What They Need – New York Metropolitans: An outfielder (or two)
Most things are looking up for the Metropolitans these days. By reeling off 10 wins in a row recently, the Mets have gotten themselves back into the thick of the NL East race. Carlos Delgado has rediscovered his stroke after a horrid start, the emergence of Mike Pelfrey and the re-emergence of Oliver Perez has solidified the rotation, and the bullpen is performing much better under new pitching coach Dan Warthen and the more adept bullpen management of new manager Jerry Manuel.
But the one place the Mets still have a gaping hole is in the outfield, where scrapheap find Fernando Tatis is manning right field and bench-player-at-best Endy Chavez has been pressed into fulltime service in left. This unfortunate situation has arisen due to the ailments of Moises Alou (which should have been foreseen), and the continuing concussion woes of Ryan Church (which the Mets badly exacerbated by rushing him back).
But regardless of the cause of the situation, something needs to be done, as the Mets can ill afford to miss out on offensive production from crucial corner spots in such a tight three-way race in the East. While it’s true that Church may eventually come back (possibly as soon as next week), and that Tatis may keep up his strong hitting (Alou on the other hand, is done for the year), the Mets can not afford to gamble on both of those things happening, and should go out and acquire a corner outfielder before the deadline.
Fortunately for the Mets, several of those appear to be available.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:46 pm
BAPIP. Does this stat really have any value?
Is there not a difference between a pitcher who keeps batters off balance, causing easier to handle BIB (low BABIP) and one who can be zoned in on and subsequently torched (high BAPIP)?
Same with batters. Why shouldn’t guys who often get good wood on a ball have a higher BABIP?
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May 31st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Dirty, BABIP has a lot more value for pitchers than for batters. I discussed this at the beginning of my post. Pretty much all pitchers should have a BABIP between .290 and .310 over the long haul. Batters can vary much more, but pitchers have shown no real ability to control BABIP, so it is definitely a stat that matters.
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May 31st, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I was going to say the same thing as Dirty Water, but you answered it well Kapur.
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June 1st, 2008 at 1:03 am
Other guys with high BABIP (Buy, buy, buy!): Andy Pettite
are the detachable shoulders included?
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June 9th, 2008 at 12:26 am
What formula are you using to calculate the pitchers’ BABIP? I’ve found one for batters, is it the same one used for pitchers or is there a variation on it?
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June 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Dirty Water,
BABiP is also connected to line drive rates. Guys who hit a higher percentage of line drives have a higher BABiP. Michael Young has made millions because he can maintain a BABiP around .350 consistently, and that’s because he’s always near the top in line drive percentage.
Also, for pitching, sometimes it’s called DER (Defense Efficiency Ratio).
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July 25th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Manny Ramirez may be available to fill this role any day now.
/theoepstein1/
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July 25th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I think Casey Blake would be a good fit here. I mean, he meets the minimum age requirement of 34 to play LF at Shea. And despite the fact that he really hasn’t played OF for almost two years, I’m 98 percent sure that he’d still be better defensively than Alou, Tatis, or Marlon Anderson.
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