Davis vs. Duda and the Mets’ First Base Decision

The Mets have so many other issues to fill that they’re not going to focus on finding a new first baseman when they currently have two – Ike Davis and Lucas Duda – for whom an argument could be made that one or the other is the right choice.

The Mets need at least two, legitimate middle-of-the-order bats if they think they’re going to contend in 2014. They’re going to have to bolster their starting rotation with the likely loss of Matt Harvey for the season. They have to address shortstop and the bullpen. They don’t need to worry about first base as well. They could move forward with either Duda or Davis and trade the other one to fill a need. What they have to decide is which one they want and they can’t afford to be wrong.

Let’s look at the tale of the tape.

Ike Davis

Davis hit 32 home runs in 2012. In 2013, he was in a daze for much of the season and wound up being sent to the minor leagues. When he returned to the majors, he showed significantly better pitch selection and dramatically improved his on-base percentage. But as GM Sandy Alderson said in an interview with Mike Francesa recently, his power has disappeared. The Mets have to determine whether he’s sacrificing his home run swing to make better contact and draw more walks. Neither of which is a good thing for a hitter who was counted on to bat in the middle of the lineup at the start of the season. Add in that Davis can’t run whatsoever and his walks at the expense of home runs are a net negative. He’s also become a platoon player who is helpless against lefties.

Defensively, Davis has a reputation as a future Gold Glover, but after his rookie season amid flashy gymnastic catches on pop-ups, his defense has grown stagnant if not outright lazy. It could be that he was taking his offensive woes into the field, but he’s not a Gold Glover. He’s slightly above-average defender at the position.

Off the field has been a concern. Davis is one of the most popular players in the Mets clubhouse and that saved him from a demotion in 2012 and for a time in 2013. Eventually, the Mets front office couldn’t take Davis’s wild swings and misses and bewildered approach and sent him down.

Much like the Mets essentially told Ruben Tejada that if he didn’t want to take extra batting practice and show up to camp in shape, then he’d better make sure he hit and caught everything in the field, it wasn’t a problem until it was a problem and the player had no leeway due to hard work. Tejada stopped performing and the organization acted. Like Davis, he’s fallen out of favor with the brass. Davis works hard on the field, but he also enjoys the nightlife. That’s fine as long as the player hits. Davis hasn’t hit, so it’s not fine and the club has a right to say that maybe he needs to change some things off the field so he can succeed on it.

Davis was paid $3.13 million in 2013 and will make at least that in arbitration in 2014. He’s a free agent after 2016.

Lucas Duda

The gentle giant Duda has a tremendous eye at the plate, immense power and is coachable. That can be a problem because he’s willing to listen and implement everything the coaches tell him he needs to do to improve at the expense of his aggressiveness. Letting hittable fastballs down the pipe go by because he’s adhering to the organizational mantra of patience isn’t what’s needed from him. If he can get it into his head that the fine line between patience and aggressiveness is where he needs to be, he can be a very productive and inexpensive player.

Duda is batting .200 against lefty pitchers this season, but he’s far better than Davis at standing in against them and takes his walks.

Defensively Duda’s problem was that the Mets put him in the outfield when he belongs at first base. He’s at least as good defensively as Davis and might even be a little better.

There’s no questioning Duda’s seriousness about the game. He works extremely hard and keeps his mouth shut. Duda made $519,000 this season. He’s not arbitration eligible until 2015 and won’t be a free agent until after 2017.

The choice

With Duda, if the Mets put him in the lineup every day, they can pencil him in for 25-30 home runs and a .350 on-base percentage. After Davis entered camp with the job in his pocket for two straight seasons – and acting like it – can they reasonably still say the same production is coming? They don’t know. It’s often repeated that because he hit 32 homers in 2012, he can obviously do it again. But in 2012, he rode a blazing hot second half to that 32 homer season, then turned around in 2013 and had a worse start than he had in 2012.

Defensively, they’re even. Financially, Duda has the advantage. Offensively, there’s a bigger upside to Duda. The Mets front office has been almost begging Duda to take advantage of his unexpected opportunity to play every day for the last month of this season and give them a way to sell trading Davis to pave the way for Duda. He’s hit three homers in 15 September games and posted an .837 OPS. Given the club’s frustration with Davis, that Alderson doesn’t care about perception when he makes a decision and they believe that Duda is the better player, the obvious choice is to deal Davis for a similarly struggling young player and give Duda the job at first base for 2014.

