There have been a lot of complaints about Eric Young. He doesn’t get on base enough. His batting average is too low. He shouldn’t be an everyday player. He should be the 4th outfielder.

Guess what? Speed Kills.

Stolen bases don’t produce runs?

Last year, I went through the Mets top stolen base seasons and wrote a post about how often runs were scored when both a stolen base was attempted and when an attempt was successful.

Who’s currently 4th in the Major Leagues in Runs Scored? Eric Young. Who’s currently 2nd in the Majors in stolen bases? Eric Young.

Eric Young is only 110th in batting average among qualifiers at .255 and 89th in on-base percentage – yet when he’s getting on base, he’s scoring. Why? Because he gets on first base and proceeds to get himself into scoring position. When runners get into scoring position, they score at a higher clip than when they stay stationary on first base.

On the young season (pun intended), EY has stolen 9 bases and has yet to be caught. He has scored 5 times after attempting a steal.

When Eric Young has made/attempted a steal, he has scored 56% of the time. In other words, if EY makes it to first base and attempts to steal… there’s a better than 50/50 chance he will score.

The Mets are 5-0 when Eric Young steals a base this season.

Roger Cedeno stole 66 bases in 1999 and scored 58% of the time after a successful steal.

Mookie Wilson had a career .314 OBP and his three best OBP seasons with the Mets were 1986-88 when he had OBP’s of .345, .359, and .345. He scored 90 and 91 runs on weak hitting Mets teams in 1982 and 1983 when he had OBP’s of .314 and .300.

Eric Young has a .344 OBP through April 16th.

If EY is at the top of the lineup and runs, he will score. Even with a lower OBP, he will score. If he continues to get on base at the clip he currently is and runs, we have a top flight run scorer right under our noses.

The post Mets Are 5-0 When Eric Young Jr. Steals A Base appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

I have nothing against people who like these stats. Many of them have spent their entire lives having RBI records, batting average records, win-loss records, and other statistical feats drilled into their heads. These were the only options, so people didn’t question them.

There are three stats in particular, however, that need to go. This may be obvious to many fans but they can’t hold a candle to some of the new metrics that have popped up in recent decades. RBI, runs scored, and pitching wins and losses are arguably the most irrelevant and useless popular statistics.

Before diving in to each one, consider one thing. What is the goal of using statistics for individual players? The answer is simple: to isolate production. Simply, to tell how talented a player is. In theory, the best statistics are affected only minimally by other players, otherwise a statistic can be as much a measure of a team’s ability as the individual player’s. If you were a general manager signing a player from the Red Sox for $200 million, given only statistics that are significantly affected by other Red Sox players, would you consider making the deal.

Runs Batted In (RBI)

The Goal: Runs Batted in has two joint goals (or at least it is perceived to have two): to evaluate how good a player is in important situations and how productive he is overall.

The flaws: This statistic rose to mass use in the 1920s. This is not a problem, but it shows that the statistic was created before baseball was understood as much as it is today.

RBI is as much of a team statistic as it is an individual one, it’s main problem. There is only one method of getting an RBI without any baserunners and that’s hitting a home run. Say two hitters each hit home runs, except the second hitter did it with a runner on first base. Does the second batter deserve twice as much “credit” as the first? No, not at all. The second home run hitter probably had little to no effect at all on whether that runner reached base, but he still gets credit for “driving in” that person. Not only that, but players on better teams tend to get more opportunities to drive runners in. Two players may be driving in the same percentage of baserunners but one may have far fewer RBI than the other.

One more thing to consider about RBI is that it treats every situation equally. What good is a second inning RBI single when your team is down 9-0? Which leads me to…

Alternatives: There are a number of different alternatives for RBI but the most popular is probably Win Probability Added. Remember how every RBI is treated the same regardless of situation? That is where WPA comes in. Baseball has been played for over a century and almost every situation imaginable has repeated itself over and over again. One thing is certain: there are always calculable odds of who is more likely to win. Every action affects a team’s odds of winning a game, whether it is small or large. A walk-off home run obviously has a bigger impact than a one out single in the third inning with nobody on. WPA uses linear weights, a complex way of saying the odds of winning added (or lost) from each action. Players with a higher WPA tend to have had bigger impacts on games (although it is not predictive), specifically in high-pressure situations, which statisticians have debated the effects of with no real consensus yet. This is still a stat where a team must put a player into position to have a bigger impact, but it certainly quantifies that impact far better than RBI. (To read my article from last summer going in depth on WPA, click here.)

