Daniel Murphy’s Second Slump

Daniel Murphy has finally proved he’s a Met by entering into a slump in the final week of a pennant race. In his last 14 trips to the plate he reached base once (an opposite field RBI double) with 4 strikeouts.

After Murphy’s first slump I suggested that pitchers had adjusted to Murph’s patient approach of take a few pitches and go the other way, and that Murphy was going to have to start jumping on some early strikes and inside corner fastballs. And indeed he had just broken out of his slump by pulling a game winning double off of Brad Lidge. But then he returned to form and found renewed success, taking pitches and going the other way.

In trying to make out what I can from mlb.com’s hitting charts, it appears that nearly all of Murphy’s extra base hits, including both home runs, were hit the other way. But in this slump we’ve seen the opposite. On Saturday and Sunday Murphy didn’t hit the ball the other way once. He flied out once each to center and to right (both were deep), hit 3 groundouts to second and one to first, and struck out 3 times.

Perhaps Murph has tried and failed to adjust to the pitchers, and really needs to go back to what he was doing, taking pitches and going the other way.

On a lighter side, given that I’ve been overanalyzing Murphy on ridiculously small sample sizes, I figured I’d go one step further and make suggestions based on his splits:

• Murphy has a 1.493 OPS in 11 plate appearances in the 9 spot (as a pinch hitter). Perhaps the Mets should adopt a Tony Larussa strategy of batting the pitcher eighth and then use Murph at 9.
• Murph will probably sit tonite, with a lefty starting. But Murph actually hits better against lefties — 1.278 OPS (also 11 plate appearances) vs. .888 as a righty. [These numbers are probably related. All of Murph’s appearances in the 9 spot and possibly all of his appearances against lefties have been as a pinch hitter, where Murph has been unreal, 1.465 OPS in 16 plate appearances.

OK, I’m a little too Murph-obsessed. But the man has captured my imagination and I’d just love to see him put it all together and join Wright and Reyes in a historically great infield for the next decade. Go Murph!!

Keep Walking, Murph

I know it’s silly to think about these things in the heat of a pennant race. And yet … Daniel Murphy will be considered a rookie next year as long if he can avoid getting 31 at bats over the Mets last 9 games.

If I understand the rules correctly, a player is a rookie next year if he enters it without having done racked up any of the following:

1. 45 days on an MLB roster, NOT INCLUDING SEPTEMBER. So Murph, who was called up on August 2, is cool.
2. 50 innings pitched. With the Mets’ bullpen desperation this could be an issue, but since Manuel rarely uses a reliever for more than one batter at a time, Murph would need like 150 appearances to have a problem here, so he looks pretty safe.
3. 130 at bats. Here’s the problem. Murph has 99. The next 4 announced opposing pitchers are all righties. In any event, Murph has been hitting lefties so well that he might get a start even if a lefty is pitching. Fortunately for Murph (in this context) Manuel doesn’t want to play Murph or Evans in right, so if Manuel wants to play Evans against a lefty (and assuming he doesn’t want to bench Delgado right now), Murph would sit. Murph usually bats second, which will usually give him 4 or 5 plate appearances per game.

I wonder if the Mets clinch the division (or even just a playoff spot) if Manuel would let this consideration factor into his decisions of whom to start the last game or two. Manuel would presumably have bigger considerations, like giving regular days off. (With the division clinched, would he let Murph play 3rd? Right?)

Anyway, the solution is simple. Just walk, baby.

Then you can take the World Series MVP this year and the Rookie of the Year next year. Wouldn’t that be cool.

The Manuel – Warthen Turnaround

Back in July if I were speculating what a Mets turnaround would look like, I might have said the following:

• The bullpen has to stop blowing games
• Ryan Church has to be the player he was before the injury
• Carlos Beltran has to catch fire and carry this team on his back

None of those things happened.

Instead the Mets got turnarounds from:

• The starting pitching. “Bad Ollie” disappeared. Pelfrey blossomed. And Johan went from Good to Great.
• Carlos Delgado, who caught fire and carried this team on his back.
• The defense. The Mets made just 5 errors in their last 35 games, an average of 1 error every 7 games. Before that they made 67 errors in 102 games, or about 4 errors every 7 games.
• The replacement players. Fernando Tatis had an even hotter July than Delgado (though with fewer at bats). And have I mentioned how much I love Daniel Murphy?

