Good morning, Mets fans!
Juan Lagares is expected to return from the DL tonight. This is great news… I’m a huge fan of The Amazing Spider-Juan.
But now, for the first time, the Mets have their 4 key outfielders— Lagares, Chris Young, Eric Young, and Curtis Granderson— all healthy at the same time. Because the Mets play in the National League, only 3 of those guys can play each day. So now, the question “What Outfield?” has evolved into “What do we do with all these outfielders?”
Lagares was the Mets’ best player before he got hurt. If he hits the ground running upon his return, he has to play consistently.
Chris Young, like Lagares, missed a couple weeks with an injury, but has been impressive since returning from the DL. While CY is only hitting .206, he has been hot lately and has shown an impressive ability to drive the ball to go along with solid defensive skills and good speed.
Eric Young got off to a rough start, but has been a major catalyst for our offense recently, thanks in large part to his blazing speed. “Speed Kills.”
And then you have Curtis Granderson. Granderson has been the worst of the four so far, but he was the Mets’ biggest acquisition during the offseason and the Mets simply can’t just bench him a month into the year. And we can’t ignore the fact that Grandy has been looking much better of late.
So what should Terry do? As long as all 4 are healthy, it looks like he plans to rotate the outfielders, allowing for regular rest for CY, EY, Granderson and Lagares.
But it’s frustrating, isn’t it? Those are 4 of our best players, and each day, we have to bench one of them and still trot out Ruben Tejada or Omar Quintanilla…
Rotating the outfielders seems like the best way to go, for now. Grandy should be safe for the foreseeable future. If one or more of the other outfielders gets hurt or starts showing some discouraging signs on the field, Terry can make an adjustment. And if everybody is producing, Terry could get creative by giving Murphy the occasional day off and moving EY to 2nd, or by giving Duda a day off and moving Murphy to 1st and EY to 2nd, allowing for all 4 outfielders to play.
Depth is a good “problem” to have. So I guess we shouldn’t be complaining too much about this particular issue. But it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Readers, what do you think should / will happen with the outfield situation?
