How the Mets Should Run Their Outfield

One of the running questions in Mets spring training this year has been, the way it's phrased, whether Juan Lagares or Eric Young, Jr. should be the team's third starting outfielder. The assumption is that the first two are Curtis Granderson, the Mets' biggest free agent signing since Jason Bay, and Chris Young, one of their other notable signings of the off-season. Phrased that way, the answer is obvious: Lagares should start. Last year, while hitting .242/.281/.352 (an OPS+ of 80, well below league average), Lagares was worth something in excess of 3 wins above replacement. Since that was in just 421 plate appearances, he was a couple of wins above average. His defense is ridiculous, making him an incredibly productive player even if we regress the defense a little bit. Eric Young, meanwhile, even after coming to the Mets (when his performance improved) was in that zone between average and replacement-level. He was a passable left fielder, though not deserving of his Gold Glove nomination, but really his only virtue was his speed, and though he was a great baserunner last year there's a limit to how valuable that is if it's all you offer. The argument for Young to start is just that Terry Collins wants a base-stealer at the top of the lineup. Well, Lagares has the same base-stealing numbers as EYJ this spring, 3 SB/1 CS, and as he's not likely to be outhit at the plate by Young there's no reason to think he'd be a worse leadoff hitter.



But there is, I think, no real reason to frame the question that way. There's every reason for the Mets to play a lot of mix-and-match with these four outfielders. First of all, let's examine the assumption that Curtis Granderson is an everyday starter. His career batting line against left-handed pitching is .226/.295/.409. I don't think you're gonna want him to sit all the time against lefties, but I do think you're gonna want him to sit a lot of the time against lefties. Maybe he should get something like 80% to 90% of the playing time in right field. The rest of the time, against left-handed starters, we're gonna want to go with an outfield of Young, Lagares, and Young (Eric in left and Chris in right, I think). In those cases there's no conflict between EY and Lagares. Meanwhile, I don't think Chris Young should be starting every day, necessarily. He's got pretty inverted numbers to Granderson: against lefties he's hit a whopping .262/.363/.474, so, yeah, you're never gonna sit him against a lefty (nice since you might be sitting Curtis), but against righties, just a .225/.295/415 line. He should see 100% of the playing time against lefties, and significantly less than that against righties. Now, he's also got good defense, and it's not like Eric Young has out-hit him against righties (against whom he has a .659 OPS for his career), but it's always good to get people some rest, anyway.

So some of the time we're gonna want a Young-Lagares-Young outfield, and some of the time we're gonna want a Young, E-Lagares-Granderson outfield. That's already a fair amount of playing time for Eric Young, maybe 30% to 40% of the team's games. And then Lagares probably shouldn't be playing absolutely every day, either, again because it's good to keep people rested if you've the option, and so there will be some days for a Young-Young-Granderson outfield. And then, of course, Young, C-Lagares-Granderson should be the Opening Day outfield, and the alignment the team would use in any critically important game. In such games, Eric Young should see a lot of work as a pinch-runner late in games, where his speed really can be utilized without depriving the team of Lagares' amazing defense. (Oh, of course, Lagares should conversely see a lot of work as a late-game defensive replacement any time he doesn't get the start.)

So what should the team do for a leadoff hitter when they don't have Eric Young in the lineup? Well, I think the thing that would really help would be for Travis d'Arnaud to start hitting the way he's expected to. Then I'd consider going with this lineup:

Chris Young (R), LF
Daniel Murphy (L), 2B
David Wright (R), 3B
Curtis Granderson (L), RF
Travis d'Arnaud (R), C
Ike Davis (L), 1B
Juan Lagares (R), CF
Ruben Tejada (R), SS

Like Lagares and Eric Young, Chris Young has three steals this spring. Unlike the two of them, he has not yet been caught. He probably doesn't give you the same kind of speed that EY does, but he does give you speed, and he gives you a much better bat. (Yes, mostly on the power dimension, but it's not like power is positively bad in a leadoff hitter.) Or you could consider hitting Lagares first, especially against RHP since he's got less of a split than Young and also much less power. Against a left-hander you'll probably swap Ike (or Duda, though I'm on Team Ike) out for Josh Satin, and honestly I'd consider moving Lagares up to the second spot and dropping Murphy down to seventh: Young/Lagares/Wright/Granderson/d'Arnaud/Satin/Murphy/Tejada. This team wouldn't have precisely a prototypical leadoff hitter, but, well, it doesn't have one of those. It has a guy who is, stylistically, a prototypical leadoff hitter, but who is not a very good hitter. Using Chris Young would at least give the team some production out of the lineup spot that gets the most at-bats, and it's not like they're exactly hurting for power/RBI guys further down the order, especially if d'Arnaud is hitting.

In other words, the solution is not to realize that no one's going to get 100% of the playing time at any of these positions. And with four guys for three spots, it's not too hard to give everyone about a three-fours share of playing time in a way that should keep all four fresh and allow each to be used to the greatest advantage. If done right, the Mets could have a pretty dynamic outfield this year.

Or, of course, Terry Collins could decide that Chris Young and Curtis Granderson need to start every day and that he needs speed at the top of the order, and bury one of the best defensive players in the game on the bench. Really, it's up to him.