Views from the Promenade

Mets fans will be understandably pessimistic heading into the second half of the season. The team is struggling, we’re still suffering through one of the worst rash of injuries the Mets have ever seen, and management doesn’t appear to be looking to make a big trade to improve the team and make a run.

All that said, let’s not give up hope yet. There’s plenty of talent on this team, even if some of that talent is on the disabled list. If the Mets hang roughly where they are — within 6-7 games or so of first — until they start getting players like Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran back, all is not yet lost. The Mets would need some help, because if the Phillies play as well as they can, it would be nearly impossible to catch them. But until the last two weeks, Philadelphia hadn’t shown the ability to start distancing themselves from the rest of the NL East; if their recent run proves to be the exception rather than the rule, there’s still a chance for the Mets to play themselves back into contention.

We’ll see how the Mets open up the second half tomorrow night in Atlanta, and hope they can start to turn things around — otherwise, it could be a long and boring summer. For now though, I want to give my take on the five biggest storylines of the first half:

1. Citi Field: The new home of the Mets quickly developed a reputation as being one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the league, and commentators have noted all season long that home run numbers at the park are down significantly. Part of this is true, but some of the perception doesn’t quite match the numbers. According to ESPN’s Park Factors, Citi Field is near the bottom of the league in terms of how many runs it allows, ranking 26th out of 30. But this is mostly due to a big reduction in walks and doubles; homers are almost exactly where you’d expect them to be (technically, they’re up 0.7%) when you compare how the same players perform in Citi Field compared to everywhere else. I have a feeling this number will come down, and Citi Field will prove to have some effect on the long ball, but only a moderate one — not the extreme one we’ve been told about.
2. The Mets Power Outage: For a while, the new park made an excellent excuse for why the Mets weren’t hitting home runs. Before too long, it became apparent that the team was hitting even fewer away from home, making it obvious that something was up with the players themselves. At the midpoint of the season, the Mets are last in the league with just 52 home runs as a team, and they’re not likely to get out of the cellar; even 29th placed Pittsburgh has 62.
3. David Wright’s Strange Season: One player who has a large hand in the lack of power is David Wright, who is having the strangest season of his career. His home runs are down (5), his strikeouts are up (87), and he has gone through terrible slumps and incredible hot streaks. And yet, despite all this, you can’t say he’s having a bad year when his on-base percentage is at .410 — he’s just not having the same sort of good year he’s had in the past. Actually, his most recent slump has taken his numbers down enough that this season looks a little off from his career norms, but before then he had largely been making up for the lack of power. Hopefully he’ll get some of his pop back in the second half, because the Mets need some in the middle of the lineup.
4. The Injuries: Oh, the injuries. It’s often said that you can’t blame injuries for a team’s struggles, but rarely does a team get hit nearly as hard as the Mets have this year. Is there any doubt that the presence of Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, and Jose Reyes wouldn’t have been worth at least a few games? And as much as they have struggled this season, wouldn’t a healthy John Maine and Oliver Perez have bolstered the starting rotation just a bit? The fact that the Mets haven’t fallen completely out of the race despite these injuries is one reason to feel just a little hope for the second half.
5. Church for Francouer: It probably won’t be the greatest trade the Mets ever made, but the more I think about it, the more it seems that the Mets can’t really lose. After all, they had no intention to actually use Church, so even if Francouer is a bust (and even after his hot start with the Mets, he probably will be), there’s no real loss involved. On the other hand, if Francouer really did just need a change of scenery, the deal could turn into a steal for the Mets.

Argenis Reyes is batting leadoff for the Mets tonight. Without even thinking about it much, you probably realize that’s less than ideal, but let’s delve into it a little more, because I think the Mets do have an ideal leadoff hitter with Jose Reyes out of the lineup, but I can guarantee they’ll never put him there.

First, what do we want out of a leadoff hitter? In rough order of importance:

1. He should get on base as much as possible.
2. It would be nice if he has good speed (and/or is a good baserunner) and can steal some bases when necessary.
3. If two players are similar in those traits, we’ll probably use the one who has less power in the leadoff spot, and put the power hitter down in the lineup a bit.

Actually, that’s a pretty solid way of forming a lineup in general; stack your high on-base percentage guys near the top, your remaining power hitters next, and your weakest hitters at the bottom. According to most research, lineup order isn’t the most important thing in the world, but it doesn’t hurt to get your best players up more times during the season by batting them early in the order.