Runs Scored (Individual)

The Goal: This stat is rather murky in its presumed goal. Really, it is likely meant to measure both production overall and baserunning.

The flaws: Again, this is a stat in which it depends so much on the surrounding team, probably even more than RBI. A player can bat 1.000 and still never score a run. Of course, these theoretical situations aren’t relevant to the real world of baseball, but the idea holds true: teams set you up to score a run. Sure, the player may have successfully made it to home plate without falling flat on his face, or he could have even dove into home plate well. However, the hitting  team still had to do something to allow him to cross home plate and even the team in the field often time chooses not to throw to home, instead opting to hit the cutoff man and settle at that.

Alternatives: There are a ton of alternatives to Runs Scored, satisfying both purposes. Getting into them could take another thousand words, but there are plenty of viable alternatives. For overall production, OPS, OPS+, all the way down to wOBA and wRC+ do the job better than runs scored as they isolate that particular player more. For baserunning, there are complex metrics like UBR out there, as well as some of Baseball-Reference’s statistics that even include a player’s ability to avoid getting thrown out at first on a double play. There is some very interesting stuff out there that can even break down the type of baserunning a hitter is good at.

Wins and Losses (For Pitchers)

The Goal: To evaluate the performance of an individual pitcher

The flaws: Where to begin? There are so many flaws with wins and losses. As a general rule, I say that wins and losses are half affected by the offense and some by defense as well. A pitcher can be on his game striking batters and getting weak ground balls and still get the loss. In order to get a win, the offense of the pitcher’s team must score more runs than the other. Say what you will about pitching to the score, but that’s what it comes down to.

Additionally, a pitcher’s defense behind him can let him down, whether measured in errors or not. Even if the pitcher allows only unearned runs, the loss is still given.

There are also plenty of situations where the pitcher throws a great game but leaves tied, giving a reliever an opportunity to get credit, even if he comes in only to pick off a baserunner. It has happened before, and it is so often the pitcher with the best night that gets cheated.

Alternatives: Rate stats are the way to go here. Looking at game logs is fine as well, but not all wins and losses are created equal, but even an undeserved win will show up in rate stats. Specifically, FIP and xFIP are great alternatives as they take out the fielding aspect as well as the hitting aspect, which ERA does not completely do.

*   *   *

There are a number of statistics like these that are very flawed and should be essentially discarded from use by the average fan. As someone who’s skeptical of almost anything, I noticed early on that there were flaws. With baseball especially, it’s important to not let tradition get in the way of realizing the flaws of the different ways people analyze the game.

The post Oldies But Not Goodies: Discarding RBI, Runs Scored, and Pitching Wins appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

It’s hard to believe that we’re only a few seasons removed from some of the best offensive seasons in Mets history (hard to argue they haven’t been offensive lately, just in a different sense).

So what are the 10 best Mets seasons in terms of offensive production over the last 34 seasons? (I’m using 1980 because I’ve been following the team since the 80s)

Runs Scored Per Game

1.  1999 – 853 scored – 5.23

2.  2006 – 834 scored – 5.15

3.  1987 – 823 scored – 5.08

4.  2000 – 807 scored – 4.98

5.  2007 – 804 scored – 4.96

6.  2008 – 799 scored – 4.93

7.  1986 – 783 scored – 4.83

8.  1997 – 777 scored – 4.80

9.  1990 – 775 scored  – 4.72

10. 1996 – 746 scored – 4.60

We can see that from 2006-2008, the Mets produced some of their best offensive clubs since the 80s.  Yes, they collapsed in 2007 and 2008, but they had some of their best run producing seasons those three years.  From 1996-2000, we saw 4 of the top 10 best offensive seasons (with the exception of 1998, which did not make the list).  1986-1987 also produced another two top 10 seasons.   The only season that isn’t clumped together was 1990 – which was at the tail end of their dominance and followed the 1988 and 1989 seasons which included some of their top pitching clubs.

So who made up these typical lineups during these seasons of offensive plenty?