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Reading Between Sandy Alderson’s Lines

Sandy Alderson was a guest with Mike Francesa on WFAN in New York yesterday and said a lot without going into great detail as to what his true intentions are. This is nothing new. Alderson is cautious and makes it a point to give himself room by not saying anything that could later come back to haunt him. But if you read between the lines of what he said, you can come to a conclusion as to where he’s heading for the Mets in 2014 and beyond.

Matt Harvey – surgery or not?

According to Alderson, by next month there should be a plan in place on what to do about Harvey’s partially torn ulnar collateral ligament. While Harvey’s determination to avoid surgery to help the Mets is admirable, it was clear from listening to Alderson that he and the Mets want Harvey to get the surgery done, have his elbow repaired and be 100 percent for late 2014/early 2015.

Alderson is essentially saying what the self-educated “experts” in the media and on social media should say: “I’m not a doctor and we’ll do what the doctors’ consensus is.” If I were Alderson, I would speak to Harvey’s dad, Ed Harvey, who is a notable high school coach and make certain he understands the ramifications of Matt not getting the surgery and express that to his son.

Ike Davis and Lucas Duda

Alderson sounds as if he’s unsure about Davis and likes Duda much better. I agree. The bottom line with the two players is that Duda’s a better hitter. He’s got more power; he’s got a better eye; he hits lefties; he’s got a shorter swing that will be more consistent in the long run; he takes the game more seriously; and he can play a similar defensive first base to Davis.

Alderson brought up Duda’s struggles but made sure to point out that in spite of them, he still had one of the highest OPS’s on the club. Davis improved in certain aspects when he returned from his Triple A demotion, but his power is still missing. He’s walking more, but unless Davis is hitting the ball out of the park, what good is he?

The strained right oblique that Davis suffered in Washington has all but ended his 2013 season. This is a positive and negative for the Mets. It’s a negative because they won’t be able to get a look at Davis over the final month to see if the improved selectivity yielded an increase in power over the final 30 games. It’s a positive because they can play Duda every single day at first base and get a gauge on whether they can trade Davis and trust Duda without it exploding in their faces.

Joel Sherman came up with a ridiculous series of scenarios for Davis including trading him for the likes of Chris Coghlan, Gordon Beckham or Jeremy Hellickson. Coghlan is a possible non-tender candidate after this season and Beckham and Hellickson have done nothing to warrant being traded for a player who hit 32 home runs in 2012.

It’s almost as if Alderson is pleading with Duda to give him a reason to hand him the job in 2014. Alderson clearly wants Duda to put a chokehold on first base so the Mets can trade Davis.

Ruben Tejada

The Mets had implied as far back as spring training 2012 that Tejada’s work ethic was questionable. It’s not that he doesn’t hustle or play hard when he’s on the field. He does. It’s that Alderson came right out and said that Tejada has to be dragged onto the field for extra infield, extra hitting and any kind of after-hours instruction. Whereas players like Juan Lagares can’t get enough work, Tejada doesn’t think he needs it. They’d never gone as far as to openly say it, but now it’s out there. Unless Tejada shows that he’s willing to go as far as he needs to to be the Mets’ shortstop, he’s not going to be the Mets’ shortstop. In fact, it’s unlikely that he’s going to be their shortstop next year whether he suddenly finds a determination similar to Derek Jeter’s. He doesn’t hit for enough power to suit Alderson and he can’t run.

The status of manager Terry Collins

Collins is going to be the manager of the Mets in 2014. While there has been a media/fan-stoked idea that if the Mets tank in September and come completely undone that will spell doom for Collins, it’s nonsense. That might have been the case had David Wright, Davis, Harvey and Bobby Parnell been healthy and if they hadn’t traded Marlon Byrd and John Buck. Now that they’re without all of these players and are on the cusp of shutting down Zack Wheeler, they’re playing so shorthanded that a September record of 10-19 would be expected. If they go 14-15 or thereabouts, Collins will get the credit for overachievement.

How can anyone in their right mind hold Collins responsible if the team has a poor September when they’re going to be trotting Daisuke Matsuzaka and Aaron Harang out to the mound for a number of starts just to get the season over with?

The upcoming winter and spending

I’m not getting into speculation on the Wilpons’ loan payments due in 2014. So many have already done that and the vast majority of them have been completely wrong every step of the way since the arrest of Bernie Madoff and the financial meltdown. From the outside, I’m going to say that the banks are going to let the Wilpons renegotiate the debt. In truth, considering the amount of money they owe, what it will cost to sign a few players – even expensive players – is relatively negligible. It’s not in Alderson’s DNA to pay $150 million for a free agent because as Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Carl Crawford and so many others have proven, it’s just not worth it in the majority of cases. The Mets will be in on the likes of Bronson Arroyo, Carlos Beltran and Jhonny Peralta whose prices will be “what’s the difference?” outlays. Alderson said they have financial flexibility and they do. The Mets are going to spend this winter because they’re out of excuses and they can’t afford not to.

