“I think Lucas Duda is going to be a dynamic talent. Obviously, he is power supreme. I just believe he is getting very comfortable with the fact he is a major league player and he belongs here and he can hit here. He already has shown us he can hit lefties and hit righties, he can hit the ball out of the ballpark. What you’ve seen with some of his home runs is why I think the reconfiguration of Citi Field will be a big difference for him.”
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I think Duda is staying in Majors for now.

DUda put up 10/50 with a .300+ BA last year in ~ 80 games after being called up for good 9as a regular). I don’t expect him to drop 50% across the board in a full season.

Beltran? Different hitter, but right now, yes Lucas probably will hit more HR if they were side by side.

though if you want to argue the point, a question like this is exactly why the saber people created them i the first place. As a way to compare different types of players in the only way that matters, how many wins they will get you.

“I used to love to watch them in Spring Training, it was the only time there was ever hope for the Mets. There is no hope for this team. They look dead!”

Hi Rich,

Though it’s too soon to tell, especially in spring training, but that was my concern too due to the rug being pulled out from under them last season while they had moved to within five games in the loss column in the wildcard. Many contest that they would not have made post-season anyway so ridding us of Beltran and KRod and getting Wheeler in return was the right move.

As many know, I disagree with this. Through mid-July the team had been playing inspired, heads up and intelligent baseball, never losing confidence in itself to come back in the late innings. Having the front office either give up on them or show a lack of confidence in their ability undermined all that good that Terry and his crew had accomplished. They began pressing, they began forgetting executing the fundamentals as they did, they stopped playing intelligent ball and we saw hardly a late inning come back the last two months of the year.

This is why it might prove, in the long-term to have been a deterrence to the team’s “rebuilding” by taking away the experience of playing in meaningful games and learning how feels to win instead of lose. It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t go all the way to October or even started to fade by labor day, the momentum from having a modest 84-78 winning season, in lieu of the awful 5-14 start to the season the momentum from 2011 would have easily carried onto 2012, with a returning Davis replacing the lost bat of Beltran and the three relievers signed by Sandy making up for the loss of KRod.

Not to mention not attempting to even re-sign Reyes. Even bigger is the kids’ knowledge that if they again have a good season and are close, the front office will again undermine it by trying to get rid of some high priced players having good seasons (Wright especially). What good is it knowing they might have the rug pulled from underneath them once again?

Therefore, can one blame them for looking dead and uninspired?

Right now this is all conjecture on everyone’s part. We will get to see a better picture as the season unfolds. Hope I’m wrong on this one, I really do.
Yes, everyone on the squad this year will hopefully put out 100% but it might very well be that this club becomes a team playing for individual accomplishments as it heads further into the season.

If this was a team of mostly veterans, then shipping off it’s top hitter and star closer for a top pitching prospect would have made sense. But this was and is a young team and nothing of what the Mets could possibly have accomplished last season and then carried over to this one was worth getting a Zach Wheeler. Not if they do indeed look confused and playing dead.

Tejada – SS
Valdespin – 2B
Davis – 1B
Wright – 3B
Duda – RF
Bay – LF
Thole – C
Torres – CF

That’s what i would hope for while i would look to package Murphy or Wright in a deal…

But i agree – Valdespin, as annoying as it is to watch his body language, he should be the one being trained right now to work with Tejada. This whole Murphy thing is being mishandled right from the beginning w/this front office

That’s like saying …oh…..for example….Tony Perez will generate more offense than Davey Concepcion (who was also a good hitter). I mean…why? There’s no reason to compare the 2

this is just the new way to talk. I guess it’s a dialect of saber.

have you actually been paying attention? Duda overmatched at the plate?

And I am still working on the logic of sending down the guy that has been working in RF to get out the kinks, and replacing him with an IF that has never played out there.

I will say absolutely that Duda is going to generate more offense than Valdespin.

defensively, you downgrade at 3B, upgrade at 2B, and I have no clue what you are doing in RF.

I used to love to watch them in Spring Training, it was the only time there was ever hope for the Mets. There is no hope for this team. They look dead!

I can’t wait for this team to get out of Florida because they really stink! I feel sorry for Met fans in N.Y. who have to put up with this crappy team for 6 months!

I can’t stand them already and its only six weeks! I really don’t blame you if you don’t go and watch this garbage!