A month ago, the following was never even a consideration in the minds of industry onlookers:
“Where would the Mets be without Curtis Granderson?”
But it’s true, as he has easily had his best run as a Met in the year and a half he’s been with the team and unquestionably has been the Mets best hitter in June – he’s hit .303/.384/.950 with five doubles, seven home runs and 11 RBI with 15 runs scored in 26 games in June.
A lot of that production could be attributed to an incredible eight-game hitting streak he’s currently on, posting a .452/.553/1.000 line with two doubles, five home runs and seven RBI in 38 plate appearances over that span.
He has become a different hitter in the last month or so. He’s become much more aggressive early in counts, which is certainly resulting in fewer walks. But over the first two months of the season, it was almost as if he was trying to be too good of a leadoff hitter by taking too many hittable pitches early in the count. He was fantastic at working counts and drawing walks, but wasn’t doing much else.
Now, he’s swinging the bat and attacking strikes early in the count, and reverted back to being a pull hitter and crushing balls on the inner half and down.
In other words, this is the guy the Mets signed in December, 2013.
It’s because of that incredible production questions have been asked about why Granderson is continuing to bat leadoff, and not lower down in the lineup in a run-producing spot.
“Why would we disturb the one guy who’s, right now, swinging the bat like we want to?” Terry Collins recently asked the media in response to being asked why Granderson is still hitting leadoff. “So, we’re going to leave him where he is.”
On the one hand, the logic is sound. As the old saying goes, “don’t fix it if it aint broke,” and right now, Granderson is comfortable, producing and getting on-base in the role the Mets need him to be in, considering there’s just nobody else who comes remotely close to fitting the profile of a leadoff hitter on this club.
On the other hand, the Mets could conceivably move Granderson down in the lineup, behind either Lucas Duda or Michael Cuddyer, and offer protection for those two guys which would in turn give them more hittable pitches in their respective sequences. After all, there’s absolutely no reason to pitch to either of them, and they’re both seeing a ton of breaking balls outside the zone (which they continue to swing at). It could help get more people on-base ahead of the middle of the order, therefore making them more productive.
Of course, if they do move Granderson, they’d need someone to hit leadoff, which again, they do not have.
No matter what happens, Granderson is on-board with wherever Collins wants him to hit in the lineup.
“Wherever Terry wants to put me, that’s where I think the best spot is,” he recently told the Star Ledger. “If it happens to be in the top middle or bottom, so far, out of my year and a half here, I’ve batted in a lot of spots. Right now I’m leading off. So that’s where I happen to be. If things happen to change, I’ll adjust accordingly.”
Granderson is hitting .259/.357/.445 with 13 home runs and 27 RBI with 40 walks and 72 strikeouts in 319 plate appearances in 77 games in 2015.
Just Mets 