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The Valdespin Non-Story

Via Twitter, Jordany Valdespin apologized for his clubhouse tantrum following his demotion to Triple A. Read it here and you’ll see that he apology was written by someone other than Jordany Valdespin.

This is a non-story other than adding spice to the All-Star break due to Valdespin’s continuing antics. He’s immature and is not going to suddenly learn propriety in his on and off-field behaviors. He’s got ability with pop, speed and a flair for the dramatic, but his negatives far outweigh any potential positives if he somehow manages to fulfill them—something, at age 25, he’s shown no indication he’s going to be able to do. Valdespin threw his fit with “startled” teammates looking on. They might have been startled, but they weren’t surprised. If David Wright acted that way, they’d be surprised.

It’s understandable that a player doesn’t want to go down to the minors, but there’s an absence of comprehension on the part of Valdespin. He wants to be in the big leagues whether he’s playing or not. It’s lost on him that he was no longer in the club’s plans for this season and was little more than the 25th player on the roster, pinch-hitting infrequently and never starting. In his mind it appears that he wants credit for keeping his mouth shut at sitting when he didn’t deserve to be playing to begin with.

Regardless of his tweets, I promise you that Valdespin doesn’t think he was given a chance. His version of a “chance” would extend further than the three weeks in June following Ike Davis’s demotion in which he played semi-regularly and did nothing at the plate. With other players, that belief wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. With Valdespin’s other issues and lack of production, it is wrong. It’s simplistic to say, “He just doesn’t get it, ” as an easy way to end a statement or article. That he doesn’t get it is a given. The question is whether or not he’ll ever get it and if it’s worth it to hold off and wait to see if he does.

The problem with Valdespin is that he’s surrounded by a sense of waiting. The Mets front office is waiting to see if he’ll play as he did in the minors with power and speed. Valdespin seems to be waiting until the time he does fulfill that potential (you have to admire his ignorant audacity/confidence) and then he can be the indispensible veteran who can act in any way he wants with the organization letting him get away with it because they need him. With that in mind, any expression of maturity will be done with the idea that he’ll get another chance as a result of it and the maturity will be abandoned at the first available opportunity. And that’s not maturity. It’s opportunism. No one in the clubhouse likes him; the manager doesn’t want to play him; the coaches can’t deal with him; and he’s not productive. The question then becomes: Why was he on the big league roster for this long in the first place?

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Mets Fans’ Logic, Self-Loathing And Ike Davis

Now Mets fans are having their newest irrational love affair with Josh Satin.

The response to last night’s news that the Mets had decided to recall regular first baseman Ike Davis was somewhere between a groan and outright rage that Satin’s “job” was being usurped by Davis. There’s a tendency in the Mets fanbase to turn their emotions to the underdog type player from whom nothing is expected vs. the former first round draft pick whose career has come undone to the degree that he needed to be sent to the minor leagues three months into the 2013 season after he’d hit 32 homers in 2012.

It’s happened before with an unsung player catching the fancy of the fans. Remember Jason Phillips? He had a surprisingly good rookie season in 2003 as a surprise starter in a position (ironically, first base) that was a switch from his normal one at catcher. Phillips posted a .298/.373/.442 slash line with 25 doubles and 11 homers. In the aftermath of the Moneyball “revolution” the Mets had a Scott Hatteberg of their very own. Except it didn’t last. In 2004, Phillips began the season as the starting first baseman and fell to earth with a thud batting .218. Right before the 2005 season he was traded to the Dodgers, then bounced around for a few more years with nary a flicker of the same success he’d enjoyed as a rookie. Eventually he regressed. While he was posting those numbers, no one wanted to hear that he had a hitch in his swing that was ripe for exploitation or that he had put up decent minor league numbers but nothing resembling what he did in the majors in 2003. He was a homegrown Met from whom nothing was expected, therefore, through some bizarre self-loathing cognitive association, Mets fans took to him. The difference between now and then is that the front office was willing to listen to the fans and media and do what the endlessly destructive “they” wanted. This front office doesn’t do that.

It must also be remembered that this from the same fanbase that booed Mike Piazza in 1998, almost causing him to leave as a free agent.

Why?