2006-2008

C – Paul Lo Duca / Brian Schneider

1B – Carlos Delgado

2B – Jose Valentin / Luis Castillo

SS – Jose Reyes

3B – David Wright

OF – Cliff Floyd / Moises Alou / Fernando Tatis

OF – Carlos Beltran

OF – Xavier Nady / Shawn Green / Ryan Church

Where was there continuity over those three seasons?  Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Carlos Beltran.  Four pretty good names.

1996*-1997

C – Todd Hundley

1B – Butch Huskey / John Olerud

2B – Jose Vizcaino / Carlos Baerga

SS – Rey Ordonez

3B – Jeff Kent / Edgardo Alfonzo

OF – Bernard Gilkey

OF – Lance Johnson

OF – Alex Ochoa / Butch Huskey

* Edgardo Alfonzo made 85 starts in 1996 at 2B/3B/SS

1999-2000

C – Mike Piazza

1B – John Olerud / Todd Zeile

2B – Edgardo Alfonzo

SS – Rey Ordonez / Mike Bordick

3B – Robin Ventura

OF – Rickey Henderson / Benny Agbayani

OF – Brian McRae / Jay Payton

OF – Roger Cedeno / Derek Bell

1986-1987*

C – Gary Carter

1B – Keith Hernandez

2B – Wally Backman

SS – Rafael Santana

3B – Ray Knight / Howard Johnson

OF – Mookie Wilson / Kevin McReynolds

OF – Lenny Dykstra

OF – Darryl Strawberry

* Tim Teufel made 70 starts in 1986 and 72 starts in 1987 as part of a platoon with Backman, Mookie Wilson made 76 starts in 1987

1990

C – Mackey Sasser

1B – Dave Magadan

2B – Gregg Jefferies

SS – Kevin Elster

3B – Howard Johnson

OF – Kevin McReynolds

OF – Daryl Boston

OF – Darryl Strawberry

The post The Top 10 Mets Offensive Seasons Since 1980 appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Baseball has been played for over a century and a half. Major League Baseball has been around for over a century, and most situations have been played out over and over again hundreds of times, so we have a good idea of how every action affects a team’s chances. This is called Win Expectancy. We can use those thousands upon thousands of games from history, and look at a team in a particular situation and know their odds. We know that if a team is down by one run in the bottom of the seventh inning with runners on second and third with no outs, they will win approximately 66% of the time, because roughly 66% of teams in the past have won in those cases.

To utilize these win expectancies in analyzing how each action affects the odds, we simply take the difference between the old and new win expectancy and award it to the player who accomplished the action, and penalize the pitcher who allowed it. It’s simple and easy.

There are some issues with WPA, however. While it finally solves the problem of context-neutral stats like Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, and Weighted On Base Average, it’s only good at telling a story, not predicting the future. Many of the new sabermetric statistics are predictive, but this one is certainly not. It also brings up an issue that comes up frequently when talking about RBI and Runs Scored. A player can only change the course of a game so much with his bat if he isn’t put in the right spot at the right time by his teammates. Someone might not get the opportunity to hit a walk-off home run just by chance, therefore losing out on the opportunity to pad their WPA numbers.

One thing WPA definitely solves is this: No more arguing about the turning point of the game. Instead of looking at a play as a “clutch RBI hit,” you can now define how much that run-scoring double in the eighth inning meant to the overall outcome. Take game 4 of the 2004 ALCS for example. That was the year the Red Sox were down 3-0 in the series, and won a hard-fought 12-inning game to stay alive. Here is how the win expectancy shifted throughout the night:

This is a very handy chart from Fangraphs that shows the leverage (how important a moment in the game was going to be) and how the action that took place affected the odds of one team wining. As you can see, the game starts with each team at 50 percent and ends with one team at 100 percent, with fluctuations in between. The most important moment of the game was David Ortiz‘s walk-off home run, bringing the odds of Boston winning from a shade above 73 percent to 100 percent, ending the game.

Overall, Win Probability Added is a great way to see how influential moments in a game were, but it does not tell the story of how good a player really is. In order to conduct a complete evaluation, we must use context neutral statistics like wOBA and wRAA, as well as stats like WPA.

