Conforto promotion doesn’t erase Mets’ Cuddyer gaffe
By Tim Haberin
The New York Mets are hurting badly for offense. That’s not exactly a state secret. The club has pushed 329 runs across the plate so far this season, 29th in the league and only eleven more than the Chicago White Sox. They also rank dead last in team OPS at .654. Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw took a perfect game into the seventh inning against them last night, and he seemed a fair bet to finish the job against the Mets’ anemic bats until Curtis Granderson laced a single to right field.
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
Yet despite their considerable impotence at the plate, the Mets have remained afloat in the NL East on the back of their fearsome young starting rotation. They currently sit three games behind the Washington Nationals for the top spot in the division. Making the right moves between now and the end of the season will determine whether they remain a legitimate factor in the race.
GM Sandy Alderson made what he hopes will be one of those key moves by promoting top prospect Michael Conforto from Double-A Binghamton to help bolster the lineup. The tenth overall selection in the 2014 draft, the 22-year-old outfielder had been slashing .312/.396/.503 with five home runs and 26 RBI in 45 games at Double-A before getting the call. Fans might also have seen him at the All-Star Futures Game a couple weeks ago, in which he went 2-for-2 and gunned down a runner at the plate.
Conforto’s talents should certainly boost the Mets’ offensive capability (it would be hard to make it any worse), but his promotion comes as the corresponding move to a decision that should have been made a while ago. The team finally placed ailing outfielder Michael Cuddyer on the disabled list with a knee injury. His appearances have been erratic throughout July as he dealt with the issue; he has started only six games during the month.
The Mets had been fairly coy about the extent of his injury, and they don’t exactly boast the most sparkling diagnostic record this season in general. Jared Diamond of The Wall Street Journal recently posted a graphic detailing the club’s mischaracterization of several injuries this year:
Injuries in baseball can be unpredictable, but this is a strange trend whether you want to chalk it up to deliberate misinformation, wishful thinking, simple incompetence, or some combination of the above. In any case, the team itself has borne the brunt of the effects. While they waffled about what to do with Cuddyer, they essentially played with a 24-man squad for a couple of weeks, putting a strain on the rest of the roster.
Even before landing on the DL, Cuddyer had been looking like a major disappointment in his first season wearing a Mets uniform. New York inked him to a two-year, $21 million contract as their big offseason signing, but the move away from Coors Field has not been kind to the former Rockies and Twins star. The 36-year-old veteran has scratched together a very underwhelming .250/.303/.380 line on the year with eight homers and 30 RBI. That’s a far cry from previous campaigns, like 2013 when he hit .331 and captured the NL batting crown.
It’s understandable that the Mets would want to avoid putting Cuddyer on the shelf if possible, hoping their free agency prize would finally turn things around at the plate. The indecisiveness simply went on for too long, however, and during very important days for the team’s postseason bid. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman suggests allowing regulated use of the 7-day DL for injuries other than concussions for situations such as this. That might be an idea worth exploring.
The Mets have been accused in the past of moving too slowly (or not at all) on important fronts, and examples such as this strengthen those claims. Fortunately for the club and its fans, they are still very much alive in the National League playoff picture, and Conforto’s arrival has the chance to inject some much-needed life into the team. They can’t stop there, though. Further upgrades will be required by the trade deadline if the Mets are serious about snapping their nine-year playoff drought.