Is there an aversion to having stars or potential stars playing for the Mets? Does it suit the workmanlike, blue collar image that the Mets embody in comparison to the stuck-up, snotty, white collar fans and organization with the superiority complex from across town?

Satin has produced a few clutch hits in his brief opportunity to play and has a knowledge of the strike zone similar to what he’s shown in the minor leagues, but the same logic that has fans panicking over Zack Wheeler’s slow start is being exhibited on the opposite end with their newfound love for Satin. Wheeler’s been mediocre and inconsistent in his first few starts, the fans find him disappointing and want him traded for a bat; the media is scouring for analysis from anonymous scouts to validate their doomsaying columns with, “Yeah, he’s still talented but he’s either overrated or not ready for the majors.” Satin has a slash line of .353/.468/.549 slash line in 62 plate appearances. Why doesn’t the media ask a scout the odds of him maintaining that pace? Or is it too ludicrous to even consider that the 28-year-old career minor leaguer has suddenly found a method to post numbers nearly identical to those John Olerud did for the Mets in 1998 with the main difference being that Olerud did it in 160 games and Satin has done it in eighteen games.

For better or worse, Davis is currently the Mets’ best option at first base. He spent a month in the minor leagues and, for what it’s worth, hit 7 homers in 21 games with a .293 average, a .424 OBP. He hit like the player he was when he was recalled in 2010 and before he got injured in 2011. Those 32 homers last season came after a wretched start and threats to send him to the minors. The majority of his production came in the second half. The Mets were expecting him to pick up where he left off in 2013. Instead, he repeated the 2012 start only worse and they followed through on the threat to send him to the minors. All the objections from the players who love Davis and manager who believes in him couldn’t save him this time. It was the right thing to do. He’s back and he deserved to come back. The Mets intentionally brought him up as they embark on a nine game road trip so he won’t have to deal with the boos of the fans if he doesn’t hit a home run in his first at bat, but he still has to deal with an inexplicable vitriol back home from fans who acted disgusted at the mere mentioning of his name.

The Mets may be hoping that Davis hits enough to replenish his trade value to get rid of him and upgrade at first base with someone more consistent. They might still believe in Davis. Or they might feel that he’d been in Triple A long enough and there was nothing more to be gained from him staying there. One thing’s for certain: if the Mets eventually replace Davis, Satin will have to hit for a bit longer than two weeks before he’s anointed the job by the organization in the same manner as the fans have decided that he’s fit to replace a former first round draft pick who, as recently as this spring, was lauded as a possible home run champion.

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Ike Davis: From Swank To Skank (And Back?)

The reaction to Ike Davis’s reported unhappiness that Zach Lutz was promoted over him when Lucas Duda went on the disabled list elicited disgust at Davis’s “selfishness” and “diva” behaviors. With Davis hitting .161 for the Mets, the demotion to Triple A was warranted. He got off to a slow start for Las Vegas, but is hitting now and is expected to be back with the Mets within days.

Was Davis right to be irritated? I don’t think it would’ve been a positive response had he nodded his head agreeably when hearing that it was Lutz instead of him. Davis was probably packing his bags and getting ready for a flight to Philadelphia when he heard of Duda’s injury and then had to recalibrate himself for more time spent in Las Vegas, a place that he doesn’t want to be as a player. Getting past the embarrassment of having been demoted after three full years in the majors and 32 homers last season, that the remaining cachet he has is as a former big leaguer who was deemed not good enough to be in the everyday lineup for the Mets—the METS!!!, and that he’s in Triple A where Ron Darling pointedly and honestly said on a recent Mets broadcast that “no one wants to be,” is anyone surprised that Davis is getting antsy and expected to get the call when Duda got hurt? Stunned that he saw a 27-year-old non-prospect like Lutz called up instead and got annoyed?

Davis enjoys the big league life and all it entails. He likes the sway and luxury. Although Las Vegas is far more appetizing toward that end than most other Triple A venues, he still doesn’t want to be there. Nor should he. While he might have the residue of name recognition and money to enjoy a city like Las Vegas as a nominal celebrity, there’s a difference between a group of big league players going to gamble and have dinner on an off-day and being treated like big leaguers and a guy who was sent to the town to fix that .161 average, nonexistent power and clouded head. It’s the fine line between swank and skank and Davis has had enough of the skank and wants to return to the swank of big league life.

Would it be preferable for Davis to plaster on a wide-eyed and blatantly phony smile that would be more fitting for a ventriloquist dummy and through clenched teeth say to Lutz, “I’m so happy for you,” extending a handshake so tight that one would think he was trying to break his hand? Or is it better for Davis to say, “Enough of this. Call me up already instead of a fringe big leaguer whose ceiling is Triple A,” and look like a whiner?

