With Delgado looking like he will miss at least 2 or 3 weeks, perhaps even several months, it throws a wrench into our plans and our lineup. We don't have a dependable backup firstbasemen defensively, and so Jerry Manuel/Omar Minaya have to put their thinking caps on to figure out how to shape the lineup. However, even the broadcaster commented during today's game that "The Mets are as deep as any team in the MLB", and we currently have a plethora of availible guys capable of cycling in for some AB's. Here are my thoughts on how we should work it.
vs. right handed pitchers, I say we put daniel murphy at first base, keep ryan church in right field, and put jeremy reed in for Murphy's spot in left field. Murphy is an infielder by trade so fielding grounders should be no problem for him. an reed, beltran, and church give us plenty of speed and some excellent defense in the OF. plus, church and murphy are left handed, and so would have the advantage against righty pitchers.
vs. lefty pitchers, we should put fernando tatis at first base, gary sheffield in right, and angel pagan in left feild. tatis has been an infeilder and utility man his entire career and has played first base in the past, so that should be no problem defensively. sheffield has performed very well for us thusfar, especially vs. lefthanded pitchers (whom he is hitting over .350 against), and has a suprisingly capable arm in the OF even if his range isn't what it used to be. angel pagan hit over .300 for us last year before getting hurt and has pretty good speed, superb defense, and is a switch hitter. plus, tatis, sheffield, and pagan all hit better vs. lefty pitchers than vs. righties.
also, once Brian Schnieder comes back from the DL, we will have 3 capable offensive catchers for one position. santos is the worst of those 3 and would probably be sent down, but in case someone else gets injured or pagan can't perform anymore, maybe we could try santos at first? he has decent speed and mobility for a catcher and lots of catchers play 1B as a second position. it would be a clever way to keep his bat in the lineup without having to bench one of our 2 veteran catchers.
doing the above should keep every one of those players fresh by cycling them through and happy because they all get some at bats. church and murphy are probably the best of those hitters, which works at well because they would get the most at bats since most pitchers are right handed. I also wouldn't mind letting Sheffield take over for Reed in LF for the RHP group to try and replace some of the power we lost in Delgado. Any other ideas on how we could adjust our roster to accomodate for Delgado's absence?
Shuffling Players
I think that the Mets' situation right now sounds a little more scary than it actually is. We've got Delgado, Schneider and Oliver Perez on the disabled list. Jose Reyes hasn't started on the West Coast. And JJ Putz has some elbow issues. Luckily there is an interesting bunch of gamers on the team that are pretty versatile.
Based on what Jerry Manuel said today I think we'll see Jeremy Reed and Fernando Tatis at 1st base. It sounds like Manuel really wants to use Gary Sheffield so Murphy may end up being the odd man if Sheffield keeps hitting. Murphy is doing pretty good at the plate so there will probably be a lefty-righty platoon with Sheffield. Cora has been pretty good so far with Reyes out. Hopefully Cora can go back to the bench soon. We're going to need Reyes in the lineup when some of the other guys go cold. For the moment Omar Minaya looks like a genius for some of his bench player choices this year. Now it's Jerry's job to find the right mix.
As long as we've got offense we won't miss Oliver Perez. That's going to change though. So I want to see Ollie give it another try soon. In the meantime I've heard that Tim Redding will start vs. LA next week.
It's too soon to gauge but I wouldn't be surprised if Omar Minaya looks for a big bat to add to the lineup (to replace Delgado's) before the trade deadline. We just don't know how long Carlos will be out and we could seriously use another power bat in the middle of the lineup.
Bad News All Around
Mets fans got home from work/school today to learn that 1. Delgado is officially getting surgery and the All-Star Break is a HOPEFUL return date for him, 2. Jose Reyes is out for the 5th striaght game and his tight calf might be worse than expected and possibly need a DL stint and 3. when Cora slid into second in the first at bat of yesterday he sprained his thumb and is also on the 15 day DL. This means that AAA 3rd baseman Ramon Martinez will be our starting SS until (if) Reyes gets healthy. For those of you who haven't heard of Ramon, that is for a reason; lets just put it this way, he's nothing to be excited about. This is not good news, but we cant let it get us down. Despite last nights bad loss, we have been playing great baseball the past 2 weeks. We are tied for the best run differential in the NL, our bats have been hitting in the clutch, and our starting pitching seems to have righted itself. Last year I think we racked up so many injuries that it discouraged us to have to many backups/AAA guys in the starting roster, and this bred bad play. we can't have that this year. even with Delgado out, this team still has more talent than nearly any team we'll play, and we have to work with what we have each night and scrap out the W's. Lets not forget we still lead the NL East (for now at least) and we have lots of momentum and great depth to carry us through the thins areas. It's Jerry's job to convey the message to the players that a little adversary is no excuse to kill this momentum we've built up.
Ouch!
These are losses that really hurt. You can see that the team has been out of whack for the last few days. It's time to man up. We need some guys to step up and get us through the tough spots. Coincidentally it was this point last season when the Mets went on a five game losing streak and right now we're right behind the 2008 pace according to the progress tracker.
Injuries Galore
What a brutal week this has been for the Mets. By the skin of our teeth, with many close losses and a few close wins, we were able to squeak out a 5-5 record on this road trip, but what a viscious toll our roster has taken health wise. With 3 more injuries announced today, I had to make a list just to keep track so I wouldn't forget any!
Can you believe that? This team is deep enough to shuffle around for the occasional injury, but by my count that's 11 WOULD-BE STARTERS who are battling injuries! unbelievable. Tommorow it appears as if our team may trot out to Citi Field with the following starting roster:
C-Omir Santos, 1B Daniel Murphy, 2B Luis Castillo, SS Fernando Tatis, 3B David Wright, LF Gary Sheffield, CF Jeremy Reed, RF Fernando Martinez
of those 8 players, only 2 were on the opening day roster in the same position! It's a perk that Fernando Martinez finally gets the call, I'm excited to see what he can do at the major league level and he may provide a much needed spark for us, but this is getting a little pathetic. What can Manuel possibly do to handle that many injuries? the backups of his backups of his backups are getting hurt; there's only so many major league quality players a team can have. Wright and Castillo are the only ones those 8 who were even on the team a year ago, and half of them were in the minors at that time.
I said in the begginning of the season that injuries were what cost us the division last year, and they will be a big factor again this year in whether we make the playoffs or not. No amount of strategizing, free agent signings, coaching, practicing, hard work, or talent can prevent the injury bug from biting, so there's nothing we can do except cross our fingers and hope we get healthier.
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