I suspect the defensive turnaround is part of something larger. First, there’s the virtuous circle of pitcher’s throwing more strikes because they trust the defense to make plays, and the defense making more plays because they’re kept more alert by a strike-throwing pitcher. But I also suspect that the greatly improved defense is part of a larger picture of players keeping their heads in the game and playing the game right. Remember that old Pelfrey 1-0 loss where Castillo didn’t run out a 2-out fly ball that fell in and therefore didn’t score, Reyes got caught trying to take third, and Beltran got doubled off to end the game? Now we’re seeing Beltran steal second when the game is on the line. Yesterday Reyes correctly (I think) chose not to take the extra base on three borderline plays and then correctly choosing to score on a fly ball to shallow center. I don’t have the numbers, but they seem to be just be playing the game right.

How much credit do Manuel and Warthen deserve? Warthen made some changes with Perez and Pelfrey, allowing them to do things that Peterson forbade.

More generally, Manuel is managing somewhat differently than Randolph. Manuel is very results oriented. Reserves that play well are rewarded with starts. Guys that can’t give 100% are not welcome on the roster. The pitchers were challenged to throw strikes and go deep into games.

Randolph was quite different. Back in 2005 it took time for Wright to work his way towards the top of the lineup, because Randolph believed that you earned these slots based on performance in past years. Manuel does not favor the veterans. You earn the spot by what you did yesterday. Randolph managed off the field issues. When he first arrived he ordered everybody to shave their facial hair, as a team bonding experience. Peterson insisted that Perez and Pelfrey do things his way – Perez throwing from the side of the rubber, Pelfrey dropping his curveball. Warthen allowed Perez and Pelfrey some leeway in doing what they thought would work.

It’s been said that Delgado might have been annoyed at Randolph for dropping him in the lineup. But Manuel might have done worse. He announced that he was going to use Tatis as a defensive replacement for Delgado. But Delgado didn’t react as negatively to Manuel as he did to Randolph. Perhaps Delgado appreciated that with Manuel it was all about performance, and then Manuel would bump him all the way to the cleanup spot if he started hitting like a cleanup hitter.

The other area where we saw Manuel taking more control was in forcing guys to sit and pressuring guys to play. Randolph was criticized for letting Reyes and Wright talk him out of days off. Manuel’s tenure started memorably by taking Reyes out of the game when he appeared hurt. He’s forced guys to take days off. And he’s pressured guys like Castro to play hurt, and guys like Castillo to go to the DL rather than give 80%. I suspect that if the Mets trainers told Manuel that Pedro could only pitch every 6^th day, Manuel would insist that Pedro either sign on to throw every 5^th day or stay on the DL. Of course, some of Manuel’s decisions may result from learning from last year’s failures.

Back to the original question. Would the Mets have turned it around under Randolph? I suspect that if Randolph and Peterson were still running things:

• Perez and Pelfrey would still be struggling (though Pelfrey did have some good starts under the old administration)
• The starters would still be throwing fewer strikes, issuing more walks, and throwing fewer innings
• Castillo would still be playing at half speed
• The defense would still be shaky
• Delgado would not have turned around as dramatically

We can never know for sure what would have been. But I think there’s good reason to think that Manuel and Warthen did indeed instigate much of the Mets’ turnaround.

Daniel Murphy’s Slump

Murphy just had an 0-16 run with 7 strikeouts. Reviving comparisons to Jeff Duncan. In Duncan’s first 35 at bats he showed that he was a guy who could draw walks, bunt for hits, and get lucky finding some holes. The other teams adjusted. They brought the third baseman in, threw strikes, and waited for his luck to reverse. That was it for Jeff Duncan. Similarly, teams have adjusted to Murphy. They’re no longer treating him like a rookie who’ll chase bad pitches. They know he’s a very patient hitter who hits the ball hard the other way. So they’ve adjusted, throwing him strikes, and pitching him more inside. But I have a lot more confidence that Murphy can adjust back. Like Duncan, he’s showed that he can take a lot of pitches. Unlike Duncan, he’s showed that he can hit with authority up the middle and to the other side. Now the question is can he jump out early in the count, and make pitchers pay for fastballs on the inside part of the plate. In the first half of this season, as a 22-year-old in AA he showed he can hit for average and power. I don’t have the spray chart, but I have to assume a lot of the homers were pulled. His game winning double into the right field corner off Brad Lidge last night was a thing of beauty on so many levels. So I know it’s still far too early to tell on Murphy, but I remain quite bullish that he’s going to turn into the real deal. He’s very likely to get a spot on the 2009 roster. At the very least as a guy who can fill in at 2nd, 3rd, the outfield, and as a pinch hitter. I think it’s more likely he’ll be starting at Citi Field next year, at least against righties, either at second base or in left field. And where he starts may depend more on his teammates than it does on him.