He didn’t want to go to Triple A in the first place. Why is there shock and indignation that he doesn’t want to stay there?

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The Other Shoe Finally Drops On Ike Davis

Amid the disappointment and embarrassment Ike Davis presumably feels following yesterday’s demotion from the Mets to Triple A Las Vegas is probably an unadmitted sense of relief that the Mets finally pulled the trigger and made good on the threats that have been issued multiple times for a year. Now there is no longer the looming prospect of it happening—it happened—and Davis can go to Triple A, clear his head and get himself straight.

It’s the epitome of arrogance for outsiders in the media, on social media and for laypeople of every ilk to diagnose what’s “wrong” with Davis. He’s changing his swing, stance and everything else based on the last bit of advice he received, the last time he hit the ball hard and felt comfortable at the plate. It’s made him into a toxic mess and a lefty bat who was once a feared power hitter has been regularly pinch hit for in key situations by journeymen like Justin Turner. Going to Triple A is the best thing for him and the club.

This is clearly a short-term move and Davis will be back as soon as he has a sustained run of success. By success I don’t necessarily mean a load of hits and home runs, but success can mean looking as if he has a clue at the plate, commanding the strike zone, playing defense as if he’s not thinking about his last at bat, and hitting the ball hard. If the Mets had any intention of leaving Davis in the minors longer than a few weeks, they wouldn’t have immediately put the kibosh on the most obvious personnel move in shifting Lucas Duda to first base. As it is, they’re apparently going to recall Josh Satin and give him a chance.

Satin, 28, has been a productive hitter in the minor leagues since being drafted by the Mets’ prior front office regime in the sixth round of the 2008 draft. He has a career minor league slash line of .303/.398/.465 and 10-15 home run pop. But is he a big league prospect or a 4-A player who’s interchangeable with the last guy on the roster? There are two ways to look at Satin: 1) he’s a borderline big leaguer who can hit Triple A pitching and be an extra bat off the bench; or 2) he’s a player who is in the Scott Hatteberg/Moneyball tradition of someone who has a good eye, some power and needs little more than a chance to play to prove himself.

Put it this way: if it were the latter, some other club would’ve picked him up or the Mets would’ve given him a shot to get some at bats as a utility player. He’s a stopgap whereas moving Duda to first and playing Jordany Valdespin/Kirk Nieuwenhuis/Juan Lagares in left and center field would imply permanence to the Davis demotion.

Davis’s popularity in the Mets clubhouse will certainly inspire sadness that he was demoted, but even the most ardent Davis supporter and friend can’t defend a .161 batting average, a .500 OPS and 5 homers with 1 since April. He’s been equally bad against righties and lefties and there’s no justification for keeping him in the majors if this is what he’s giving them.

Being well-liked is fine, but it must be remembered that this isn’t a popularity contest. The Giants players hated Barry Bonds with a passion…until he stepped into the batters box where, even in the days before he evidently touched a PED, he boasted an OPS of 1.000 and above on an annual basis. Keeping Davis in the big leagues through this struggle was no longer serving any purpose other than making it appear as if the inmates were running the asylum and with a team that’s playing as poorly as the Mets, that can’t continue. The first step toward real accountability is the long-overdue decision to demote Davis. If you don’t hit, you don’t play. Davis didn’t hit and he won’t play in the big leagues for awhile. It’s that simple.

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If You Expected More From The 2013 Mets, It’s On You

Would Mets fans be satisfied if the club had won 3 more games than it has and was sitting at 20-26 rather than 17-29? Would more fans go to Citi Field to watch a still-bad team, but not as bad as this, play? Would there be less media vitriol and fan apathy/anger? Less abuse from opposing teams heaped on a club that they’re supposed to beat on?

No.

So why is there an uproar over the Mets playing as anyone who looked at their roster with an objective viewpoint should have predicted they would? Why the outrage from fans who presumably knew that 2013 wasn’t about anything more than looking at the young players who are on the bubble for being part of the future—Lucas Duda, Ruben Tejada, Daniel Murphy, Bobby Parnell, Dillon Gee, Jordany Valdespin, and even Ike Davis—and determining whether they’re part of the solution or part of the problem? Why is there anger at the Mets playing in line with their talent level?

The statement, “I didn’t think they’d be this bad” misses the fundamental word in the sentence: “bad.” Bad is bad and there are subsets of bad. There’s bad without hope and there’s bad within reason to build something. The Mets are bad within reason to build something.

