30
2011
Jason Bay Is At The Crossroads of His Mets Career
An article by 
Last winter, the Mets were actively searching for an outfielder with some pop in his bat. After all, when the team leader in home runs only hit 12, as Daniel Murphy did in 2009, some energy had to be infused so that the team didn’t suffer a similar power outage in back-to-back seasons.
With Matt Holliday looking for a longer deal at more dollars per year, the Mets turned their attention to Jason Bay, signing the veteran leftfielder to a four-year, $66 million contract, with a fifth-year option.
Unfortunately, Bay’s first season in New York was less than spectacular (.259, 6 HR, 47 RBI in 95 games) and he hit a wall in July. Not the proverbial one, but the one in Dodger Stadium, causing a concussion that put an end to his debut season for the Mets.
Fast forward to this week. Jason Bay, now fully recovered from his concussion, was ready to put 2010 behind him and start earning his lucrative paycheck. However, upon feeling discomfort in his ribcage, Bay took himself out of Tuesday’s starting lineup and will now start the season on the disabled list, with Lucas Duda replacing him on the roster.
Although Bay’s DL stint can be backdated to last Friday, he will not be eligible to play for the Mets until Saturday, April 9 at the earliest. That means he will miss both Opening Day against the Marlins and the home opener one week later.
Mets fans will once again be left without their entire team when the players are formally introduced during the pre-game ceremonies at Citi Field on April 8. However, you can imagine that with the underperforming and oft-injured Bay not in the starting lineup, some fans might not be cheering when No. 44 is introduced next Friday.
After all, Mets fans are a passionate bunch. They will adore you if you play well and vilify you if you don’t. Mike Piazza will always be loved by the fans because he played exceptionally well and always gave his best effort. Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez? Not so much. In fact, in recent years, both Castillo and Perez were subjected to boobird droppings from every level of the stadium, even on a normally festive day like Opening Day.
So now that the Gruesome Twosome are gone, fans who feel they’ve paid for the right to boo have no one to unleash their vitriol on. Unfortunately, that might not bode well for Jason Bay.
Bay is a solid player who gives his all on the field. If he didn’t, he would have shied away from the Dodger Stadium wall last July instead of introducing his coconut to it. But when a player earns top dollar like Bay is, fans expect that player to produce the numbers that go with that salary.
Jason Bay’s career in New York can follow one of two paths.
- Path 1: He can be like Carlos Beltran and have a subpar first year which included a shot to the head (as Beltran did when he played patty-cake with Mike Cameron’s noggin in 2005) and then recover to have three outstanding years.
- Path 2: He can be like George Foster and have a putrid first year, recover some of his power in his second year, but underachieve in the other offensive categories before being run out of town prior to his contract expiring.
(For those too young to remember or old enough to want to forget, George Foster signed a five-year deal with the Mets to become their leftfielder after being traded from Cincinnati to New York in 1982. In the six years prior to the trade (1976-1981), Foster was one of the premier sluggers in the major leagues, averaging 33 HR and 112 RBI per season, to go with a .297 batting average. However, in his first season with the Mets, Foster batted .247 with 13 HR and 70 RBI. He did recover to hit 28 HR in 1983, but lowered his batting average to .241. He was released by the Mets in 1986.)
The great Yogi Berra once said “when you come to the fork in the road, take it”. Jason Bay has reached that fork in the road. But will he go left and be confronted with the Foster Dead End or will he make a right towards Beltran Drive? His success or failure (and whether he becomes the next target of the Citi Field boobirds) as a Met might ultimately depend on which direction he chooses.
About the Author: Ed Leyro
Ed Leyro was hatched in the Bronx, but spent most of his youth in Queens at Shea Stadium. Apparently, all that time spent at Mets games paid off as Ed met his wife (The Coop) for the first time at Citi Field during its inaugural season. Guess the 2009 season was good for something after all. In addition to his work at Mets Merized Online, Ed also owns, operates and is head janitor at Studious Metsimus, where he shares blogging duties with Joey Beartran. For those not in the know, Joey is a teddy bear dressed in a Mets hoodie. Clearly, Studious Metsimus is not your typical Mets blog.
21 Comments + Add Comment
NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 26 | 18 | .591 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 22 | .511 | 3.5 |
| Phillies | 21 | 24 | .467 | 5.5 |
| Mets | 17 | 25 | .405 | 8.0 |
| Marlins | 13 | 32 | .289 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/21/2013
Recent Comments
- Tommy2cat: on Byrd Homers, Marcum Still Winless, Mets Fall To Reds 4-3: I sincerely suspect that Ike is suffering...
- Hawk: on Byrd Homers, Marcum Still Winless, Mets Fall To Reds 4-3: They are doing a good job cooling...
- Alex68: on Byrd Homers, Marcum Still Winless, Mets Fall To Reds 4-3: 3 straight years of the same conversation...
- Alex68: on Byrd Homers, Marcum Still Winless, Mets Fall To Reds 4-3: Damn shame. but reality is, I am...
- Major Mofongo: on Byrd Homers, Marcum Still Winless, Mets Fall To Reds 4-3: and by the way… for those that to...
MMO Mets Chat
Need Tickets To The Mets Game?
Check Out These Great MLB Links!
Photographs From Gordon Donovan
5368 Fans Follow Us On Twitter!
1269 Fans Like Us On Facebook!
2341 Fans Read Our Feed!
1702 Fans Subscribe via Daily Email!
Another year of half of the team’s top guys on the DL.
