Just Mets

On Thursday, Terry Collins and the team’s brass decided to switch Daniel Murphy back to third base and Ruben Tejada to second base to create a stronger infield alignment.

The move makes sense – Murphy is a superior and more experienced third baseman than Tejada, who has played eight games there in his life. Tejada, meanwhile is a better second baseman than he is third baseman, and a superior second baseman to Murphy.

Ultimately, however, the Mets defense would be strongest by installing Tejada at shortstop, Murphy at third base, and Wilmer Flores at second base.

The Mets decided not to make that change on Thursday.

“I’m going to stay away from the shortstop position right now because it’s a firestorm,” Collins explained about leaving Flores at shortstop.

A logical reason not to shift Flores is that he’s shown a little more stability at shortstop, he’s produced to a degree at the plate, and for now he really isn’t a major problem, so there’s no reason to create one by moving him around and rocking the boat.

Another reason not to shift Flores to second base might be because Dilson Herrera could be back relatively soon, and he will not be playing shortstop here in all probability, meaning the club would just have to shift Flores back to shortstop again.

But the way this sounds is they’re mainly concerned what people might think about the change.

If the main reason the team isn’t shifting Flores to second or third or wherever they’d like to is because they’re afraid of what people might think, that is concerning. The team should be making decisions for the betterment of the team in the absence of David Wright. 

It would behoove the Mets to make decisions which influence and promote winning on the field, rather than winning the public opinion debate.