Oh-for-Nyjer

[Edgy MD]

Nyjer Morgan is the sort of player who makes the league what it is. Some skills here. A deficit there. You'll see him riding pine for good teams and starting for bad ones for a decade at a time. An interesting personality, a compelling backstory, and over his time, he'll be associated with a few marvelous plays and a few embarrassing ones. A good athetleic specimen, but he committed to baseball late and will, in likelihood, never really be well-rounded.

Nyjer acquitted himself well with the Brews last year: .304 / .357 / .421 // .778 for a strong playoff-bound team. Certainly the kind of year that makes a team bring you back.

This year:

BA: .217
OBP: .282
SLG: .225 (Yi!)
OPS: .507

That comes in 43 games and 134 plate appearances. Pretty disconcerting, but you hope for a bounceback, right? Until you see this column:

RBI: 0

That's no RBI at all and a quarter of a season of pretty consistent action in the rearview. That's on one hand a good example of how losing a beast like Prince Fielder can have an impact all the way down the lineup, as he's only had 21 at-bats with runners in scoring position, but still, that's an 0-21. And the way he hits, if runners aren't in scoring position, he's not getting 'em home.

[metirish]

WOW, no rbi at this stage would seem more difficult than not......

only 1 double, some walks(7), SO 21 . makes for a miserable season......and they are paying him some nice coin this year too..

2012 31 Milwaukee Brewers $2,350,000

[TransMonk]

Remember, the Brewers had a higher opening day payroll than the Mets.

Can't remember when/if that has happened in the past.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Just a guess... but I bet they had a higher payroll in 1980.

[TransMonk]

Baseball Reference's payroll numbers only go back to 1985, but there it was:

1985: MIL = $11,284,107, NYM = $10,834,762

That was the last time. The Mets spent nearly $70M more than Milwaukee in 2009.

[Edgy MD]

Nyjer Morgan on an obscenely hot streak, with RBI in each of his last two games --- giving him a grand total of ... two.