A Parallel Universe

By Matt Himelfarb
Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2008

If forum activity is any reflection of the attitude of Mets fans these days, five page threads devoted to analyzing every nook and cranny of Carlos Beltran’s performance circa 2005 in his tenure as a Met gives you a pretty good idea of where we’re all at right now; Omar and co. themselves may have already decided to throw in the towel and stop denying that they have dug this team into a six-foot hole with perhaps no way out. But at the same time, you would be hard pressed to find even the most ardent optimist willing to disagree. As a result, a large amount of disgruntled Mets fans are unsure of where to asses blame and vent their anger.

And who could blame them? Simple philosophy says that you can’t miss something you never had. Yet after a year-and-a-half of seemingly not realizing their latent potential, the Mets cracked out of their shell within all the fallout following the departure of Willie Randolph, finally playing up to their expectations. Then, the Mets failed to seize the opportunity and build a substantial lead in first place and, like an overexposed middle reliever, fell back to earth big time, swept by the lowly Houston Astros.

And who can blame them for their dramatic shift in thinking that Omar, who just a few days ago resisted the urge to pull the trigger on a quick-fix deal, is now a target of vilification for lacking the emotional will or the brains to put together a trade at the deadline? Mets fans have sorely lacked confidence in Omar since the collapse last year, and the Mets recently struggles only exacerbate those worries.

For instance, John Peterson over at Blastings Thrilledge, who has always been a proponent of young players, recently wrote a post after Daniel Murphy was promoted saying, “There's no middle ground with this team, is there? Either they are playing veterans over more-deserving youngsters, or they are wildly promoting youngsters over other far more accomplished players who are actually major league-ready.” On one hand, John’s right; the Mets sometimes seem to have as much inconsistency in roster decisions as Imus has when he is making racially fueled comments one day and applauding himself for talking about race at all the next.

No matter what John and Ted Berg over at SNY write, however, I still believe the Mets are doing the right thing with bringing up Murphy, at least to some extent. To be fair, a lot of their clear indignation has to do, deservedly so, with the fact the Mets have already decided Val Pascucci, who is hitting .286/411/.566 in the PCL thus far, cannot hit big league pitching. With just 62 career at-bats in the big leagues, though, Pascucci has experience on his side little more than Murphy, in which case you might as well go with the 23 year-old who is arguably facing tougher competition.

Sure, there is a risk in promoting such a young player who has only been in the system so long. Murphy can undoubtedly rake, however, posting an ISOP (Isolated-Power) of .243 in May and .228 in July, and a SLG% of .542 and .409 in those same months (I excluded April because of the extremely cold weather up in Binghamton that month and June because he compiled just 34 at-bats), in addition to an excellent 0.85 BB/K ratio.

What seems to be gnawing at Ted in particular about Murphy and some of the Mets other prospects in general is not the numbers but, as he writes, “this is a team in a pennant race with allusions to grandeur… not the place for a 22-year-old kid with no Triple-A experience, playing out of position.” Sounds eerily familiar, right? It does because such hogwash was written at this time last year, whether it be more playing time for the defensively superior Lastings Milledge over Shawn Green, or about the back end of the rotation between the likes of Brian Lawrence and Jorge Sosa, or even Ruben Gotay.

Of course, there is no telling what impact those changes would have made last year for the Mets or similar teams like the Dodgers or Mariners. More importantly, we have the advantage of clairvoyance and know that, with a veteran-friendly team came the collapse. But that is precisely the point; it wasn’t completely clear at the time, as is the case now with Murphy.

Hence, the Mets should play Murphy everyday in left field until Ryan Church returns, and if that does happen soon, continue to play him over Tatis, as I proposed with Nick Evans a few weeks ago. Murphy might be new to the position, but as the manager, I would make it clear to the kid and say, “look, we have gotten some of the worst production out of left field this entire year- knock yourself out in left, give us some offense, and Endy Chavez can take it the rest of the way.” It is simply the best option for the Mets at this point.

What the Mets should not do is loosely platoon him, especially with Evans of all guys, and play him two-three days a week. Jerry Manuel, as Adam Rubin told us last week, “acknowledged he's done a poor job of involving Evans”, yet what is he doing allowing Evans to only face southpaws? Even if he was a lefty-smasher in the minors, Evans has been riding the bench to long for a young player to be expected to go back to being productive; this is similar to when the Mets called up Philip Humber at the beginning of last September, only to have him pitching two innings, which ended up costing them dear when he was called upon to make a big start later that month. In addition, Manuel simply did a horrible job not starting Evans with regularity in favor of veterans such as Marlon Anderson- a mistake he ought to avoid with Murphy.

In the end, the Mets outfield situation is convoluted and flat out messy with perhaps no good options. Gotta’ keep the faith though, right?

Matt is a disgruntled, statistically- and politically-obsessed teenager and appreciates all words of encouragement at: matthimelfarb@gmail.com. You can also check out his blog: matthimelfarb.wordpress.com.

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