Lucas Duda frustrates the hell out of me. I know he’s a saber and front office darling by virtue of his .352 on-base, but he’s an awful hitter whose getting worse at the plate instead of better. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about how many walks our clean-up hitter has, I want to see him hit and drive in runs.
In his last three seasons, Duda has seen his batting average decline to a career low:
2011 – .292
2012 – .239
2013 – .223
What’s worse is that Duda struck out in nearly a third (32.3 percent) of his at-bats, racking up a whopping 103 whiffs in the process. Sorry, but that is totally unacceptable – especially when you’re batting behind David Wright and getting a ton of fat pitches to hit. We’ve all grown accustomed to hearing Keith Hernandez moan whenever Duda takes a called strike three.
In addition to what I already pointed out, the thing that is most maddening about Duda is his suffocating presence at the plate with runners in scoring position. He has become the ultimate rally-killer, batting .145 (11-for-76) with RISP with 28 strikeouts this season. Those numbers are unsightly.
You would think that such a poor showing at the plate would motivate Duda to work on his hitting by playing Winter Ball this offseason. But according to Adam Rubin of ESPN New York, Duda has decided against that and will instead take the offseason off. See you next Spring…
At 28-years old, the odds-on favorite to be the Mets Opening Day first baseman has yet to play one full season in the majors. Duda has missed significant portions of the last two seasons after serving out a pair of minor league demotions that haven’t seemed to improve his batting average or strikeout rate one iota.
However, many will rave about that walk rate for this gentle giant of a man.
Good guy… Good walker… Terrible hitter…
For crying out loud, get Duda out of the middle of the order and bat him leadoff where he’ll do less damage… Let’s go out and get a couple of “legitimate, proven sluggers” to hit behind David Wright… Let’s get this damn show on the road… Let’s get this team moving in the right direction… Let’s get back to winning ballgames already… I’m sick of mediocrity… Fix my freaking team!