The Walk-Off Offense

The Mets have a Walk-Off offense. And not in the good way of a lot of Walk Off wins. No, the Mets are the best team in baseball at scoring early, going home, and then losing. Tonight’s debacle was a paradigmatic game for this season’s game, and also a good reminder of what last year was like. Hot start, then sit back and watch the other team catch up.

Sure, there’s the bullpen side. The bullpen just blew their 10th 9th inning lead this year. Ouch. But tonight the bullpen gave up 3 runs in 7 and a third. Yes, they could have saved the game by holding the Phils to one run in 4 innings, but the bullpen shouldn’t get the blame on this one. There’s Pedro, giving up 5 in 5 innings.The starting rotation looking a little shakier with Maine on the DL and Martinez failing tonite.

But a big story here is the offense’s consistent late inning failures. I think the stat I saw showed the Mets as the second best team this decade in the early innings. But they get outscored late. 7 runs in the first 4 innings tonite. Then shut out for 9 innings.

Willie Randolph’s biggest complaint about this team last year was that there was no killer instinct. That they couldn’t finish things off.

I agree with the stats guys that the psychological facets of the game are generally grossly overstated, that we like humanizing the game by reading psychological reasons into statistical variances. But I’ve got to wonder about this one. Is there some mindset that the Mets have when the game starts that they don’t have later? And can that be fixed? Soon?!

David Wright: MVP Candidate?

Rob Neyer at ESPN listed his 4 leading candidates for NL MVP. David Wright was one of them. The biggest irony? Wright’s having his worst season. He has the lowest slugging percentage of his career, 30 points lower than last year. OBP only 3 points above his career low, 32 points lower than last year. Same caught stealing as each of last 2 years, but with only half as many steals as last year. RBI total is good, but that probably says more about Reyes than it does about him. Fielding percentage a bit up, Range Factor a bit down.

In fairness:

• Neyer thought he should win last year too. Mostly because Neyer park-adjusted away Rollins, Holiday, and Fielder’s statistical advantages.
• Neyer may be right. Wright’s having a very good year, just not quite as good as his other years, and significantly worse than last year.
• Neyer did say that he’d need to pick up his numbers a bit and lead the Mets to a division title for him to really have a chance. Last year he finished 4th largely because of the Mets’ historic collapse and the Phillies’ and Rockies’ historic comebacks. Had the Mets and Padres held on, Wright would have probably finished second only to Fielder.

The greatest thing about this is seeing other people’s comments that the Mets’ other 25 year old may be an even stronger candidate. Though for reasons that I think are mostly BS, Reyes has a bad rap. I love everything about Reyes, especially his happiness, enthusiasm and love of the game, but he’s picked up a bad reputation. And don’t look now, but Santana would be a Cy Young Award candidate if he were getting reasonable support from his offense and bullpen.

So — don’t look now, but the Mets have two 25 year-old MVP candidates and one of the best pitchers in the game. And some exciting rookies, the NL’s best starting rotation, and a one and a half game lead. Wow, how far we’ve come in the past 2 months. Remember when we didn’t even have an All Star, were under 500, and were baseball’s most disappointing team? That was less than 2 months ago. On July 4 we were 42-44. Let’s hope this never gets back there.

Tatis and Church

Tatis and Church each have 205 at bats right now. Their stats are frighteningly similar. They each have 42 singles, a triple and 10 homers. Church has one more double (for a total of 10) and one more RBI (36). They both have far too many strikeouts (Church has 50; Tatis 47) and far too few walks (19 for Church, 13 for Tatis). Sadly, those strikeout and walk totals increase the feeling that this is all an illusion, a statistical anomaly. Though Church did have 43 doubles last year, so maybe he really is still developing, and if he’s ever allowed to play again, maybe he will return to his early season form.