In Context

In every game, a player, in theory could have a WPA of -1 to 1, or even more extreme than those numbers. In practice, it is usually close to zero, but a player’s actions could almost completely determine the outcome of a game in rare scenarios. For David Ortiz’s walk-off home run in the 2004 ALCS, he added about 25% (73% WE to 100% WE) on that play alone. For that, he was awarded roughly 0.25 WPA. In every game, the WPA of each player on the winning team will amount to 1 and the WPA of each player on the losing team will always amount to -1. Over the course of a season, a player can have a negative WPA or positive, with each integer representing a win. Last season, Mike Trout finished the year with a 5.32 WPA, meaning in terms of win probability, he was worth over five wins.

Further Reading

• The One About Win Probability – The Hardball Times
  
• Sabermetrics 101: The Game State, Run Expectancy, and Win Expectancy – Lookout Landing
• Misunderstanding Win Expectancy – Tom Tango
• Is WPA Predictive for Batters? – Fangraphs
• Calculate Your Own WPA – Fangraphs

(Both charts courtesy of Fangraphs.)

The post (Updated) Know Your Stats: Win Probability Added (WPA) appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

As the Mets wrap up the month of May and close in on the second-third of the season, here are where they rank on pitching and offense in the National League.

Offensive Ranks

Runs Scored (207) – 11th

Batting Average (.228) – 14th

On-Base Pct. (.297) – 13th

Slugging Pct. (.371) – 14th

Home Runs (51) – 9th

Stolen Bases (23) – 11th

Pitching Ranks

Earned Run Average (4.28) – 13th

WHIP (1.32) – 9th

Wins (22) – 13th

Saves (10) – 14th

Save Percentage (59%) – 12th

Strikeouts (383) – 12th

Batting Average Against (.260) – 12th

The Kitchen Sink…

• Here’s an interesting stat I discovered… The Mets have grounded into 23 double plays this season. That’s the best mark in the league by far. The Nationals are second with 31 GDPs and the D-Backs lead the league with 55.
•  The Mets are last in the league with a .77 Groundball to Flyball Ratio.
• Mets outfielders have committed 8 errors this season, tops in the NL.
• The Mets are batting just .215 at home this season with a .647 OPS. After posting a .698 OPS in April, the Mets slipped to a .639 OPS for the month of May.
• With all the focus on Ike Davis there’s a seldom talked about black hole in center field. Mets center fielders are batting .193 this season with a .576 OPS.
• Mets batters are hitting .217 when leading off an inning. Mets leadoff hitters are batting just .198 this season with a .528 OPS. With No. 8 hitters batting .174 and the No. 9 spot batting .191 those are three dead spots in a row in the lineup.
• With the Mets trying to see more pitches during their at-bats the results aren’t very encouraging. They are batting .190 in three ball counts, .148 in two strike counts and .183 on full counts.

Maybe I can help…

The post Mets By The Numbers Through May appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Why don’t the Mets call up Fred Lewis to play LF?

It’s a great question and one we’ve grappled with a couple of times in our Minor League comment threads this season. The answer as to why Lewis is still languishing in Buffalo is kind of a mystery to me.

One could say they don’t want to add him to the 40-man roster and force another move that might end up costing them another player. But this front office has managed the 40MR like a bull stampeding through a china shop all season long, with reckless abandon. That’s likely not why Fred Lewis isn’t here.

Although Lewis has slowed some, he has put up solid numbers for the Herd this season batting .296 with an on-base of .374 to go with his very impressive .847 OPS. In 356 plate appearances, Lewis has produced 92 hits with 34 of them being of the xtra-base hit variety – including eight home runs.

Used mostly at the top of the order, the left-handed hitting outfielder has scored 58 runs and stolen 18 bases. He is among the top ten in the International League in Runs Scored, Triples, Walks and Stolen Bases.

Before joining the Mets, Lewis, who can play all three outfield positions, played parts of six seasons in the majors and has a career slash of .267/.345/.406 in 1,542 at-bats with 259 runs scored and 57 swipes in that span. He is significantly better against righties.

Those numbers, while not great, certainly compare favorably when put up against Lucas Duda and Kirk Nieuwenhuis who are now sharing playing time with Lewis in a crowded Buffalo outfield. Heck, even Andres Torres pales in comparison.

Defensively, the 31-year old is just average at the corners and can fill in if necessary in center, but I wouldn’t make a habit of it. He’s certainly an upgrade over what we’ve seen from Lucas Duda and even Jason Bay lately who has taken his slump to the field, but who isn’t?

So why isn’t Fred Lewis here?