Yes, they’re looking worse than they would have if Johan Santana was able to pitch; if Jonathon Niese hadn’t struggled; if Davis had hit better than former Mets pitcher Al Leiter; if Tejada hadn’t become error-prone and flyball happy; if Duda fulfilled his potential in a consistent manner, but even in a best-case scenario, where was this team going? In a division with the Nationals, Braves and Phillies and a league with the Cardinals, Reds and Giants, were the Mets going to make a miraculous run similar to that of the Athletics of 2012 or the Indians in the fictional film Major League?

Blaming Sandy Alderson for his failure to bring in any quality outfielders is a fair point, but no one wants to hear Mike Francesa reaching back into his past to pull a “look how right I was about this player” when ripping the Mets for not signing Nate McLouth. This is the same Nate McLouth who endured two lost years with the Braves, was in the minor leagues, was signed by the Pirates and released by them only to sign with the Orioles and rejuvenate his career.

Let’s say the Mets did sign McLouth. Where would they be now? If you go by advanced stats and transfer what McLouth has done for the Orioles this season, his Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is 1.1. So the Mets would have one more win with McLouth assuming he replicated his 15 stolen bases in 16 tries, 4 homer and .810 OPS—a shaky premise at best.

Were they supposed to waste money on players to win 75 games this year? Or does it matter whether they win 75 or 65 to the attendance figures or what their true goal is: to contend in 2014 and beyond?

There are calls for Alderson’s head; for manger Terry Collins’s head; to demote Davis; to do something. But here’s the reality: Alderson has spent the first two-plus years of his tenure weeding out players who hurt the club on and off the field and clearing salary space; he and his staff are concentrating on the draft and development to build a pipeline that will provide players to contribute to the club as Mets or in trades to supplement David Wright, Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Niese, Parnell and Travis d’Arnaud. Firing Collins would be a cosmetic maneuver to toss meat to the fans hungry for blood, but no matter who’s managing this group whether it’s Collins, Wally Backman, Tim Teufel, Bob Geren, Connie Mack, John McGraw or Tony LaRussa, they’re not going to be much better than they are right now with the current personnel, so what’s the point?

The positive thing about Alderson is that, unlike his predecessor Omar Minaya, he doesn’t react to the media and fans’ demands. He replies to it, but doesn’t answer to it. Minaya answered to it and that’s why is reign—which was better than people give him credit for considering the Mets were five plays away from making the playoffs and probably winning at least one World Series in three straight years—is seen so negatively.

This season was never about 2013. They were hoping for the young players to be better; for Davis to build on his second half of 2012; for there to be clear factors to point to in giving the fans hope, but it hasn’t happened. That doesn’t alter the overall scheme that once Jason Bay’s and Santana’s contracts are off the books and they finally get rid of the negativity hovering around the organization with rampant dysfunction and lack of cohesion even when they were winning that they’ll be a more attractive place for free agents to come and the team will have the money available to make it worth their while.

They were a bad team at the start of the 2013 season and they’re a bad team two months into the 2013 season. Does how bad they are really matter?

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What To Do With Ike Davis

Mets first baseman Ike Davis is a guy who can hit 30 home runs; is a good defensive first baseman; is streaky; doesn’t hit lefties; tweaks his stance way too much; is a bit lackadaisical and comfortable in his position in the big leagues and takes his now annual slow starts with an attitude of “Oh, well. That’s just the way it is.”; is shielded by popularity in the clubhouse and media; and whines endlessly with the umpires to the point where he’s gotten a reputation as a relentless complainer.

Davis is getting more time in the Mets lineup because the other players and manager Terry Collins have lobbied to keep him there. If it were up to the front office last season, he would’ve been sent down a year ago almost to the day to get himself straightened out. Davis got more time, started hitting and hit 27 homers from June onward. The Mets seem to be losing patience with him again and again the talk centers around whether a trip to Triple A would do him some good.

There are benefits and negatives to all options the Mets have with Davis, and here they are:

Demote him

The Mets could easily shift Lucas Duda to first base—which is his natural position—and see if playing a more comfortable position for him defensively boosts his flagging batting average and give Davis a wakeup call by saying his position as a regular player since 2010 doesn’t give him the right to slump as David Wright would get. The last thing Davis needs is another voice in his head giving him hitting advice, but maybe the anger and embarrassment of a demotion will light a fire under him. The one thing the Mets can’t do is send him down for a week. If they do it, it has to be for at least 15-20 games and only bring him back based on merit and not clubhouse/fan/media demands.

