How to Fix the Mets Offense

The Mets can’t score runs.

Despite boasting the lowest ERA in baseball over the past two weeks, wins have been hard to come by due to the league’s second worst offense during that time.

With Troy Tulowitzki rumors swirling, fans are calling on management to find some offense before a 13-3 start and repeated awesome performances by the pitching staff are wasted.

But, before we go too crazy, let’s be careful not to let 14 days of baseball and our preset notions of the team’s positional weaknesses misguide us.

The first question Sandy Alderson needs to ask himself before making any move is whether the Mets offense is as bad as it has been over the past few weeks.

It starts with the injuries. Losing both David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud is pretty devastating. Both were swinging the bat well to start the season, particularly d’Arnaud, and their replacements, while having promising futures, aren’t quite ready to provide major league production at the plate.

Kevin Plawecki and Dilson Herrera, who essentially became Wright’s replacement once Murphy moved to third, have been underwhelming so far. Plawecki is best known for his contact rate, yet in his first 63 plate appearances in the big leagues, he is striking out 20.6% of the time. Herrera hit the cover off the ball in AAA Las Vegas, but has also found contact issues in the pros, while hitting a meager .241/.313/.379 slash line.

It’s something that Mets fans don’t like to hear, because it suggests the Mets won’t be aggressive in adding better players elsewhere, but the return of Wright and d’Arnaud will have a major impact on improving the offense.

Next, let’s look at the players who are in the lineup right now.

Using projections for the rest of the season from FanGraphs, we can see which players the Mets can expect to find a boost from their offense. For Lucas Duda and Curtis Granderson, more power can be expected, but they are doing other things right now to make up for less home runs. Juan Lagares, Michael Cuddyer, and Daniel Murphy offer the most hope for improvement going forward.

The recipe for Sandy Alderson then becomes getting Wright and d’Arnaud healthy, keeping Duda and Granderson on their games, and hoping that Lagares, Cuddyer, and Murphy find their form.

Once all of that happens, however, it doesn’t mean the Mets problems swinging the bat are solved. What it tells us is that they probably won’t be the worst hitting team, as they have been over the past few weeks, so there’s no need to panic completely and make an irrational move, but looking at the offense, even when healthy and with their expected rest of season production, there is still room for improvement.

We’ve focused on the offense so far, but when evaluating roster needs, defense obviously plays a role. There are two positions on the Mets roster where an upgrade, both offensively and defensively, could make a difference for the rest of the season.

And guess what? Neither position is shortstop!

The chart above shows where each position on the Mets’ roster ranks in terms of rest of season projection of WAR. While there are many areas for possible improvement, there are two glaring ones: second base and left field.

Second base is a tricky one, because Herrera clearly seems to be the long-term solution. When Wright returns, it may make the most sense to hope that Murphy outplays his projection, and then that buys time for Herrera to take the full-time reigns next season. If a temporary upgrade can be found at second, that is the best option.

The outfield is where I would focus. The problem with the Mets is that they just signed Michael Cuddyer to a relatively big money contract for them, and they forfeited a draft pick to do so. This ties their hands in making a move at a position where they could gain the most value.

It’s simple logic. If you are projected to have league average value at shortstop for the rest of the year, there are only a few players who can add a lot of value above that, namely, Troy Tulowitzki, who comes with a giant price tag. For a positon, like left field, where the Mets rank near the bottom of the league, finding added value is easier, and thus less costly.

If Sandy Alderson wants to help the Mets’ offense, as well as the overall team, his best move is to find an extra outfielder. Forget replacing Cuddyer, because they aren’t going to do that, but if they were able to acquire a versatile outfielder, between the three positions, they could find him at-bats.

John Mayberry was brought here to hit lefties. He isn’t doing that. At best, he is a replacement level player. Kirk Nieuwenhuis plays a little defense, but also can’t hit. With Lagares providing most of his value on defense, and Cuddyer and Granderson far from peak level, having a bench that provides zero production hurts.

The Mets offense isn’t as bad as it has been recently. When they get healthy, and certain players find their groove, they can be closer to league average. If the Mets want to be better than that, while also improving on their defense to help their stud pitching staff, they should focus on upgrading at second base, if at least a temporary move, or better yet, in the outfield.