Daniel Murphy’s lousy debut

On August 2, Daniel Murphy singled in his first big league at bat and then made a huge game saving double play in the seventh. Anthony DiComo at mets.com spoke of “Daniel Murphy’s sparkling Major League debut.” Ha — a lot he knows. So far that game stands as Murphy’s worst start. Murphy’s stats continue to be dragged down by that dismal performance of just 1 single in 4 trips to the plate. Since then, Murphy has 13 hits (including 2 doubles, a triple, and 2 homers) in 26 at bats, plus 6 walks. But that awful first start has dragged his OPS from 1.473 down to just 1.356.

Over at MetsBlog Matthew Cerrone says that

“Every time [Murphy] gets a hit, and I pump my fist, my wife, who is a Yankees fan, says, “Don’t forget Shane Spencer and Kevin Maas.”

He finishes with

“So, while I feel I am justified in my excitement, I am trying real hard to keep it perspective since I may have made this exact-same post about Jeff Duncan.”

OK Matthew, 2 comments. First, your wife is a spoil sport (which might explain the Yankee fan thing). Second, I remember getting my hopes up about Jeff Duncan too. Murphy’s 5 extra base hits (in 30 at bats) is 2 more than Duncan had in his career (154 at bats). Half of Duncan’s 28 career hits were in his first 35 at bats. After those 35 at bats, Duncan was hitting .400. He also had 11 walks, for an OPS of 1.096, despite just 2 extra base hits. He had 8 strikeouts. If memory serves, 4 of his 14 hits were bunt singles. That was it for Duncan. In his remaining 119 career at bats he had just 14 more hits (13 of them singles), just 7 more walks, and 38 more strikeouts.

So … Murphy’s start is a little better than Duncan’s. Murphy’s OBP matches Duncan’s, and Murphy adds power and fewer strikeouts. But … I share Matthew’s enthusiasm and fears regarding Murphy. Long at bats. Walks. 2 opposite field homers and 2 opposite field doubles. The pinch hitting. We’ll see if he can continue hitting. But it’s so much more satisfying following these guys from the minors to the Mets than picking up veterans. Come on Murph. Keep it up.

Beltran: Lupica vs Marchman

Two excellent columnists just came out with seemingly opposite takes on Carlos Beltrans’ season.

Lupica: Beltran is New York baseball’s biggest offensive disappointment calls Beltran

“the biggest offensive disappointment in town, as much of an underproducer as any big name or big ticket or big player either New York team has.”

Tim Marchman’s Mets Have Problems, but Beltran Isn’t One of Them writes

“Beltran is having yet another superb season … Even on a bad day, Beltran doesn’t rate in the top 50 [of the Mets problems].”

And yet Lupica and Marchman seem to agree on most essential points. Lupica concedes that Beltran

“has a world of talent, hits from both sides of the plate, is a good teammate, runs down balls in the outfield with grace.”

Marchman concedes

“Beltran isn’t, true, having the kind of season he had two years ago.”

They agree on the most basic points:

1. Beltran is generally underrated, as he is far more valuable than his triple crown stats indicate
2. Beltran is not performing up to his previously established levels

Marchman makes a strong case that even guys like Lupica grossly underestimate Beltran’s contributions through defense, baserunning, etc.

But Marchman really understates Beltran’s underperformance this year. He compares Beltran’s stats to the average center fielder. His limited concession that Beltran’s stats are worse than his 2006 stats grossly understates the truth. Beltran had a 911 OPS his last full season in KC, then 901 in KC, 926 in Houston, and had an (obviously unmaintainable) 1591 postseason OPS. He’s at 818 this year. Other than his injured 2005 season, this is the 31 year old’s worst year, by far, since 2000.

So while you have to concede some of Marchman’s points, that even in his off year Beltran is a damn good player, he’s wrong for disagreeing with Lupica’s column. The Mets put a good chunk of their budget into Beltran’s contract. Beltran’s performance is far better than the average center fielder’s, but far worse than the expectations for Beltran. Yes, the Mets have plenty of problems, some of them bigger than Beltran. But Beltran is New York baseball’s biggest offensive disappointment, and if he can return to his career numbers he will greatly help the Mets’ pennant quest.

Brain Dead

You gotta love Jerry Manuel’s quote on mets.com regarding Robinson Cancel’s second inning play (hat tip to Mets Blog):

He was brain-dead or something was wrong with him right there, … He’s a better player than that.

Of course, Manuel was talking about the wrong play, Cancel getting thrown out trying to steal 3rd with 2 outs and Wright up. The real problem was Cancel’s lead off bunt single, which lowered his GWH from the perfect 1.000 to .750.