade value might never be higher. There's also the chance he's Melvin Mora. My guess? Gotay & 2 pitching prospects (like Muniz, Schmoll, Burgos; not Pelfrey, Humber or Mulvey) will be offered for Mark Loretta.

3. As a team, we're underperforming. Even our better performers this year, Wright/Reyes/Beltran could be 50-150 points higher in their OPS. Delgado and Green are rally killers and non-producers at this point, and they both blow in the field.

4. Despite all the excitement Gomez produced, and all the callers from Bensonhurst who have annointed him the NEXT one, he clearly needs some more seasoning. As a PR/defensive replacement/spot starter he's fine already, but with his high ceiling, he needs to be playing every day and honing his eye and his situational hitting.

1 comment:

SheaHeyKid said...

Gomez definitely needs more time to develop, at least another year. I don't think Mets had planned to use him in majors at all this year, but obviously with all the injuries their hands were forced. I really hope Milledge turns out to have the batting and fielding skills they've touted, b/c that would be huge. Milledge 2.0 is definitely looking very exciting so far.

Offense is woefully underperforming. For this lineup to be 9th in NL in runs scored, with #1 payroll, is absurd. Beltran is particularly killing us, since we depend on a lot more out of him. I think Reyes may have a little more upside in him, but my guess is he might be a career .300-.310 batter with .380-.400 OBP, since his #s from this season and last season are similar. There's a chance he improves on that, if he decides to forget going for power and drop himself to <10 HRs a year, and go purely for contact. It's really up to him, I think he has the talent to continue to improve. Wright's turnaround since April has been awesome.