MLB Network ranked the top 10 second basemen in baseball according to “The Shredder” and two Mets appeared on the list. The Shredder gave the Mets two of the top five second basemen in baseball in Robinson Cano and newly acquired Jed Lowrie.
MLB.com’s Mike Petriello gave his feedback, where he ranked Jed Lowrie as the third best second basemen and Robinson Cano as the fourth best.
When talking about Lowrie, Petriello said “Lowrie hit .267/.353/.448 (122 wRC+) with 23 homers, and he turns 35 shortly after Opening Day, but he’s coming off two of the best seasons of his career, a pair of campaigns that look oddly similar. (In both years, he had a .448 slugging percentage and a .347 wOBA, though in 2018 he turned a few of his doubles into a career high in home runs.) He maintained a slightly above-average hard-hit rate and is a competent defender at second, so we’re betting on at least one more season of strong production — and so are the Mets.”
When he shifted to Robinson Cano, he added “When the Mets traded for Cano (and Edwin Diaz), it was reasonable to worry about how a 36-year-old would age over the remaining five years of his contract, but fortunately for us, we don’t have to worry about that here. We’re considering only 2019, and there’s little to indicate Cano won’t keep hitting at a high level this season.
Cano’s .303/.374/.471 (136 wRC+) was about the same as his career line, and while it’s true enough that his season was marred by an 80-game suspension for violating the MLB drug policy, it’s also true that he hit .317/.363/.497 (140 wRC+) in 41 games after returning. We don’t know how he’ll hit in 2022, but for 2019, there’s no reason to expect anything but success.”
Of note, he also mentioned Jeff McNeil as just missing his list. On McNeil, he mentioned “McNeil’s late season performance for the Mets (.329/.381/.471, 137 wRC+) was so impressive that he likely would have made this list if his path to playing time was a little more clear, but we already have two Mets on this list in Cano and Lowrie.”
