The Lineup - Have we done enough?

[Centerfield]

With the signing of Bay, there has been talk of shifting the focus to pitching. Some think that the lineup is good enough to go, as is, while others think we still need more. Here's a look at the lineup as is with their OPS from last year:

1. Reyes .772*
2. Castillo .732
3. Wright .837
4. Beltran .915
5. Bay .921
6. Francoeur .732
7. Murphy .741
8. Blanco .703

*Career OPS. Last year was injury shortened and at .750, was considerably below 2008. I think we can expect a bounceback.

When I saw these numbers, I figured we had a lot of work left to do, even if everyone stayed healthy. Out of 5 position players, we had 5 that were in the 700's and our middle of the order guys are not particularly top-shelf superstars.

But when I stacked this lineup against last year's playoff teams, it wasn't as bad as I thought:

N'York 1. Reyes .772* 2. Castillo .732 3. Wright .837 4. Beltran .915 5. Bay .921 6. Francoeur .732 7. Murphy .741 8. Blanco .703

St. Louis 1. Shumaker .757 2. Ludwick .775 3. Pujols 1.101 (wow!) 4. Holliday .909 (whole year) 5. Rasmus .714 6. Molina .749 7. DeRosa .646 8. Ryan .740

LA 1. Furcal .711 2. Hudson .774 3. Ethier .869 4. Ramirez .949 5. Kemp .842 6. Loney .756 7. Martin .680 8. Blake .832

Philadelphia 1. Victorino .803 2. Rollins .719 3. Utley .905 4. Howard .931 5. Werth .879 6. Ibanez .899 7. Feliz .694 8. Ruiz .780

Colorado 1. Gonzalez .878 2. Fowler .770 3. Helton .904 4. Tulowitzki .930 5. Atkins .650 6. Torrealba .732 7. Smith .889 8. Barmes .734

Taking a look at these, only Philadelphia's lineup is noticeably better. And a lot of that can be attributed to the ballpark they play in. In fact, if you factor in the park, it seems to me that the Mets are right there with the rest of the playoff teams. I still think they could use an upgrade at RF or First Base, but maybe it's not as dire as I originally thought.

I was too lazy to do AL teams.

By the way, if any mod wants to format this so we can see them side-by-side, feel free.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

My attitude is to avoid the sub-700 guys more than fret about the lack of 900+ guys. It'd be nice of course but few teams are that stacked.

I'm crossing my fingers.

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's something similar to my attitude, which is why redundancy is important.

Another key is to look at this in the context of who can be (reasonably) expected to improve, who can be expected to decline, who can be expected to be about the same.

The problem with that is, with the Mets, so many guys finished the year injured that we have no idea what to expect.

I'll go with

C: expected slight improvement (or stay the same) over 2009
1B: expected improvement over 2009
2B: expected slight declline over 2009
3B: expected slight improvement over 2009
LF: expected improvement over 2009
CF: expected improvement over 2009
RF: expected slight decline over 2009 (stay the same? I dunno)

[TransMonk]

I believe the issue of whether the lineup is good enough is dependant on what the pitching rotation is.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The lineup will be better than last year. I mean, it had better be better than last year-- if subbing Reyes for Cora and Jason Bay for 1/4 season of Carlos Delgado and 3/4 season of LF-pupu platter doesn't work, then something has gone very, very wrong in the lab.

Healthiness of its participants aside, whether this lineup is average or good will probably hinge on two big factors:

1) Dabidrye's power outage being an aberration. Every one of his primary offensive indicators before last season was stunningly consistent from 2005-2008: 11-13 BB%, 18.8-19.7 K%, ISO power numbers between .220 and .230, and a BABIP in the .330-.350 range. His walk rate stayed the same, but the strikeout rate increased considerably (he got beat on a LOT more fastballs) and the BABIP was a weirdly-high .400 (Ichiro was next closest in the majors among regulars... at .384). Basically, he hit the ball a lot less often and a lot less hard, and had his average/OBP buoyed by a sh*tload of seeing-eye stuff.

He's young. Last year seems the aberration-- perhaps trying to pull a lot more than usual contributed (his hit charts show a lot less stuff dropping in in the opposite field). But if it isn't... hoo boy.

2) Reading the instruction manual. This lineup, assuming no other substantive changes, is constructed very much the same as the last few iterations-- there's the stars, and there's the guys who are... um... not stars (Bay's more of a tweener, as was Delgado... but I'll give him "star" credit here). That's not to say that the not-stars-- Castillo, Murphy, Pagan, Francoeur-- aren't useful... if used for maximum positive effect, and if they're surrounded by guys whose skills/weaknesses correspond neatly with their own. The problem is that we've got a guy at the trigger who doesn't seem inclined to do that, and he's ill-equipped, depth-wise, to do so anyway. If last year is any indication, our skipper's hasn't shown much of an interest in using players as their skills dictate they should be used, much less displayed an affinity for it; put simply, he's a belief guy more than a fact guy... far more likely to go by "the book"/intuition than by any sort of actual information (see: Santos' "fast swing"). I don't see him using a Pagan/Francoeur platoon beyond a little dabbling (a shame, since neither one, in all likelihood, is an above-average 160-game starter) or using Castillo for much beyond bunting. Therefore, I don't see him getting maximum value out of this particular lineup-- ideally, he'd get more help from the personnel-acquisitions guys here.

I'm optimistic about the first thing. Not so much about the second.

[MFS62]

That's something similar to my attitude, which is why redundancy is important.

Another key is to look at this in the context of who can be (reasonably) expected to improve, who can be expected to decline, who can be expected to be about the same.

The problem with that is, with the Mets, so many guys finished the year injured that we have no idea what to expect.

I'll go with

C: expected slight improvement (or stay the same) over 2009
1B: expected improvement over 2009
2B: expected slight declline over 2009
3B: expected slight improvement over 2009
LF: expected improvement over 2009
CF: expected improvement over 2009
RF: expected slight decline over 2009 (stay the same? I dunno)[/quote:2andlu3l]
What do you expect from shortstop in Reyes' recovery year?
Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

Left him out, did I?

I think we should all expect an improvement at shortstop. Even Reyes in a poor year is an improvement over last year's 35 games of Reyes (hitting at league average), plus 56 of (mostly) injured Alex Cora, 38 from Anderson Hernandez, 32 from Wilson Valdez, Ramon Martinez (10 games), Angel Berroa (8), Argenis Reyes (1), and Fernando Tatis (2).

We could certainly see the dominoes fall down all over again, but it's hardly likely.

[Gwreck]

Some more food for thought:

New York 1. Reyes .772* 2. Castillo .732 3. Wright .837 4. Beltran .915 5. Bay .921 6. Francoeur .732 7. Murphy .741 8. Blanco .703

Atlanta 1. McLouth .788 2. Cabrera .752 3. Jones .818 4. McCann .834 5. LaRoche .844 6. Diaz .878 7. Escobar .812 8. Prado .822

Philadelphia 1. Victorino .803 2. Rollins .719 3. Utley .905 4. Howard .931 5. Werth .879 6. Ibanez .899 7. Polanco .727 8. Ruiz .780

Florida 1. Coghlan .850 2. Baker .759 3. Ramirez .954 4. Cantu .788 5. Uggla .813 6. Ross .790 7. Maybin .734 8. Bonifacio .611

Washington 1. Guzman .696 2. Morgan .757 3. Zimmerman .888 4. Dunn .928 5. Willingham .863 6. Dukes .729 7. Rodriguez .663 8. Gonzalez .650

*2008