The LoHud Mets Blog

The Mets added a pair of Joshes tonight, promoting pitcher Josh Stinson and infielder Josh Satin from the minor leagues.

Briefly, what you need to know: Stinson is a starter-turned-reliever with a good sinker. Satin hits, though not for much power, and plays third, second and first, but not well.

Neither one is a major prospect. Your Omar Minaya farm system, ladies and gentlemen.

Duda bloops single

And Tejada ranges deep

For win wrapped in hope

Have to assume this Andy Martino story speculating about moving Jason Bay to center field is merely an homage to Howard Johnson, the Met whose move to center field was almost as ill-advised.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Jason Bay could be a league-average defensive center fielder. I find that hard to believe, since he’s been, by most accounts, a below-average left fielder for years now. But let’s just pretend for a second.

Well, Jason Bay has an 81 OPS+ this year. Among center fielders that qualify for the 2011 batting title, and there are 19 of them, Bay would trail 18. The only guy he beats is Alex Rios, whose OPS+ of 54 is historically bad for the position.

The only thing Jason Bay does this year at a respectable rate is hit lefties- and that .878 OPS is buttressed by a likely unsustainable batting average on balls in play of .393. So the only real argument for Bay from a 2012 standpoint on the field is as a platoon partner for Lucas Duda in left field. There’s a non-zero chance Bay out-hits Duda against lefties. And if the Mets are paying him $16 million either way, you know, why not?

But an outfield of Murphy in left (who, by the way, displayed not the slightest aptitude at the position), Bay in center and Duda in right would have to be the worst defensive outfield the Mets put on the field since- well, maybe this. Bobby Bonilla in right, HoJo in center, Chico Walker in left- can that be topped?

As long as Angel Pagan is an option to return, we won’t find out.

Pelfrey is Ahab

But his whale is a Marlin:

Teal. Not white. Not great.

The Rockland Boulders had a fantastic announcement this morning: former 36th round Mets draft pick Glen Johnson is set to join the team this weekend for the final two home games of the season. He’ll be joined by his father, Howard Johnson, who you might remember as this guy.

Let me be clear: a hurricane couldn’t keep me away from the chance to see Howard Johnson hit again. My expectations couldn’t be any higher for this, and that’s probably not fair. Johnson is 50 years old. The player from my youth who hit bombs was 30 back in 1991, when he hit 38 home runs and stole 30 bases.

But that same summer, I attended Rich Martin’s All Star Baseball Camp. That alone was a thrill, and somewhere I still have a number of baseball-shaped pins I won for consistently taking first place in the camp’s trivia contests. (Even at 11, I had a pretty good idea that my future in baseball resided off the field.)

But each week, a special guest came, and I’ll never forget when Frank Howard gave a talk, then thrilled us with a batting practice display. Howard was easily the most impressive human being I’d ever seen in person- 6’7”, huge in both strength and voice. He was a coach for the Yankees at the time, if memory serves. I remember nothing of his speech. But I remember seeing those long home runs. Hondo was about to turn at the time.

Baseball provides both a timelessness and a constant reminder of the passage of time for us at once. Hearing that Chris Capuano’s gem last Friday night was the best-pitched Met game, per Bill James’ Game Score, since David Cone’s 19-strikeout performance back in 1991 reminded me that I’d been sitting in the outfield seats at Veterans Stadium for that one with my dad. I was 11 at the time; 31 now. The idea that 20 years had passed since then was inconceivable to me.

Meanwhile, Frank Howard is 75 now. It seems unlikely that he could put on a power display anymore- though if any 75 year old could do it, you’d figure it to be Howard. As real as his home runs are to my memory, they are inaccessible to those who didn’t see them.

And trying to capture those moments for those who come after us is usually a fruitless exercise. I can tell my 17-month-old daughter what it was like to see Frank Howard launch those home runs over the fence at Rider College 20 years ago, but she cannot see them for herself. I brought her to yesterday’s doubleheader, motivated by many things- the dwindling of the season, the chance to watch two baseball games in one day- but most of all, for the chance to see Jose Reyes up close. Alas, by the time Jose got his first hit late in the second game, my daughter had lost consciousness for the night, and we’d begun our return trek to Rockland.

Chances are good that Jose Reyes will play for someone else next year. And really, by the time she’s old enough to remember what she sees, Jose Reyes probably won’t be nearly as fast as the Jose Reyes I’ve watched for the past decade, whether in orange and blue or some other color scheme. Her earliest memories, like mine of Howard Johnson, Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, could be Brandon Nimmo- or someone the Mets haven’t even drafted yet.

But still, I wanted her to experience the most exciting player I’ve seen in my lifetime in hers as well, to lock in that shared experience. For the same reason, I’ll take her to see the Boulders next Monday, hoping to see HoJo turn on one last fastball as if it had come out of the hand of Todd Worrell.

A Reyes return

Helps back a solid Gee start

Two fish in one day

A Dickey delight

Mets provide enough support

For knuckler to win

Greetings! Leaving shortly to see the Mets play two. We’ve seen the first game lineup for the 4:10 start, and Ruben Tejada is the shortstop. So either the Mets will activate Jose Reyes for Game 2, or there’s been a delay. We will keep you posted.

It is supposed to be beautiful and sunny this afternoon. Why not take off early from work? I’m a sucker for single-admission doubleheaders, personally.

