Come on, admit it… At one time or another you made a joke about Daniel Murphy at second base since the day he took over the position once Jose Reyes was not re-signed and Ruben Tejada slid over to shortstop.
Was the criticism harsh and often times deserved? Maybe… Maybe not… Ok, yes it was…
But seeing is believing and when I mentioned how much better Murphy has been defensively a couple of weeks ago on Twitter, you all know you’ve seen the dramatic improvement as well. He has been passing the eye test.
So enter ESPN’s resident Mets historian and statistical guru Mark Simon, who wrote an interesting post yesterday about the porous Mets defense overall this season.
Hidden within that gem of an article, I found this:
Daniel Murphy has been the Mets’ most improved defensive player. He was charged with -11 Defensive Runs Saved last season, but is holding steady at a major-league average of zero Defensive Runs Saved through 240 innings in 2013.
The biggest difference for Murphy has been in how he converts the double play. Last season, he converted only 13 of his first 30 attempts (43 percent) as either relay man or pivot man. This season, he’s 24-of-35 (68 percent).
If other Mets could show the improvement that Murphy has, it would go a long way in making them a better team.
Wow, how amazing is that?
