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With Moises Alou likely out until May, Adam Rubin of the Daily News is turning to Angel Pagan, Brady Clark and Damion Easley to step in in left field and balance out a predominantly left-handed bottom of the lineup.
Rubin writes:
“With three lefty hitters already in the Nos. 5-8 slots in the batting order … it’s virtually essential that a righty batter occupy the other slot and man left field.”
Pagan, a switch-hitter who entered today batting .333 in 60 at-bats this spring, has a .219 career average against left-handers—60 points below his career average against righties.
…pagan has to be the guy getting the majority of playing time out of the gate, but rubin’s right…opposing teams might need only a lefty reliever or two to plow through an alou-less mets lineup, or at least half of it…
I still dont see this being as big an issue as it seems. I would much rather have a lefty heavy lineup than a righty heavy lineup. I dont think there are very many effective southpaws in most teams bullpens anyway. I think the Mets have the best with Schoey, Feliciano, and Wags.
can we trade church and schneider back to the nats for milledge?
And just who would catch? Castro’s body wouldn’t stand up to a full-time role, and Casanova, Cancel, Molina etc. aren’t exactly exciting prospects.
funny how omar relied on the old man alou for righty power. this was so predictable. an arod, miggy, v. wells or rios bat woulda been nice from the right.
A-Rod: not available.
Miguel Caberera, Vernon Wells or Rios? Well you have to decide what u want: Santana or a hitter? You can’t have both. This team desperately needed a top of the rotation pitcher more than a corner outfielder.
CASTRO – right handed power who slots in 5-8. If we face LHP’s about a third of the time (maybe even less), I expect that Castro will start the majority of them. He’s good enough to get that much playing time, and Schnieder is not so good that we can’t bench him that much.
Good point. Isn’t that the reason Omar brought him here? Castro should start against the majority of left handers. He has earned it.
My understanding is that that’s exactly what the Omar and Willie intend – about 100 starts for Schneider and about 60 for Castro.
It won’t matter how easily the opposition BP slices through the lower order if we can take a lead into late innings and shut them down with our own pen.
I agree with Mr. Met above. Is this really that big of a problem? I feel like stats against left handed pitchers are always slightly skewed because there are far fewer of them. It is more of an advantage having a left handed hitter heavy lineup than the other way around. Not many teams have good lefty relief pitchers either. I know Mike and the Mad Dog think this is the biggest deal ever and they don’t like the way the Mets team is “constructed.” Hey Mike, when Hughes, Kennedy and Mussina are getting shelled, tell me how you like how our starting pitching is “constructed.”
they love to babble on about that…but they conveniantly forget the Yankees are just as left handed heavy as the Mets, if not more. Cause..ya know, Yanks never do anything wrong.
Although I only listen to them on the car radio I do seem to remember Mike Francesca admitting that the Mets have far superior starting pitching with the Yankees the better hitting team and better late relief with Joba and Rivera. It’s the Mad Dog that tends to pull things out of his rear to inflame the local fan base.
From 1987 to 1990 the Mets were a predominately left handed hitting team and the Cardinals and Pirates would throw left handed pitchers against the Mets to shut down their offense.
All it takes is for a LOOGY to shut down the offense at a critical juncture in an important game. The Mets hierarchy is concerned about it since we keep on reading how they are looking for a strong right handed bat that can play 1st base and a corner outfield spot.
Of our current bench, Endy and Easley both hit lefties better than righties, so if they bring someone in, it’d better be someone better than them.
Who will pitch on Sunday, April 13; Pedro or Johan?
Goin’ down to Shea to say solong. I’ll miss that old stadium…
Assuming they break camp with 5 starters–and it sounds more and more like they will–it would probably be Pedro.
either way. you can’t lose :-)
Thank you, man. Ah, Sheets vs Pedro on a sunny spring day; green grass, cold beer, childhood memories and a final, in person, Mets victory!
I don’t think it’s Pedro…..I don’t think their using a 5 man rotation until the 12th…..If you do the math that means that the 13th is the #5 Pelfry or El Duque……
sorry….”they’re using”
another reason why the milledge trade should of never been
made. besides the obvious, the last thing this team needed was
another left-handed, let alone two, and neither of them are not
that good no matter what you apologists say. church hasn’t
shown a damn thing that’ll make you confident.
Would you like some violin music for your whining? Everybody, and I mean everybody at the end of last season said we needed another left-handed bat for right field to keep lineup balance. Also that we needed a better defensive catcher than LoDuca since everybody was running on him and his bat was not as it use to be. With one player we were able to address both spots for the now, since thats what this team is built for. Milledge is still a question mark at this point, and the fact that other teams were more interested in Gomez than him, says volumes. The fact that the Nats haven’t had him play against the Mets so far, has me believing that they dont think he’s able to handle the situation of having to face his former team or all the media, maturely or professionally. In a few years, yeah, he may turn into the star they all thought he could be, but it wouldn’t have been this year and with the Mets. As he said himself, he’s in a better situation now. Just let it go. The Mets will do fine and he’ll do fine.
Aside from being semi-literate, you should understand the meaning of apologist; it has nothing to do with approving of the trade to give Swilledge the heave-ho. Get a clue, bub.
Church and Schneider will show themselves to be winners as the season goes on.
Stop worrying folks
just let Schneider and Church freaking play some games already
and vs lefties there is Easley and Castro that can sub…………
also I like the idea of Reed Johnson coming in……….but hey everyone loves Pagan right now………..
I am fine with the team as is
Tell ‘em Vitto. I am as confident in my Mets now as I’ve been in a while. The pitching is just blowing me away!
The Mets hit .290 with an .811 OPS against lefties last year. They only had Alou for 87 games last year and still did much better against lefties than righties, which means more than just Alou make this a good team against lefthanded pitching… Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and Luis Castillo all hit better against lefties than righties, and David Wright absolutely destroys lefthanded pitching…
I understand people are freaked out about having those guys bunched at the bottom, but that also means you have four hitters that hit lefthanded pitching very well at the top of the order.