2014 IPP: Ruben Tejada

[Benjamin Grimm]

It was moderately popular last year, so we'll try it again this year. IPP stands for Individual Player Predictions. These will be threads where we share our expectations of how a player will perform in the current year. Feel free to make your predictions as specific or as vague as you like. (You can find a listing of the 2013 IPPs here.)

One word for Ruben Tejada: Flop! If he wins the starting shortstop job out of spring training (which seems unlikely) it will be by default and he won't keep it for long. He'll be replaced by Flores, or Quintanilla, or Tovar, or Seratelli, or someone not currently in the Mets organization.

If he hasn't already played his last game as a Met, he'll have done so by July 1.

[Vic Sage]

ditto.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

He's also in my Big Spring Training Trade. He becomes the backup ss for the team that acquires him. Matures into an OK utility infielder then becomes manager of the San Diego Padres.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: He's also in my Big Spring Training Trade. He becomes the backup ss for the team that acquires him. Matures into an OK utility infielder then becomes manager of the San Diego Padres.

I have to admit, that would be a pretty productive season.

This one's tough to envision. I'll go... starts season as starter, ends up in a split-time mosaic thing with someone (Quintanilla? Flores? Rey Quinones?). A little better, but still not, like, conventionally good. Or, y'know, unconventionally good.

82 G, 302 PAs, .255/.305/.309, 2 HR, 27 R, 25 RBI, 21 XBH, 2 SB

[Zvon]

Ruben can't even lay down a successful sac bunt anymore. Jeeze.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

It's like he's doing an original dance solo, entitled, "No, Seriously, Guys, You Need A Shortstop."

Ye gods, my prediction already feels iffier.

[Zvon]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: It's like he's doing an original dance solo, entitled, "No, Seriously, Guys, You Need A Shortstop."

lol

I wanna say I'm done with him (even might have already somewhere [and I am]) but I'll give him a dozen more games to show me something.
I'm a lifer Mets fan. I just keep lowering the bar.

[MFS62]

Zvon wrote: Ruben can't even lay down a successful sac bunt anymore. Jeeze.

And he played a routine ground ball yesterday like it would explode on contact.
I see a .235 hitting utility role, with little or no power, in his future. Probably not with the Mets.
Yes, the Mets won both of their World Series with light hitting shortstops who hit under .250. But at least they handled the routine plays competently. Ruben is playing like he can't even do that.

Later

[Guest d'Kong76]

The voices in his head tell me ... oh wait, they stopped talking.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Terry Collins to Ruben Tejada: Shortstop job is all yours Originally published: March 13, 2014 8:12 PM Updated: March 13, 2014 9:20 PM By ANTHONY RIEBER anthony.rieber@newsday.com VIERA, Fla. - Ruben Tejada went 0-for-3 Thursday and is 1-for-15 in spring training. He made an error on a routine play, his third such miscue in his last five games. Still, after his day was over, Tejada was told by Mets manager Terry Collins that he will be the team's shortstop this season. "I talked to him today about trying to relax a little bit," Collins said after the Mets' 7-5 win over the Nationals at Space Coast Stadium. "Quit worrying about things. "I said, 'Listen, you're the shortstop here. Your name and your number are going to be in the lineup. You've just got to go be the player we know you can be and you quit worrying about trying to impress everybody. We've seen it in the past and two years ago, you were the talk of the town. You had a bad year. Big deal. Forget it. It's over. Everybody has a [bad] year. Guys that are in the Hall of Fame have had [bad] years. So move on.' " Collins' statement to and about Tejada marks an apparent change in the Mets' thinking -- perhaps a realization that they have little choice but to start the season with the 24-year-old in the lineup. Or it could have been Collins' last-gasp effort to motivate Tejada.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

It is a little ridiculous that that Collins seems to be pout in a position to reassure a guy against a backdrop of his boss's remarks, but I think it's sort of just a thing he has to do for now because I don't believe Terry has the final word on anything or speaks for the organization; or that Tejada will be starter.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I also find it hard to think that Ruben will actually be the guy, unless he really starts producing over the next couple of weeks.

[Edgy MD]

Well, a good word from Terry probably won't stay his execution any more than three weeks if he starts poorly, but part of Terry's job is knowing when to use the carrot and when to use the stick.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

We understand that but not sure that Reiber's Readers will. He in fact comes out and says it "marks an apparent change in the Mets' thinking."

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: We understand that but not sure that Reiber's Readers will. He in fact comes out and says it "marks an apparent change in the Mets' thinking."

also sticks to the "Tejada is lazy and doesn't care" trope about motivating him.

But guess what? It's spring training and none of this matters. His ceiling isn't quite high, but it's also acceptable and the half year of AB he put in last year is a small sample compared to the total.

If the Mets really don't sign Drew..

I'm not real confident in Tejada and never really liked him, but I'm not thinking he'll repeat last year.

.270/.329/.345 Barely acceptable, but not disastrous. Plays just barely sub-par defense at short. about 140 games.

btw, his babip last season was .228 and his career is .302.

[Edgy MD]

Ceetar wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: We understand that but not sure that Reiber's Readers will. He in fact comes out and says it "marks an apparent change in the Mets' thinking." also sticks to the "Tejada is lazy and doesn't care" trope about motivating him.

I kind of smelled a transition to a "Tejada cares SO MUCH that he's tightening up and putting too much pressure on himself trope" --- at least that's what Terry would hope to do.

Whatever the organization's plans, Terry has to work under the assumption that what he's got is what he's going to have on April 1, and if that means massaging the guy's psyche and protecting him from the outrage of fans buying into the "fat and lazy" narrative by coming up with a new one, that's what it means.

[smg58]

Somebody not in the organization currently will be the Mets' Opening Day shortstop. Hangs on for five more years as a utility guy on another team.