The Mets, as you no doubt know, traded reliever Brian Stokes to the Angels for outfielder Gary Matthews, Jr. The move was clearly in part due to the fact that Carlos Beltran, of late knee surgery, is expected to be out for around a month at the beginning of the season.
Gary Matthews is not a very good ballplayer at the Major League level. In about half a season's work last year, he had 4 home runs, a .250 batting average and OPS+d 83. In 2008, he had 8 home runs, a .242 average and a 77 OPS+.
Sabermetrics are a hot topic in baseball today, but I think it's pretty clear that all the complicated formulas (or at least most of them) have some use. Perfection may not exist*, but I think that at the very least they provide insight into baseball.
* For example, many point out that while on-base abilities and slugging abilities are not equally valuable, they are counted equally in OPS.
Fangraphs.com assigns a value to every baseball player, based on offense, defense, baserunning and defensive position. In 2009, according to their calculations Matthews was worth negative 3.8 million dollars. In 2008, negative 3.6. And he's not at an age where improvement can be expected - he's 35 years old!
Stokes, on the other hand, was (according to Fangraphs) worth 0.6 million dollars in 2008 and negative 1.0 million last year. His ERA+ were 120 and 104. At 30, he's also significantly younger than Matthews, and as such, less likely to decline in 2010.
It's hard to believe that the Mets could not acquire a backup outfielder without giving up a decent bullpen arm.
Remember, they have Angel Pagan, who should be able to play the bulk of the time until Beltran gets back. So what the Mets seemingly acquired is a backup outfielder for a month. Fernando Martinez could probably perform those duties. Heck, for a couple of games, the Mets could put Nick Evans in left and Bay in center, forfeiting nothing out of the bullpen.
Or, even further out of the box, perhaps David Wright could man center field for a spell. (There were rumors about a potential move to the outfield when Alex Rodriguez declared free agency in 2007.)
One of the few redeeming qualities about the 2009 New York Mets was its quite decent bullpen. Messing with it more than is necessary seems questionable.
2 comments:
Um...interesting point. However, there is a rumor (unconfirmed as of yet) that Nolan Ryan will be rejoining the Mets in 2010 for a farewell season. As of yet, I have herd Ryan neither deny nor confirm the suspicoins (which seems to indicate there is some truth to or else he'd just deny it.) Although it's been a long while since Ryan played for the Mets (and indeed it's been a while since he's played for any team!), he could definitely provide that extra boost that the Mets require
Sir, Nolan Ryan has not pitched in relief in over 35 years, and has not done so regularly in over 40. Otherwise, I'd be all for it. ;-)
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