I wish I had an answer for you, but one eludes me. Honestly, he should have been called up back in late April and early May when he was tearing up the league and was one of the leading vote-getters in the Triple-A All Star Game.

The post MMO Mailbag: Why Don’t The Mets Call Up Fred Lewis? appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Some folks will simplistically look at our record, compare it to last year and say the Mets were worse. As far as a Win/Loss record they would be correct. But isn’t how they lost and won just as significant in judging improvement as the actual result?

First let’s look at why we lost. It’s no big secret and almost everyone agrees it is the pitching.  Our staff was in the bottom half of the league in ERA (4.19 21st) and top 10 in Runs allowed (742 9th). League average for ERA was 3.94 and runs allowed was 694. A Quick look at the hitting numbers tends to prove out the above. We were 12th in Runs Scored (718, League Average is 694) 6th in BA (.264, LA=.255) 14th in RBI (676, LA=660).  The hitting was above league average in most every respect. Just not above average enough to offset the way below average Pitching. The Pitching that gave up 742 runs vs. our own 694. But to judge which direction this team is going, let’s look just a bit deeper than the record.

Let’s start off with the Pitching which has decidedly taken a downturn. In 2010 we were in the top 10 of ERA (3.78 7th, LA=4.07) and 23rd in RA (652, LA=710). So the Pitching definitely declined from 2010. Part of the reason is a Missing in Action Johan Santana, loss of a real closer in K-Rod halfway through the season, and downturns by both Niese and Pelfrey. Capuano would roughly equivocate to what Takahashi gave us (a decent 6 innings as a starter) and the rest was all in the Bullpen.  A Bullpen that started from scratch this year.

Our Hitting in 2010 was hurt greatly by a missing, and when returned, ineffective and out of condition Carlos Beltran.  It shows in the numbers quite well!  We were 24th in RS (656, LA=710), 22nd in BA (.249, LA=.257) and 23rd in RBI (625, LA=676) So there was improvement on this team only not enough to offset the step back taken by our pitching staff. And that’s all well and good from a statistical standpoint, but by looking at the stats and not the games, you tend to miss what was the most important thing to happen this season.  It is all because of one minor change to the position we call the MANAGER!

Our pitching was no doubt putting this team in the hole far too often and far too big for any reasonable team to overcome. Yet the Mets still managed to fight back hard enough to dig out of these holes on a nightly basis, only to see it blown by inadequate relievers. How many times did we come from behind and take a lead offensively only to see it evaporate the following inning by a pitcher who gave back whatever we achieved?

We had a great record in 2006-2008 and yet did not have the will and fight to finish strong at the end of games, and the end of the season to reach the glory that was expected. We called it a choke. Would you be able to say with a straight face that this team is the same?

Terry Collins went ballistic mid September long after the season was essentially over because he felt the team had given up. Something that was not the case as far back as early August and July, before the trades of K-Rod, Beltran and the eventual loss of Daniel Murphy.

You can look at the record all you want but the record will not show you the most significant development on this team this year! THEY DID NOT QUIT!  And if they TRIED to quit the Manager would not sit still and allow it to happen! This is a remarkable change from the 07 and 08 seasons where we had the division locked up and choked as much as the Braves and Red Sox’s did this year. It shows an improvement in the hardest part of a team to improve. The MENTAL aspect of the game!

They are playing the game the way it is supposed to be played. The results are not showing this aspect, but if you have watched every game, there is no doubt that it is true.

You don’t have to be a great baseball player to play great baseball. Wally Backman, Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson, and Sid Fernandez are never going to go down in the annals of baseball lore as great players, but they played the game hard, never gave up and fought every night. The REAL GREATS on your team are not the only ones that win games for you. We have a lot of players who fit that mold, and they have exhibited all the fight and attitude we came to attribute to the 86 champions!  For that reason alone we should be proud and hopeful that the corner has been turned for this franchise. Yes, there needs to be improvement on this team. Most importantly in the Pitching department however with Harvey, Familia, Mejia, and Wheeler in the wings, Santana and Dickey returning, and a little more from Niese and Gee, this team could easily be playing for the Wildcard next year provided that fight and no-quit attitude remain.

Say what you want, but the biggest change I see from last year is this team used to wait for something good to happen and give up when something bad happened. This year they shrugged off the deficits and fought to make them go away. Giving one’s all is all we can ask of them. Many players gave us their all, some certainly did not, but those are the guys you replace this offseason. The regular position players played the game the way it was supposed to be played!  To me, regardless of Wins or Losses, playing the game the way it is supposed to be played, is the most important part.

