Left Field 2009

[Gwreck]

Not yet mentioned in this thread:

Fernando Tatis
Angel Pagan
Nick Evans

[duan]

Tatis ain't gonna have another season like that, but I've no problem with him in the $2-3 million range as a 4th OF/PH/Spot Starter.
If someone gets silly and offers him loads, or a 3 year deal let them off.
2 years I'd be worried about but at the right price I'd think about it.

Evans needs a lot more work.
Angel Pagan is Endy but with more power potential and less actual track record.

Now, the one person who could fit nicely in our oft injured but heck of a hitter when fit Left Fielder model, (witness Floyd, Cliff & Alou, Moises) is Milton Bradley.
If we're keeping Jerry Manuel, I think he can bring him in to be gangsta

I think Milton would love New York.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

I still think we could get creative with Dunn and make him our #2 hitter. He's always at the top of the league in pitches faced/AB, so Reyes will have plenty of chances to run. He'd get more fastballs because of Reyes' speed and because he'd have Wright/Delgado/Beltran/Church behind him, meaning he'd probably make some more contact.

And no sac bunts!

[Guest mario25]

Tatis and Pagan can be bench guys, Evans I feel needs some more time at AAA.... Adam Dunn would be nice in the lineup with Wright, Delgado, Beltran, Church, Reyes...etc etc

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'd have Evans at Buffalo and groom him to be a possible replacement for Delgado in 2010.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

I'm okay without signing or trading for anyone for left field. If the Mets are gonna bring back Delgado for 09 (I think they will), then the Mets can go with a Murphy/Evans time share. After 09, the Mets should also have Fartinez and Carp available as options at first and left, with Flores and Davis right behind them. With all the young, talented, position-less hitters the Mets have in the farm system, I think they should look to save money in left and at first while spending it elsewhere.
That said, Dunn's the best of the FA's and will probably be available for less than what he's worth due to all the batting average fetishists in baseball.

[metsmarathon]

as i was clicking away on baseball prospectus one day, i happened upon their statistics page, and clicked on RBI opportunities, or some such.

in 2008, with arizona, adam dunn converted a runner on third into an RBI only 23.8% of the time; with cincinnati, dunn converted a runner on third into an RBI only 32.1% of the time. in total, with 77 runners on third base in 2008, adam dunn delivered 23 rbi, or 29.9% of the time.

in 2007, with cincy, dunn delivered a 34.7% rate
in 2006, dunn delivered a 25.8% rate
in 2005, dunn delivered a 27% rate

(disclaimer - the statements i'm about to post are somewhat flawed in that they are knowingly inaccurate. i'm using bp's data, but it doesnt combine seasons when a player splits time between two teams. so when i apply a cutoff of, say, 500 plate appearances, its really just those players who had 500+ plate appearances with one team, and not for the entire season. this shouldn't affect any relative comparisons made too badly)

focusing on his 2008 season, adam dunn ranked at about 127th among 140 major leaguers with 500+ PA, in terms of driving in runners from third. interestingly enough, he ranks just behind pat burrell, who had a 30.0% conversion rate.

for comparison, that's worse than any met regular.

allow me to rattle off a few names here:

easley 46.8%
castillo 44.2% - wow!
church 43.6%
wright 41.7%
reyes 41.5%
delgado 41.2%
schneider 40.5%
tatis 40.5%
beltran 37.8%
chavez 20.0% - wow!

the mets were actually pretty good at driving in runners from third base. if i look at those batters with more than 200 plate appearances (because its how i culled my data), the mets ranked 5th in the league, driving in that runner on third 40.34% of the time! only the twins, yankees, tigers, and white sox did better!

among the playoff teams, the angels were 6th, boston 8th, cubs 10th, dodgers 19th, phillies 28th, and brewers 29th.

so... as disappointing as it was this past week, perhaps driving in runners from third isn't this team's biggest offensive problem...?

also, for some guys, these percentages seem to hold fairly steady. for some, there's a lot of fluctuation. i'm not sure how repeatable they are, or how well they correlate to other statistics, etc. is driving in runners from third a repeatable skill, i haven't a clue. is doing it well just a byproduct of being a contact hitter, or a fly ball hitter, or a violent hacker, i have no clue.

but luis castillo was really good at it, and endy was really bad at it this year. and adam dunn doesn't seem to be terribly good at it, but he may just be letting the pitcher pitch around him - i haven't a clue.

[HahnSolo]

OK, but neither Easley, Castillo, Church, Tatis, nor Endy had 500+ plate appearances.
So overall as a team they were good, but it's a little unfair to list those guys when comparing with Adam Dunn.

[Guest AG/DC]

Is the denominator AB or PA?

[metsmarathon]

yeah, the comparison to the irregulars was unfair to an extent. but moreso to compare his actual performance to what our perception of the mets' own performance might be. then i went off track comparing the mets to other teams, cos i found it interesting.

the denominator is plate appearances. per BP:

]R1 Runner on first. In the RBI opportunity report, refers to the number of times a batter came to the plate with a runner at first base.

they do the same for R2 and R3 (runner on first, or runner on second)

i'm guessing dunn does so poorly in this statistical regard because he takes a lot of walks. bp doesnt show that on their page, but his OBP is much higher with runners on than with the bases empty, per espn's split stats.

[Guest AG/DC]

Which is part of a side-effect of being a slugger.

Sammy Sosa won two MVP votes in 2001, despite Barry Bonds re-writing the record book. Part of those two writers' argument was that Bonds may have hit an absurd 73 homers, but, by golly, they were mostly solo shots, as he only had 137 RBI.

It's because he didn't get pitched to at all. It's not like the runs he didn't drive in all went unscored. Or that he didn't create more run opportunities by walking.

[metsmarathon]

'twasn't my point at all.

if i have a point, i think its that i wish bp included walk totals in their rbi opportunity stat sheets.