Forecasts for Fifteen: Michael Cuddyer

[Edgy MD]

Well, if he gets hurt, he'll almost certainly fail to hit righties.

But you really want the Mets to go into the season staring Kirk Nieuwenhuis in right over him two days out of three?

That seems like a perfectly viable fallback plan, but I wouldn't make that an opening strategy. His career platoon split looks pretty typical, with .101 difference.

vs. RHP: .274 / .332 / .450 // .782
vs. LHP: .291 / .378 / .504 // .883

It was more pronounced in his third of a season last year, but that was more about killing lefties, not about failing against righties. He had better numbers against righties in 2013.

[nymr83]

Edgy MD wrote: Well, if he gets hurt, he'll almost certainly fail to hit righties. But you really want the Mets to go into the season staring Kirk Nieuwenhuis in right over him two days out of three? That seems like a perfectly viable fallback plan, but I wouldn't make that an opening strategy. His career platoon split looks pretty typical, with .101 difference. vs. RHP: .274 / .332 / .450 // .782 vs. LHP: .291 / .378 / .504 // .883 It was more pronounced in his third of a season last year, but that was more about killing lefties, not about failing against righties. He had better numbers against righties in 2013.

my desire to start him against lefties stems from Mr. Duda's insanely bad stats against them rather than anything Cuddyer has done. I think his defense is going to be pretty bad in the outfield and the bat wont play out there, Niewenhuis will probably be his equal with defense taken into account but we'll also need some ABs for Mayberry or Den Dekker depending on who makes the roster.

I could see RF starting the year as the position where a bunch of guys get the playing time, but they'll probably give Cuddyer at least the first 2 months to play every day based on his contract, though thats not what I'd want.

[Edgy MD]

I dunno. If you worry about Duda's platoon splits, come down on Duda. The guys that will or won't take at-bats away from Cuddyer against right-handers are Nieuwenhuis and den Dekker. Or maybe Nimmo, which is the eventual idea anyhow.

Mayberry is the guy to give coverage against lefties for Duda. If you want to give any Cuddyer's appearances against righties to Mayberry, I would beg you to check yo'self fo' you wreck yo'self.

[metirish]

22 HR - 82 RBI......

Just learned from a Mark Carig article that Cuddyer is deaf in his left ear due to a childhood viral infection which apparently would complicate things with him playing LF, although he says that is not an issue.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I was unaware of that too, until this morning.

[Edgy MD]

I had understood that the idea was to put him in right under any circumstances — in part for that very reason, and in part because he was believed to have a more effective arm than Granderson.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Just to be sure, Jeff Wilpon shoved a chopstick into Granderson's right ear so our outfield should be perfect this season

[metirish]

From the article it seems Terry is of the mindset that Granderson knows RF at CF and that will be the reason he will play there , better arm notwithstanding .

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

He's got a better arm than Granderson? I mean, he always had an okay arm, like, with the Twins, but no great shakes. (Metrics-wise, he's been a little better than okay there.)

[Edgy MD]

I didn't mean to suggest that as a grand claim or anything. But obviously it's either overstated or doesn't matter, considering the Collins announced intention to go with Granderson in right.

[metirish]

WHAT ?

[Edgy MD]

TERRY COLLINS! HE ANNOUNCED HIS INTENTION TO GO WITH GRANDERSON IN RIGHT!

[Guest themetfairy]