The other key reason they are still hoping beyond hope with Jason Bay is because he hasn’t really been healthy for any extended period of time, and they are praying that he just needs to find himself again. He’s only had 130 plate appearances this year, wrapped around injuries. Last year he had 500 PA’s, but was injured multiple times. The last time he had 500-600 consecutive plate appearances without missing time was in 2009 with Boston.

Lastly, the other reason why the Mets have given Bay extended chances is because they have no one in the organization, aside from Hairston, that is effective against left-handed pitching. If there were some right-handed equivalent of a Duda or Kirk, they would probably be playing already, but as it stands, Jason Bay (as bad as he has been), isn’t really any worse than any of the other young lefties we have available when it comes to getting hits off of LHP.

This year, Lucas Duda, the slowest player on the 25 man roster…played in RF the entire time he was here…never once did he play LF…the reason ( or excuse ) the folks at metsblog gave was that he should get comfortable in RF…switching him would only confuse him…

Duda defensive-wise statistically was the WORST RF in ALL OF BASEBALL

Since I got banned from Metsblog for criticizing ownership….I figure I can ask you good folks out here…

if we are to be thinking of the future…and moving Duda to LF and Bay to RF would cost no money…why has Sandy not thought of doing this?

hell if we are thinking of the future…why are we platooning our young kids instead of having them learn how to hit lefties…

if we are thinking of the future…why are we holding on to pieces that serve us absolutely no good for 2013….

If we are thinking of the future…why did we NOT sign our 2nd round draft pick?…the difference was like 53K…

The Phillies are reloading…
The Marlins are reloading…

The Wilpons…not so much…

Bay should of been the one to move to RF initially he was the better defender and far more athletic than Duda. Duda should of been planted in LF the place where most teams put there all BAT little glove players. It is no coincidence that the Mets defense is horrible all the blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins. They are the reason these players(Duda,Murphy,Valdespin) are playing out of position. I listened to a radio interview where Alderson stated that Valdespin was a part of the future and hopefully his position would be CF!!! Really CF!!! If you are the GM and you have envisioned Valdy as your future CF why has he been playing everywhere but CF…He has played 2B,SS,LF,RF and a little CF when he was sent down he played numerous games at 2B and DH…How do you expect him to learn a new position if he isnt thrown out there everyday in the minors???

Terrible job by the GM the Mets are a patch job….Sandy forcing Square pegs in round holes with a hammer, then when things fall apart blaming the pieces for being faulty.

The Mets are losing money because when playoff hunt time comes around they are never in it…Majority of Mets fans realize this franchise doesnt care about winning just being competitive enough to get some excited to come to games…Hell, Fred Wilpon said it himself numerous times…just wants to be competitive while cross town the Stankees and there fans just want to WIN at all cost.

Am I reading this right, did you just say:

“Next year is the last year of his contract. Bay will “recover” hit .310 with 100 RBIs and 30 HRs.If the Mets are in contention he will lead the offense and give great “cover for the young left-handed hitting gunners” who will benefit from playing full time for the next five weeks in AAA until the September call up.”

WHAT!?!?!?!? o_O Is this bizarro world! Where everything is backwards?

Bay should be sitting and Baxter playing tonite wth Torres, who does an awesome job in CF, and maybe Hairston or Spin in RF though they both don’t have the arms but TC can’t continue to put this team in a hole with Bay, who once again showed last night that he can’t hit, but when he gets on base he runs bases good and steals a base here and there, WHEN HE GETS ON BASE!

He is playing because of his contract plus SA not finding another RH bat in off season or look to develop one over the last year and a half a RH bat knowing that most of lineup is LH heavy, this falls on him for seeing this, this is what a GM gets paid for, future not just this year.

Yes Bay is not the sole reason for team playing bad but it sure would of helped in a few games for him to hit a SF, move a runner over, get in a runner from 3B with less than 2 outs, he has failed on more than one occasion when he could of picked up those batters that had been carrying him for most of year but no he returns, too soon, and is back to striking out, popping out, hitting ground balls or hitting into DP then walking away with a Lost in Space look.

Yes Bay is not the reason but he needed to be part of the solution not one trying to skate on the backs of those that have playing since Day 1.

Money speaks to a GM who supposedly practices Moneyball, interesting isn’t it!

I’d still argue that Bay was hitting the ball better at the start of the season and afther his first stint bavk from the DL. His timing was a little off so we didn’t see postive results, but i saw some hope that he could turn it around. Sadly, once it looked like his timing was down, he got injured and set everyting back.

My biggest problem with the Bay situation is how the Mets have rushed him back both times from the DL. Bay has had a ton of problems here and the last thing Bay needed, the team needed and us fans needed is to see him trying to get on track and fail. Anything positive I saw from the start of the season is gone. His timing is off, he’s taking too many pitches and fallin g behind in the count. It seems like every AB he’s automaticly down 0-2…you can’t hit that way. I ussualy don’t agree much with Kinner, but he was right about Bay…look at how many 1st pitch fastballs he takes for striks!

Bay should have stayed in AAA until he got his timing down and started hitting. You can’t keep missing months of the season, get a dozen A-ball AB’s and come back and hit MLB pitching.

Sure a lot of teams continue to play their expensive failures but that doesn’t make it a smart thing to do!

If this was a one year thing then you would do what you could to get him back on track. But this is pretty much a three year slump now!

Insantity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result!

Why is this different than Ike? He was terrible for 2 months, but everyone thought he needed time to get his stroke back.

So, Bay still has a short window to try and prove he can still hit, at least lefties. if not, he will get benched.

and speaking of lefties, he actually did him them OK last year. He just doesn’t hit RHP any more at all. so expect baxter to take those ABs away at least.

and there is a $ reason to not cut him now. If I understand the rules, if they release him they have to pay the rest of the contract out now. So, they have to cut a check for what, 20mill right now to make him go away? may not have that in the bank!

so, his time has to be running out, but not hard to see why he has gotten treated the way he did. But I don’t see any way in hell he is on the roster next OD.

Kirk makes a little less sense, He hits better than Torres and is also a better fielder than him and there is no one left BUT Torres to play CF. Valdespin is being tried there. Keep your fingers crossed on that one, risky to put a guy who is new to the OF out there in CF. But the truth of the matter is thats probably a pretty good position for him and if he fills it well that leaves us options to trade Kirk for a RH Corner OFer.

But both thier demotions are as much to do with getting Hairston, Bay and Valdespin as much playing time as possible than anything to do with the players who got sent down themselves.

What Sandy is doing is using the rest of the season to see who will be the RH Power bat going into next season. Hairston is not just playing for an extention anymore he is playing (and being played) in the hopes he can become that RH Power bat that Sandy refuses to make a trade for just as Valdespin is going to audition for the CF position we have all thought we needed since Pagan was traded.

They are giving Bay the rest of thier lost season to earn his way onto the 2013 Roster as a backup plan to Hairston not earning a regular role and merely a platoon role instead.

I predict Bay will at somepoint return to what everyone thought he was…But that probably won’t happen until he sees a change of scenery.

As for blaming Collins on Bay well look at the demotions and tell me what choice did Sandy leave him? Sure terry has backed bay to the media but then again what do you want him to say? I will point out that he has dropped hints that Bay would lose playing time before he got behind him which says to me Sandy is the one insisting on playing Bay not really terry.

In the end if you don’t like the players that are being played you can’t hang it all on the Manager, He can only start the guys available to him on the roster. And he doesn’t set the Roster, Sandy Does!