Asdrubal Cabrera is killing this team practically by himself

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Geez does this guy need to retire.

[Guest cooby]

I think there a few guys that would qualify for addition by their subtraction

[Guest d'Kong76]

He was so much better last year. Maybe he can back up the truck and drive.

[Ceetar]

i feel like he's still injured.

[Frayed Knot]

There is no obvious explanation for the poor throws.
Twice in the last week now he's simply goosed throws off target that were neither difficult nor rushed.
The previous one hurt us, tonight's (Saturday's) error almost did and instead "only" wound up costing Blevins a dozen or so extra pitches to overcome.

[Edgy MD]

Well, it's the non-throwing thumb that he hurt, but I think that's part of the problem. I think the guy is playing in pain and driven to distraction. There was a popup that Reyes caught that help diffuse one of the late rallies with men on base. It was thirty feet past the infield cutout and it surprised me that the umps ruled it an infield fly because it would have seemed like 50-50 proposition if Cabrera was out there.

Granderson, to me, is the guy who really needs to meet the pine. The weirdest part of this season is that the team has two players—Bruce and Walker—who they didn't really want and didn't expect to have, at least not at the price they cost. And even though they're not the problem from day to day (they are the third- and fourth-place hitters at the moment), they've really locked up the team's roster maneuverability.

[Frayed Knot]

The Infield Fly Rule shouldn't have been called on that play no matter who the SS was, but that's a separate problem.

[Valadius]

Rosario can't get here fast enough.

[G-Fafif]

Occurred to me just today that Cabrera is the Ten Years After reincarnation of the Jose Valentin Mets Experience (which you may remember was a prototype ride at Nickelodeon Extreme Baseball). Underwhelming veteran acquisition proves power-hitting middle-infield godsend for a team that surges into the postseason. Then, the next year, the veteran part reminds us "veteran" also stands for old, the power dissipates, the defense isn't there and...well, Valentin got hurt midway through 2007 and wound up done. Unfortunately for then, there was no heir apparent at second base, thus the deadline deal to grab Luis Castillo.

Until they're pass the Super 2 threshold, might as well sit Asdrubal a little and let Jose try to get untracked at short for a couple of days. Flores needs to keep playing third, no matter that he's not a third baseman extraordinaire.

[nymr83]

Luis Castillo is one of those guys who just brings to mind one play and one play only. I'll spare you all the YouTube clip of f****** Arod popping it up to him.

[Frayed Knot]

The thing about Cabrera is that he's not particularly old (31 - Valentin was 36 back in 2006) and, while 2016 was his best statistical season, it wasn't THAT much of an outlier to where it was reasonable to
expect a significant correction.
That said, I'm fine if they want to promote Rosario and go with him and Wilmer on that side of the IF with Jose & Asdrubal coming off the bench. I don't think that's happening tomorrow but it could come soon.

But of course unless the pitching does a quick about-face (back to DFL in the NL) then none of this is going to matter anyway. Thread title aside, Cabrera is about 7th on the list of things killing this team.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I mean, Cabrera batting near the top of the lineup, providing readymade outs between Conforto and Bruce while providing no non-bat value, is a LITTLE higher than seventh on the list of things killing this team.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I posted this message from the stands at Citi after that inexplicably awful throw to first convinced me we'd be in for 17 innings on Saturday night, and overstated that Cabrera was acting alone in the attempted murder of the 2017 season but he's been an enormous problem. And the seeming obviousness that he's still hurt -- the fact that he's been hurting already this season with the very same leg issues that troubled him last year in additiion to the thumb thing -- is the primary factor in my saying so, and not an excuse.

More generally, "reliability" is an underrated aspect of a team's fortunes.

Guys like Cabrera, who you never know if they are able to get it done physically on a given night, seemingly undermine the whole concept of a club. I'll put Matz, dArnaud and Cespedes in this category too, as opposed to Granderson who I think is at least coming to End of Days in decent health.

And batting second is surely all wrong until this changes, the only issue is that Granderson, RRivera, Reyes and Walker should also be hitting 7th or lower every night.

If I'm Terry and I'm stuck with these guys every night, I'd put dArnaud in the 2 slot every night unless or until Cabrera demonstrates he ought to be hitting 2nd ever again.

[Guest cooby]

I wonder if Terry Collins eats as many Rolaids as Davey Johnson did?

[Centerfield]

He's about 70 points of OPS under his average so you think he should bounce back a bit? One would hope anyway. But even if he gets back there a mid .700's OPS isn't that great considering his defense.

If we were in the thick of things I think I'd be calling for Rosario. Or even to get more starts for Reyes. But with everything else that's wrong with this team it's hard to think it would make a huge difference.

Or maybe it would. I don't know. I just hate the Mets so much.

[Edgy MD]

The Mets have made mid- (or late-) season turnarounds the last two years. There's no reason to think they can't again.

The question is whether they care enough. I guess that would be a reason.

[Benjamin Grimm]

If they don't care, that would certainly reflect poorly on Terry.

[Edgy MD]

Agreed. But I can't read Terry's mindset right now.