2/14/12

Mets: Lucas Duda, Reese Havens, Jon Niese, Bullpen



Lucas Duda had trouble coming in on balls and he had trouble going back on balls too. Duda had four Defensive Misplays for failing to anticipate the fence, which rated his biggest defensive issue. Pro-rated over a full season, Duda’s misplay rate would come equate to nearly 60 Defensive Misplays & Errors for an everyday player over a full season. That would be about as bad as could be. Last year’s major league leaders, Justin Upton of the Diamondbacks and Mike Stanton of the Marlins, had 49. Other advanced defensive metrics are not kind to Duda either. Duda was charted as costing the Mets eight runs with his right field defense, combining the value of his ability to get to balls with the deterrent ability of his throwing arm. http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/37871/simonwhats-next-for-lucas-duda?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

2-10-12 - seedlingstostars   - Second base: Reese Havens. Havens is a career .301/.379/.505 hitter in Double-A, but he’s only gotten into a total of 93 games the past two seasons due to injuries. Picked one pick ahead of Dykstra in the 2008 draft, he’s now 25 and badly needs a healthy season, but still has the potential to be an offense-oriented second baseman. Grade: B-

Jonathan Niese might be the most underrated young pitcher in the game. If you look at his record last year, you'll see an unimpressive 11-11 record with an equally unimpressive ERA of 4.40. But that cover really doesn't judge the book. He had an extremely high BABIP against last season at .333. Part of that was due to a fairly high line drive rate at 20.6 percent. The Mets' infield defense will be discussed in a moment, but suffice it to say that it didn't help Niese, a ground ball pitcher. Plus, a fairly significant amount of balls hit in the air ended up over the fence. Since opponents do not hit a lot of fly balls against him, we can consider that home rate a bit of a fluke. Niese had a FIP last season of 3.36 and an xFIP of 3.28. He was a much better pitcher than he looked. http://passion4baseball.blogspot.com/2012/02/nl-east-fascinating-place-mets.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Bullpen: Instead of re-signing the catalyst of this club, –Jose Reyes– Alderson decided to invest $7.5 million in two relievers; and they were paid much more than what they’re worth. What everyone seems to forget is Frank Francisco had a 5.92 ERA in the first half of 2011. He has never been a consistent reliever and now the Mets are committed to him for 2 years. As for Rauch, they decided to give him $3.5 million when he not only had a 4.85 ERA last year, but also is coming off of knee surgery! Aren’t these bottom-of-the-barrel signings supposed to be cheap and at give at least a decent return? The sole improvement to the ‘pen was Ramon Ramirez, and the Mets had to take a major downgrade in centerfield to acquire him. http://metsmerizedonline.com/2012/02/two-schools-of-thought-on-the-2012-mets-part-one.html

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