Trade him

The Mets were rumored to be willing to listen on Davis after the 2011 season. Perhaps Sandy Alderson and his staff saw the holes in Davis’s game, realized what he was and wanted to get something substantial for him while his reputation as a top power prospect was still intact. For whatever reason—ownership involvement; factions in the front office debating whether they should pull the trigger; player support to keep him; fear; lack of a suitable offer for him—they kept him. Davis is only 26 and has time to fulfill his potential, but his ceiling as a Gold Glove winning future home run champion may not be as expectable as it once was. Once the ceiling is lowered and the performance is as odious as it’s been, his value is down as well.

What could the Mets get for him? I’m sure there are teams that think a friendlier home park and getting away from the word “Mets” not as a noun but as an adjective would greatly assist Davis, but they’re not surrendering a bounty of prospects to get him and simultaneously rehabilitate him. If the Mets do choose to trade Davis, they’ll either have to wait until he starts hitting and restart the circle that began in 2011 when they shied away from the instinct to move him or they’ll have to take another player who’s struggling. Would the Blue Jays consider Colby Rasmus, Brett Lawrie or Brandon Morrow in exchange for Davis? All are slumping just as badly as Davis is and are supremely talented. For teams like the Blue Jays and Mets, making a bold move becomes more palatable as the season enters its midpoint.

As of now, they’re not getting a sure thing for Davis, but they could get a change-of-scenery player that would help them.

Let him play and wait

Davis started hitting last June so there’s a precedent to say that he’ll start hitting again this June. A significant part of his struggles are in his head so perhaps the boost of confidence from what happened last year will wake him up. Davis may be tired of hearing that he might get demoted simply because he’s off to a slow start and has minor league options; he might think that he won’t figure anything out under Wally Backman in Las Vegas that he wouldn’t figure out under Collins in New York—and maybe he’s right—but that doesn’t mean the Mets have to just let him be a hole in the lineup and a distraction as to what they’re going to do with him on an annual basis. No matter what they do, they have to make it clear to Davis that this isn’t going to be accepted as if he’s an established star for whom the numbers will be there at the end of the season. There’s no guarantee that Davis will repeat last year’s hot second half any more than there’s a guarantee that he’s going to be a Met for the rest of his career, or the rest of the week for that matter.

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The Mets “Teach” Valdespin, But Who Teaches The Mets?

Because the current Mets are so unrelentingly dull on the nights Matt Harvey isn’t pitching we’re getting stories created out of thin air like a Hollywood public relations expert deciding that it would be good idea to tamp down Calista Flockhart anorexia rumors by having her “caught” on camera at a ballgame munching on a hot dog. A few weeks ago it was Zack Wheeler complaining about the light air in Las Vegas affecting his pitching; now it’s Jordany Valdespin and the hit by pitch “controversy” from over the weekend against the Pirates. For a nothing story, this certainly has legs and it’s due in large part to there being only so much to write about Rick Ankiel and the days between Harvey’s starts.

Is this worth all the attention? Is Valdespin worth all this attention? And do these Mets from manager Terry Collins on down have the moral high ground to be dictating to anyone what it takes not just to act like a big leaguer, but to win in the big leagues?

No.

No.

And definitely no.

For all the irritating, high-handed condescension based on public relations and a crafted image than any actual reality, the Yankees are in a position to dictate to players, “This is how it’s done.” “This is how you behave when you win.” For Derek Jeter to scold a teammate (or to order his enforcer Jorge Posada to do it years ago), there’s a basis for him to tell them they’re not acting appropriately. When the Yankees got rid of Ian Kennedy in large part because of Kennedy’s mouth, they can accept the fact that he blossomed for the Diamondbacks into becoming what they promoted him to be as the most “polished” of the three “future stars” with Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain.

Only die-hard Yankee-lovers want to hear and believe Michael Kay’s tiresome, wide-eyed storytelling about impressive rookie reliever Preston Claiborne’s dad telling his son while they attended a Yankees-Rangers game in Texas that, “This is how to conduct yourself like a classy professional,” or some other paraphrased nonsense, but there’s a foundation of fact in a team that’s had extended success like the Yankees, Cardinals, Rangers and Phillies to publicly scold a misbehaving youngster. The Twins have had two consecutive atrocious years, but the structure of the organization with Terry Ryan, Tom Kelly and Ron Gardenhire implementing the code of conduct and “Twins Way” has given them the freedom to tell young players to act with a certain comportment or they’re not going to be with the Twins for much longer whether they’re winning or not.

