There are a few options that come to mind. These are somewhat off the cuff. Uggla makes some sense. Plus you can shift him to LF or 2B. Delgado cannot be worse offensively and would be cheap; there is a bad history granted. Another is Pena in a salary dump so it may not be a prospect heavy deal. He has only 1 year left and would most likely be a Type A after 2010. If Davis is ready mid-year there will be a ton of AL teams looking for his power. Crawford + Pena makes sense; but granted may be difficult to pull off.

Youk and Millar were both better (nontrivial) offensively than was Murphy.

Yes nobody can predict but we can follow a more proven path. From what I can find Puckett was the only 24yo rookie that was horrible offensively that went on to become a solid offensive player; but that was apparantly helped by Mr. Juice.

My overall points are

1) Murphy’s offensive inadequacies must be made up elsewhere – and that doesn”t appear likely

2) Players like Murphy predominately do not become much better. i.e. do not bank on him

3) moving a player to 1B is a lot easier than moving one to, say, SS.

4) do not block Davis

Another option is for AGon. Given Davis’ year you may be able to package Davis and not a whole lot else for AGon so we may not need to trade the farm.

Honestly though, Murph can perform just as well as Youk or Millar did (both were older at that time, so of course its a little different) IF we have power elsewhere in the lineup. And you provide solid stats to certainly suggest Murph would be more suitable in the AL than with the NL, where power is more valuable.

But in the end, we’re assuming a limited ceiling for Murph, niether you or I can say how good he will be, or not be.

Ideal world, we get more power at 1B…but unless we make a trade, Murphy is more attractive than the F.A. options out there…and we may have to bite the bullet to let him play, improve, implode, until Ike Davis can play do the same.

If we sign Holliday, I have no problem with Murph as my 1B in 2010. If we dont, then we’re gonna be hurting.

* – ton of power at SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF, DH
# – Bonds 47, Kent 37 but probably the closet WS team with a Murphy like 1B. The Braves made it with Julio Franco at 1B; but had a team ERA+ of 133.

further:
Spiezo had a .806OPS (115OPS+) in 2002 and the Angels had a team ERA+ of 120.

Millar .857OPS (117OPS+) team ERA+ of 112 (staff of Schilling, Pedro, Lowe, and Wakefield)

Youkilis: 843ops (117OPS+) team ERA+ of 123 (Dice K, Beckett, Wakefield. Schilling

The Mets had an ERA+ of 94 in 2009 and 103 in 2008. In all three cases look at the 1B for the other 7 teams that made the playoffs; all three examples given had higher OPS and OPS+ than did Murphy, and all three teams had better pitching.

Out of the 20 WS teams there is one where Murphy could fit in without a real loss, two if you count the 2000 Yankees. That is 5% of 10%. If you expand it to the other playoff t eams it may increase to 15%, 20% tops. That is my point.

According to Hittracker.com, Citi Field was only higher than 5 ballparks. Citi averaged 1.6 HR’s per game. Below them was SF and SD with 1.59, LAD with 1.57, Atlanta at 1.53 and STL at 1.48. The league average was 2.073.

I agree the Mets need more power and it should be a right handed hitter whether it be a 1B or LF. I doubt the dimensions will make that much of a difference to a true power hitter. Philly and the Yanks had no problem hitting HR’s there. And if the $$$ is right, players will go. Sabathia and Burnett signed with the NYY. Their park averaged the most HR’s at 2.93 per game.

to be fair…all AL teams with solid DH options.