The Mets defensive problems have been glaring through the first 26 games of the season. In an attempt to improve their middle infield defense in the short-term, Sandy Alderson called up Dilson Herrera and shifted Daniel Murphy to third base while they wait for David Wright’s hamstring to heal in Port St. Lucie.
In addition, Terry Collins sat Wilmer Flores and replaced him with Ruben Tejada so Flores could refresh his mind in three consecutive days off leading up to tonight’s game against the Orioles.
In the process, Tejada was unable to turn a double play in the first inning during Sunday’s loss to the Nationals, which led to the only run of the game scoring.
Overall, Flores has made only 90.2 percent of what FanGraphs considers routine plays, which is second-worst among qualified big league shortstops (Ian Desmond is last). Tejada has only made 90.9 percent of the routine plays he’s been offered, according to FanGraphs.
In addition, Daniel Murphy has made only 92.2 percent of the routine plays he’s been offered at second base, which is the worst in baseball.
Overall, Mets shortstops have committed eight errors on the year and have a .648 OPS at the plate (15 points below league average). They’re hitting .233 with three home runs and 11 RBI through the first 26 games
Despite the ugly numbers on the middle infield, a club source told Kristie Ackert of the Daily News the Mets are not close to promoting Matt Reynolds from Triple-A Las Vegas.
Reynolds, 24, is off to a strong start under Wally Backman in Las Vegas, hitting .324/.393/.543 with two home runs and 23 RBI in 24 games. He’s committed two errors at shortstop so far this season.
Reynolds has certainly made waves over the last year, and Mets people were raving about him at Triple-A. He showed up to Port St. Lucie in tremendous shape, he was solid at the plate and showed no problems at shortstop.
I got the sense the Mets wanted to see a little more from him before deciding if he can do this here. Last year was a breakout year for Reynolds, so that’s reasonable. He also wasn’t very good defensively last year, so the Mets have to be sure they’re getting what they need from him before committing a roster spot to him so early in the year.
With that said, at some point, they’re going to have to take a look at him or get someone else in here if this poor defense continues. As I’ve said, the shift of Murphy to third base suggests the Mets are not prepared to deal with the poor defense up the middle for much longer.
It seems logical the Mets will examine Reynolds before going to the external markets, but time will certainly tell…
Just Mets 