For the Mets? As likable a player as John Buck is, he’s been on one winning team in his entire Major League career in 2010 with the Blue Jays and that team was an 85-win also-ran. Can he give a treatise on winning?

Ike Davis is the bastion of absence of accountability with his annual horrific start and usage of popularity in the clubhouse as a shield from the consequences that befell Lucas Duda when he was demoted last summer and Valdespin now. It’s almost as if Davis has accepted the lost months in the spring as a “just the way it is” addendum making it okay. It’s not okay.

Collins? Fired twice due to in-house mutinies and presiding over teams that appeared to quit late in the season in his two Mets seasons, does he really want to get into this type of teaching method from the old-school?

Valdespin is a talented and immature player and person who clearly needs to learn the proper way to act. The things that are seeping out about him now are, in my experience, a small fraction of what’s gone on with him. With any player if there are ten stories reported, there are 50 others that haven’t gotten out yet. But that doesn’t matter. The way the Mets are trying to “teach” him with the open lambasting, stony silence in answering questions without answering them, and making the situation worse by tossing him into a spotlight he can’t handle will serve to damage him further. The majority of these Mets—including the manager—are not in a position to take a young player with ability and say, “Get him outta here; he can’t help us win,” because most don’t have the faintest idea of what winning looks like to begin with.

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You Were Expecting More From The 2013 Mets?

For what the Mets lack in on-field success in recent years, they make up for in agendas and alibis. The alibis are coming from the team itself; the agendas from the fans and media. The media loves to roast the Mets for their play and personnel moves (perfectly fair) and for their business dealings such as entering into an innocuous agreement with Amway (unfair and self-serving). The fans either wallow in self-pity, hope the team loses so Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins will be fired, or have secondary benefit from the self-flagellation of being a Mets fan as if punishment in this life of baseball fandom will lead to paradise in the next. Opposing fans who need to worry about their own issues point to the Mets as everything they perceive as “wrong.”

If there’s some paradise a pious Mets fan is looking for, the only virgin they’re likely to run into in a sports-related heaven is Tim Tebow and he’s probably no fun to hang out with; the only Kingdom they have to look forward to is in a storybook.

The key question is this: What were you expecting?

They’re in year three of an acknowledged rebuild.

They have a starting rotation of Matt Harvey, Jon Niese and a mix-and-match array of journeymen.

They have one outfielder (who’s actually a first baseman) in Lucas Duda who can hit and has a 25-30 foot radius of balls he’ll catch, block, kick or swallow.

They have one high potential reliever in Bobby Parnell, two decent veterans Scott Atchison and LaTroy Hawkins and more bad journeymen.

One of their main power hitters, Ike Davis, takes the first two months of every season apparently contemplating the mysteries of life in a “what does it all mean?” hypnotic state as he counts the seams of the next low, outside curveball he’ll swing and miss at while batting .150.

They have the foundation for a decent middle infield with Ruben Tejada and Daniel Murphy, a star at third base in David Wright, and a catcher in John Buck who’s hitting like Johnny Bench when he’s closer to Barry Foote.

Their top catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud, acquired in the R.A. Dickey trade, is out with a broken foot and has had his Flushing debut stalled probably until September; their top pitching prospect, Zack Wheeler, acquired for Carlos Beltran, is embarrassing himself with a little league-level whine about not liking it in Las Vegas and is throwing a tantrum hoping to be sent to a more preferable location.

These are the facts.

What gives you the impression that Wally Backman, John McGraw or Connie Mack as manager; Dave Duncan, Rick Peterson, Leo Mazzone or Mel Harder as pitching coach; and Branch Rickey as GM would make any difference whatsoever with this group?

Judging by the lack of moves they made last winter and the removal of the last pieces of the Omar Minaya regime (Jason Bay was dumped and Johan Santana’s Mets career is over with his injury), did you truly in your heart of hearts expect a shocking Athletics/Orioles 2012-style rise for the Mets in 2013?

This team is playing up to its potential and that potential is currently not good. No amount of screaming, yelling and pronouncements of what would “fix” them or what “I’d do” is going to change it especially if your prescriptions are buried in the simplicity of faux expertise and blatant idiocy that’s ten times worse than anything Alderson’s done or will do. The organization has all but said they’re playing for 2014 and beyond when they’re supposedly going to have some money to spend and the prospects they’ve been acquiring and cultivating since Alderson took over will begin to bear fruit.

These are your 2013 Mets. This is it. Deal with it. Or get into therapy. Or just shut up.

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