Different year, same you know what.
Santana is on the DL
Bay will be on the DL for about a week…………….
Same fans jumping off the ledge in March
A week? Had alot of experience with ribcage injuries have ya? They take forever to heal and it is very easy to reinjure it. This one will probably cost Bay 4-6 weeks at least. Aaaaah that would be May, not March.
Right away you bring up Matt Holiday, as if he was going to sign any where but St Louis. Just be patient I’d rather he miss the first few weeks
have to quibble about 1 thing. He is not “oft injured” Since 2005, until last year, he never played less than 145 games (the other years 150+). And you can’t really say he is injury prone last year, for getting a concussion.
anyway, at this point, he is at best at the bottom of the list of core or top players. forgetting his overly generous contract for his current performance level, he is maybe the 5th best/most important player in the lineup.
wright and reyes, absolutly more key. Pagan probably is ahead too, and Ike has a bigger role now.
At least we have someone we can play there if he can’t or doesn’t play well in Duda or Evans. We won’t have to live with it like we did Castillo or be caught short like with Alou.
Rowand and Zito didn’t prevent SF from winning because they had Torres and Bumgarner.
It’s a shame we allocated 80 M to a guy who will most likely be out played by a rookie but I think it does make our line up better although it might run Angel ragged covering part of Right for Beltran and part of left for Duda.
Well I wouldn’t count on Evans. He managed to skate by waivers this time but once the season starts unless we have a roster spot for him It is doubtful he will skate by again.
Like you said other teams are in the same boat as us right now but the next time maybe not.
Duda ? Evans ? Go around the depth charts of teams and look at their left fielders. Then compare Duda and Evans to them. At best, Duda and Evans can hit .250 with 5 home runs and 11 RBI for April.
Don’t kid yourself.
Next thing, you’ll be convincing me that Mike Nickeas can carry the load at catcher if Thole goes down.
who cares about Evans? He is the 1B at Buffalo. The fill in for Bay is Duda/hairston most likely. Those 2 combined might not match the vintage bay from a couple years ago, but they will most likely produce more than he did last year, and could easily match the much lowered predictions for Bay this year.
It would be nice if Hairston stays hot.
I would get a catcher in here for Bay before keeping Duda.
hairston can add some value if he only faces lefties at least.
I’m optimistic about Duda, but he’s got a lot to prove. In the outfield in the minor leagues over four years, he’s got only 436 PO’s spread between LF and RF. He is really green.
Don’t forget FMart, if he get’s off fast and Duda struggles, my guess is they will shift pretty quickly to the kid.
This is a great year to give a younger player a chance at a position he can handle. Duda and Davis make Wright better as one or the other will get the platoon advantage and if we could get Evans up here we could get a look at him too.
Depending on how Duda does against LHP and whether Bay comes back or not I could see Murphy going down to make room for Evans.
all i saw this spring was murphy killing the ball. i didn’t see too much, so I may be all wrong, but I’d keep him around.
I’ll say this: it will be tough to stomach a .450 season without having castillo, ollie, jerry, hojo, and razor shines to blame.
Only Pelfrey is left from my list, and I’m adding Nickeas. I can’t believe they’re starting the season with him as their #2 catcher.
KC and Milwaukee just released a couple of catchers. The Royal’s let Luke May go. 26 years old doesn’t look too bad by the #’s in the minors. I’d be interested in what the scouts had to say.
Looked at May’s stats on baseball-reference and you’re right. He put up good numbers in the minors. If he passes through the AL on the waiver wire, the Mets should pick him up. Can hit for average, can attain a high OBP, has some pop, so-so on defense. I say go for it if it means we don’t see Nickeas as the backup.
Luke May in a full season of AAA last year hit .291, 16 HRs, 51 RBIs in 351 ABs.
Now I’ve learned about Luke May and so have the readers. The readers can guess his OBP and they’ll probably be close. Casual readers will never learn about players anymore because the new way is just to give a general idea of what the player is but OH….let’s list his OBP. Gets more sickening every day.
*He played for 2 teams in AAA last year.
It couldn’t hurt to add a catcher, they could claim May and send Nickeas to AAA.
As I have maintained all offseason.
If this team is out of it by the time the trade deadline hits then lets play the kids, trade guys like Bletran (if Possible) and even entertain trading Reyes and Bay if it nets us some kids for the future and once the money on them comes off the books we should have enough kids ready to go an buy the talent to fill around them.
Even if we pay a majority of Bay’s contract to a trade partner whatever we save will be money we could spend somewhere else.
I happen to think Bay will be alright by then but if he is not then no reason not to try and get something for him including some payroll relief (as minimal as it may be) and some kid we can try and groom for the future.
At the crossroads of his Mets career? You have got to be kidding. The guy who has always been a run producer comes to NY which takes some getting used to. He struggles offensively at the plate but anyone who watched him play could see that the guy hustles, was a good outfielder (contrary to some reports) and would eventually get used to the cavernous ballpark that we call Citi Field. The poor guy ends up hustling to make a catch and nearly kills himself running into a wall with his head. Concussions are no laughing matter. A guy standing in the batters box who has been disabled because of a concussion may feel a bit funky at times vision wise and of course with headaches. Would you want to be facing a young fireballer with control problems? I think not…..Jason Bay will hit for this team….
Better he be totally healthy when he goes out there, then to try and start the season with a nagging injury that has not had time to heal.