By these metrics, Argenis Reyes is not a good leadoff hitter. Specifically, he has an awful career OBP of .252. He does have good speed, and he’s not a power hitter, but those things are of much less importance; as the cliche goes, “you can’t steal first.” If your leadoff hitter isn’t getting on, everything he can do on the bases for you is irrelevant.

Now, let’s look at two alternate leadoff hitters, both of which should be obviously better than Argenis Reyes. Let’s start with some stats without giving names. These are the 162-game averages for the careers of two players. SLG is slugging percentage:

Player A: .393 OBP, 23 SB (6 CS), .529 SLG, 28 HR.

Player B: .337 OBP, 62 SB (15 CS), .435 SLG, 13 HR.

So, what can we say for these two players and their leadoff potential? Player A is obviously the more productive offensive player, but Player B is no slouch, and makes up some of the difference as a leadoff hitter due to his higher stolen base numbers. Player A might also work a couple spots down in the lineup due to his good power numbers. Both players would probably make good leadoff hitters (though we’d like to see Player B’s OBP come up a little), while Player A is a little more versatile.

Player B, of course, is Jose Reyes (it’s hard to hide his identity with all those steals). He’s injured, so he probably won’t be leading off for us in the near future.

Player A…well, most Mets fans know who he is too. But let’s first point out that he’s having a much worse power year than normal, while having an incredible .432 OBP and leading the league in hitting. He’s also amoung the league leaders in stolen bases with 20.

Player A sounds like an ideal leadoff hitter. Player A is David Wright.

I know, we need a big bat in the middle of the lineup, but this makes a lot more sense than most people give it credit for. Wright gets on base a ton, has good speed, and steals quite a few bases. Right now, he’s not even hitting for the power that would give you a reason for having him in the middle of the lineup. Quite frankly, Wright would be one of the best leadoff hitters in the game if the Mets put him there.

I know that many people will disagree with a statement like that, though I’m not sure it would be based on anything but instinct. But even if you think I’m wrong about just how good Wright would do as a leadoff hitter, look at it this way: can you honestly say the Mets offense is better off with Argenis Reyes batting leadoff than with Wright in that spot, everyone moving up a spot behind him, and Reyes hitting 8th?

For the second time this week, the Mets had two or less hits in a game, this time courtesy of AJ Burnett and friends. I’m not sure what to say about that, really, other than that we either need to get used to getting shut out on a weekly basis (or worse), or the Mets need to bring in some hired guns.

On the bright side, the game ball goes to Alex Cora for preventing the Mets from being no-hit in their own stadium. The bullpen also did a nice job; hopefully Jerry Manuel notices that we have many arms that can get the job done, and can keep everyone fresh without falling into the trap of overusing guys like Bobby Parnell and Pedro Feliciano.

The Mets will look to take at least one game from the Yankees tomorrow night, on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball.

Update: Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post just gave a great note on his Twitter feed. The last time the Mets had a total of four hits or less over a two game stretch? April 29-30, 1967. Hopefully, this year will turn out just a little better than that one.

On the same day that the Mets learned they’ll be without Carlos Beltran for at least two weeks, a few unlikely heroes stepped up to earn a 6-4 win over the Cardinals. Omir Santos went 4-4, while Tim Redding picked up his first win of the season by going 7+ innings, giving the bullpen some much needed relief. Daniel Murphy also chipped in with a homer, and seems to be heating up over the last week.

Let’s face it: the Mets are beyond shorthanded right now, especially on offense, where only David Wright remains among the key bats they depend on. It’s going to be a long two weeks (or more — we are talking about the Mets here) until Beltran gets back. Every win the Mets can pick up in this stretch is big, and it’s going to take some unlikely heroes to keep the team afloat.

On a related note, wasn’t there a guy named Jose Reyes on this team a while back? I seem to recall him being pretty good, but it’s been so long now that I could be mistaken. Sure would be nice to get him back sometime soon, but apparently there’s still no time frame for his return. As far as some help for the pitching staff, both John Maine and Oliver Perez had rehab starts today. From what ’s being reported, Maine looked good, Perez not so great. I’m not sure the Mets can count on getting anything from either of them in the near future. I think we have to expect the Mets to be the team we see on the field right now for the next couple of weeks — any surprising contributions from returning players are a bonus.