It is the attitude of this team that has improved and we have Terry Collins to thank for that.

Win or lose doesn’t matter.  It is HOW they played the game that says this team is better than it was, even better than it was in 2007 and 2008.

It isn’t apparent on the stat sheet unless you dig down into it.  It most certainly was apparent on the field, and that’s why you go to games to see what’s on the field, and not just what shows up in the scorebook afterwards!

This MMO Fan Shot was submitted by Mike (Metsie). If you have something to say, send your own Fan Shot to GetMetsmerized@aol.com. 

The post MMO Fan Shot: It’s Not Winning or Losing, It’s How You Play The Game! appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

He is expected to play again on Monday and will be playing right field in about 6-8 days.

Beltran is entering the final year of his 7-year, $119 million dollar contract and yesterday, he spoke about those first six years with reporters. He is clearly still haunted when he thinks back to how the 2006 season ended and what happened the following season as reported by the Daily News.

The post Beltran Goes 1-3 In Debut, Slides Home To Score Run appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

What originally motivated me to research and write a piece like this was the Mets’ futility in the longball department, coupled with the incessant chants in defense of the Mets, that you don’t need homeruns to score runs and win ballgames. A concept that I could never quite understand or agree with.

The following chart will show a decade’s worth of data that I compiled on team homeruns. It illustrates each years best and worst homerun totals by team and compares them to their rank in runs scored.

As you can see, the team with the lowest homerun total each season consistently ranks among the bottom five teams in runs scored and ranked last 40% of the time. None of the teams listed made the post season. Although I have yet to finish compiling the data for each year, early indications are that the power outage seems to directly correlate with their rank in home park attendance as well. 

When you take a look at the annual homerun “leaders” by team, the results are staggering. Every team on our list ranked in the top ten in runs scored and 70% of those teams ranked in the top five. Three of these teams went onto the post season.

The teams with the lowest homerun totals finished in last place or second to last place in 9 of the 10 seasons. The teams with the most homeruns, never had a last place finish and finished first in their division three times with the Brewers finishing in second in 2007.

The Mets 95 homeruns had the second lowest homerun total of the decade, edged out by the Giants who hit 94 in 2008. A big MMO shout-out to Daniel Murphy and Jeff Francoeur for both hitting two-run homers in the last series of the season against the Houston Astros to keep the Mets from owning that dubious honor.

So what does all of this data prove? I don’t really have an answer to that question, but it certainly deflates the argument that you don’t need homeruns to win ballgames and go to the post season.

The post Homeruns vs. Runs Scored – A Decade Worth Of Evidence appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Here is how Daniel Murphy ranks among all qualifying National League first baseman with 450 or more at-bats.

As you can see from the above chart, Murphy is woefully deficient in not just one or two offensive areas, but  all of them.

I found it odd that some saber friendly Mets fans are so quick to defend Murphy on his inability to draw walks and wonder if they applied a double standard where Jeff Francoeur was concerned this season. Murphy’s walks worsened significantly in the second half, registering just 13 passes compared to 25 in the first half.

The fact is that Daniel Murphy ranks last in OPS, On-Base Percentage, Batting Average, Walk Rate, and Runs Scored.

He ranks second to last place in Slugging Percentage, Homeruns and Runs Batted In.

There doesn’t seem to be one area in the offensive department that would justify and support an argument for keeping his job at first base. There doesn’t seem to be a defensive argument either despite this new fangled stat that suggested he was the second best defensive first baseman in the league. (I’m not kidding.)

At best, Murphy appears to be a poor mans Eddie Kranepool, who set the bar for below average first baseman who were able to stay gainfully employed as a starting first baseman.

His on-base percentage suggests that he should be nowhere near the top of the order.

His slugging percentage suggests that he is not a middle of the order bat either.

So why the fuss over a player who is ideally a 7 or 8 hitter at best in the Mets lineup?

Can we please focus on getting a legitimate power bat at first base in the off season, and leave Daniel Murphy either on the bench or back in AAA where he most likely belongs?

The post If At First You Don’t Succeed, Your Name Must Be Daniel Murphy appeared first on Metsmerized Online.