Michael Cuddyer, the Mets free agent prize in this past offseason, is off to a tough start in his career in Flushing. While the Mets are off to a 15-5 start–the best record in baseball–and it hasn’t hurt them all too much, they’re going to need some offense from the man who was expected to provide just that.
Through 20 games in this young season, the 36-year-old is hitting .233/.300/.356 with one home run, four doubles, nine RBI, six walks and 20 strikeouts. While you’d obviously like to see a higher average and more production from Cuddyer, an even more concerning thing for me is his strikeout rate. Cuddyer’s always been known as a contact hitter, but so far this season he’s struck out in 27 percent of his at-bats; an alarming rate.
He’s been making less contact this season, 76.5 percent to be exact, as opposed to 81.4 percent last year and 79.5 percent over the course of his career. Cuddyer has also been swinging at a fairly good amount of pitches out of the zone this year, which actually isn’t too uncommon over the course of his career. The difference this season, however, is that he’s making less contact on pitches outside of the zone, which can help explain the uptick in strikeouts.
In addition to the K’s, we’re seeing some unusual trends for Cuddyer that do not reflect what he’s done his entire career. This year we’ve seen him pound the ball into the ground quite a bit, 58 percent of the time in fact, which is a big increase from his career groundball average of 47.2 percent. Cuddyer has also grounded into three double plays this season. His line drive rate this season is 15.1 percent, down from 24.2 percent last season and lower than his career 19 percent rate as well.
Last night we saw Cuddyer come up in a big spot as a pinch-hitter with two runners on base, two outs and a chance to give the Mets the lead in the 8th inning. Cuddyer started the at-bat by getting a 2-0 count, but subsequently chased a pitch low and out of the strike zone to get it to 2-1. The next pitch Cuddyer saw had plenty of plate, but he pounded one into the ground to the shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria, and the threat was over.
The season is young, just 20 games old–that’s 12 percent of the 162-game season–so I don’t want to start hearing the Jason Bay comparisons that some people like to throw around ad nauseam. But, Cuddyer needs to start hitting, plain and simple. Whether it’s just an early-season funk or he needs an adjustment at the plate, I do think this is something that will pass. The numbers are concerning, yes, but they’re also far off from what he’s done over the course of his entire career, and I don’t care how old you are, you just don’t often see someone become a completely different player overnight.
Just Mets 