As a baseball purist, its always been my opinion that your best average hitter should be batting 3rd and best power hitter 4th. It's really not complicated and it certainly worked for the Mets in '86 when Keith Hernandez consistently batted 3rd in the lineup with Gary Carter right behind him. That being said, why Terry Collins wants Yoenis Cespedes as his 3rd place hitter with David Wright Wright batting second is beyond me. Cespedes is a streaky hitter and the Mets best power hitter. Wright, for all his recent injuries, I feel if he stays healthy, can still hit in the .280 to .300 range, get you about 35 doubles and drive in 80 to 90 runs. Wright also strikes out a lot and is not a what used-to-be-typical 2nd-place hitter: a guy puts the ball in play a lot, can lay down a good bunt every now and again and can slash-one-behind-the-runner when you need him too. Considering too that Collins has gone on record stating how much he despises the new era of sabermetricians (which I loved because I hate it too). leaves me wondering why Collins has Wright batting 2nd and Cespedes 3rd instead of say a Michael Conforto or Asdrubal Cabrera batting second behind Curtis Granderson with Wright and then Cespedes behind them. Of course, it's easy to pick on Cespedes now that he's opened the season in a huge slump. but Collins backing up his ealier opines and going with a traditional lineup, to me, would be the best option for the Mets in the long run.
No comments:
Post a Comment