Read: National League outfield rankings
In an article for Yahoo! Sports, Gerry Fraley ranks the Mets outfield as the fourth-best in the National League behind the Rockies, Cubs, and Diamondbacks.
On the Mets, Fraley writes…
“LF Moises Alou, CF Carlos Beltran, RF Ryan Church. Reserves: Marlon Anderson, Endy Chavez.
“Alou, 41, can still hit but is having increasing difficulty staying on the field. Church needs help against lefthanders, which could create an opening for hyped prospect Carlos Gomez.”
…at first, i felt fourth was way too generous of a ranking…those are a couple of drastic understatements with regards to alou’s ability to stay healthy and church’s inability to hit lefties…but after looking closer at the rest of the nl outfields, it’s a pretty fair rating…in fact, i would argue they should be a spot higher since two thirds of the Cubs outfield hasn’t even played a full major-league season…
Fraley also ranks Beltran as the second-best outfielder in the National League, behind only Matt Holliday, saying…
“He is coming off a season in which he hit 33 homers, drove in 112 runs and won his second consecutive Gold Glove. The ding in Beltran’s game is he doesn’t hit for a high average.”
…it’s true, beltran is not likely to hit for a high average…however, he brings so many other things to the table that i wouldn’t even swap him for holliday, whose career numbers away from Coors Field are worse than beltran’s averages since coming to the Mets…
…added to by Matthew Cerrone…
…i have a hard time evaluating beltran…i still think of him as though he’s the young, five-tool guy from the Royals…
…instead, today, as he enters his fourth season with the Mets, during which he’ll be 31 years old, he’s more of a clean-up hitter with decent speed and great instincts on the base paths…the other thing is that he’s quite brittle, and though he plays through more pain they we realize, it impacts his production and makes him painfully streaky…yet, when he’s on a roll, he can carry the team as well as any one…
For more on the team’s outfield, check out Marty Noble’s latest column for MLB.com.
