The Mets entered the offseason with obvious holes scattered around the diamond. They crossed two items off the to-do list by bringing catcher James McCann and reliever Trevor May into the fold, shifting their focus to rotation depth and a defensive upgrade in center field.
Those additions will surely be made. Whether the players ultimately brought in are among the elite options remains to be seen, but signing Trevor Bauer as opposed to Masahiro Tanaka, or vice versa, does not change the overall intention.
Yet with unprecedented resources now available in Flushing, the Mets are in a position to make improvements to their roster that stretch beyond the most glaring needs. Their 2021 third base situation, as it stands, is an obvious example.
Sandy Alderson seemed to throw the starting job up for grabs on Thursday. “If you’re talking about defensively, our third base situation is probably a little up in the air,” he said.
(Major League Baseball has instituted a plethora of rule changes recently, but at last check, the third baseman is still required to play the field.)
“Is it as glaring a need as like a third or fourth starter? I don’t think so,” Alderson continued.
“But we’re going to look for targets of opportunity and if there are ways to make our team better, in areas where we’re not the weakest but could use an upgrade, those are things Jared [Porter] and the organization will have to consider.”
In order to unpack the third base situation, start with the bird’s eye view.
Over the past two seasons — a sample of 222 games — Mets third basemen rank 18th in fWAR. You don’t exactly strive to be in the middle of the pack, but given strengths elsewhere you can stomach it. Less palatable is the group’s -10.5 fielding runs above average, good for 29th (ahead of only the Blue Jays).
The 2021 Mets will have trimmed a significant culprit in Todd Frazier, but the rest of the group remains nearly wholly intact. The two names that rolled off Alderson’s tongue in referencing the incumbent options were J.D. Davis and Andres Gimenez, confirming the assumption that Jeff McNeil is slated to inherit the bulk of Robinson Cano‘s innings at second base.
At this point in the offseason, neither Alderson nor Luis Rojas is willing to commit to Gimenez as the everyday shortstop, but given that the 22-year-old earned a slight majority of the starts over the final month of the 2020 season (15 of the last 27), there is no reason to believe the team will not give him the opportunity to beat out Amed Rosario for the job.
That leaves Davis, the 27-year-old favorite to start at third base on Opening Day next year as the roster is currently constructed.
In addition to a strong offensive performance in his first year with the Mets in 2019, Davis was passable with his glove at the hot corner, even grading out as above-average by Statcast’s outs above average. At the very least, an OAA of 1 is miles ahead of the -7 he posted in left field.
Pandemic notwithstanding, Davis regressed heavily in 2020. He was a league-average hitter by DRC+ (103) and lost 40 points of wOBA despite raising his walk rate.
But most notably, he graded out as the league’s worst defensive third baseman at -3 OAA. He was only credited was three errors in 71 chances, but you’ve got plays like this:
And the more infuriating:
You’re willing to accept Davis’ defensive shortcomings when he’s putting up a near-.900 OPS, but it stings considerably when his BABIP hovers back to league-average levels and the glove is also trending in the wrong direction.
In a perfect world, Davis is a very nice bench piece to have on your roster. He hits the ball hard, has a history of annihilating left-handed pitching throughout the minor leagues, and, yes, could theoretically stand at third base or in left field. He just hasn’t shown that he can do either at a level that warrants five or six starts a week.
It’s tough to tell, even after Alderson’s brief comments on Thursday, whether an upgrade at third base is of a relatively high priority to the Mets right now. Despite reports, it seems unlikely that the team would part with assets for Nolan Arenado, whose production took a significant step back in 2020 while his paycheck did not.
But aside from the Rockie, there just aren’t many options at third base on the market that represent multiple steps up from Davis. Justin Turner is 36 and has been pegged to return to Los Angeles by the industry. Maikel Franco has been league-average or worse his entire career. Travis Shaw is a walking non-tender.
Davis has found himself in plenty of mock trade proposals as the winter has begun to unfold, but it’s hard to imagine the Mets leaving their third base depth chart down to Luis Guillorme and Robel Garcia unless they’re prepared to hand the reigns to Gimenez.
Absent major developments on both sides of the ball, Davis could soon find himself fighting for a job that was once his to lose.