If hurricane apes

Capuano’s performance

All of us are doomed

So, as you may have heard, a hurricane is coming that will render all previous civilization obsolete while forcing us to grow gills. Accordingly, it appears the Mets are going to cancel Sunday’s game, and move Saturday’s game to 1:10 PM. UPDATED: The Saturday game has been cancelled as well.

Don’t forget, the Mets have a doubleheader scheduled for 4:10 PM Monday. That is, of course, assuming Hurricane Irene hasn’t ushered in End Times, which would presumably affect the starting rotation. We will keep you posted on all such things.

Some fairly interesting things are going on around Metsland this morning. Let’s start with Nick Evans, whose season OPS+ of 151 puts Jose Reyes’s 143 to shame. MVP? Not even on his own team!

In all seriousness, while it is silly to assume this is Evans’ level of production- after all, his OPS+ going into yesterday was just 115- there’s plenty of evidence that Evans is a legitimate plus bat for the Mets. Over his past two seasons, in 97 plate appearances, he’s at an OPS+ of 136. Still not a great sample size, but further buttressed by his minor league performance. His Buffalo 2010 hitting, for instance, translates out to roughly an .800 OPS as well.

In other words, it is pretty apparent that the Mets have, in Nick Evans and Lucas Duda, a platoon ready to absolutely crush major league pitching next year in left or right field. Both of them have significant platoon splits, but their performances against lefties and righties, respectively, are extremely encouraging. Both will be low-cost alternatives next season. And with Kirk Nieuwenhuis returning from shoulder surgery, Fernando Martinez continuing to struggle to stay healthy, and Zach Lutz largely a major league unknown, having the pair of them is a luxury.

However, they may need to be split, one sent to right, the other to left, because Jason Bay has just been awful. I have advocated in this space that the Mets continue to play him for the rest of 2011, since he is signed through 2013. If the Mets hope to derive any value from that contract, they need Bay to show some signs of life between now and the end of the season. It is less likely now than it was a month ago, but if Bay began to hit like 2009 Bay tomorrow through the end of the season, it doesn’t seem impossible that some other team would deal a bad contract to the Mets for Bay.

But holy cow, I just can’t believe he’s been so terrible. As I pointed out on Twitter yesterday, Nick Evans had four extra-base hits in an 18 hour span from Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon. Jason Bay has 21 extra base hits since Opening Day. Evans put up 19 percent of Bay’s season extra-base hit totals in less than a full day.

So the question becomes- is Bay already a sunk cost? If he isn’t, if the Mets can either improve the bad contract they could possibly get in return for Bay with a great September from him, or provide some other team with just enough motivation to think a change of scenery might work, then he should play until at least the end of the season. The 2012 options aren’t really hurt, since the Mets have a pretty good grasp on how two of their in-house replacements would perform if/when they cut bait on Bay. If the Mets need to pay most of Bay’s remaining deal to be rid of him, the in-house options at least allow for him to be replaced effectively at minimal cost.

And to those who don’t think any team would take Bay following 104 and 84 OPS+ season, even if the Mets ate most of the money, remember that a team once took Gary Matthews Jr. following 93, 77 and 85 OPS+ seasons. Matthews Jr. was also three years older than Bay. Unfortunately, Omar Minaya isn’t the GM of another team, but such things do happen.

Speaking of Matthews Jr., his father’s comments that the Mets are “crybabies”, aside from showing an astonishing lack of professionalism, are particularly rich given the fact that the Mets are still paying his son for his 65 plate appearances with an OPS+ of 40 last year. For those keeping score at home, ten starting pitchers have bested that OPS+ mark this year. His WAR checks in at -0.2. So it is a mathematical certainty that a reason the 2010 Mets lost, at any rate, is Matthews Sr.’s own son.

Matthews Jr. had two years and $22 million left on his deal when the Mets traded Brian Stokes for him prior to the 2010 season, and agreed to take on $1 million in 2010, $1 million in 2011. Jerry Manuel even gave Matthews Jr. the Opening Day assignment in center field over Angel Pagan, and roughly half the starts in the first tenth of the season, until realizing that Pagan was a better bet since he was still ambulatory.

Never mind the content of his remarks- has anyone in recent years simultaneously showboated and complained about any displays of emotions from the Mets more than the Phillies?- and just consider that as Matthews Sr. criticized the Mets, his son is well-paid by the organization for doing his job so poorly that even Jerry Manuel recognized it.

Evans crushes one

Big Pelf big enough through six

Parnell saves the day

On the negative side, it looks like both Jon Niese (back) and Scott Hairston (ribcage) will be on the Disabled List. On the positive side, Mike Nickeas is coming up, Miguel Batista’s got a chance to get called up (giving the Mets another writing pitcher to pair with RA Dickey), and Jose Reyes may be back as soon as Monday.

Also, the Mets have just one more game this afternoon against the Phillies.

Niese provided noose

Mets hanged themselves by looking

As fans looked away

The catcher-hitting derby between Josh Thole and Ronny Paulino has taken a decisive turn:

2011 season:

Josh Thole: .712 OPS

Ronny Paulino: .699 OPS

That’s thanks to this:

2011 season, second half:

Josh Thole: .821 OPS

Ronny Paulino: .553 OPS

I guess this should go without saying, but if the Mets are in 2012 evaluation mode, is it any less important to determine whether Thole can catch everyday/hit lefties than it is to see if Lucas Duda can play right field?