Howard Megdal makes an interesting point in his weekly column for SNY.tv. Check it out:
Oddly enough, the market seems to be dictating that it will cost the least to upgrade at second base, the most at catcher, with first base falling somewhere in the middle. And given that the biggest need for the Mets is second base, this should be good news.
Luis Castillo had a good season offensively for the Mets last year, so it’s easy to forget how desperate they were to get rid of him last offseason, or how desperate they probably should be to get rid of him this offseason. Here’s the thing:
Luis Castillo, as solid as he was with the bat in 2009, was a terrible defender. He ranked last among qualifying second basemen in UZR and third to last in plus/minus. Anyone who watched the games doesn’t need the fancy stats to rate his defense, either; to the eye, his range was abysmal.
And at his age, with his knees, it’s probably only going to get worse.
If the Mets are actually considering groundball pitchers like Joel Pineiro, they’d be wise to first upgrade defensively in their infield. Especially — especially! — if the Mets are really thinking about giving Carlos Delgado and his hip woes another go of it at first base, with Jose Reyes at shortstop recovering from a leg injury and David Wright at third base coming off a pretty miserable defensive season of his own.
It would be either hilarious or depressing to see Pineiro reprise his 60-percent groundball rate in front of that infield, but be dismissed as a one-year Dave Duncan wonder because far, far more of the weakly hit grounders he yields dribble past the Mets’ infielders for hits.
But now I’m getting ahead of myself.
Tedquarters 
Ted,
How do the players the Cardinals ran out in the infleid stack up against those the Mets have based on the defensive stats mentioned.
Its easy to say that Piniero might see a drop off since some of the Mets IFers aren’t so hot, but if the players the Cards are running out there aren’t much better, that might not be the case.
Not a bad point, but they were probably about average. They had Albert Pujols at first, who was average by UZR and excellent by +/-, Skip Schumaker, who was bad by both — actually worse than Castillo by +/- — at second, usually Brendan Ryan, who was outstanding by both measures (and one of the great mustache men of this epoch) at short, and a combination of Mark DeRosa, who was bad by both, and Joe Thurston, who was about average by both, at third.
Castillo said that he would work this offseason on range as hard as he did last offseason to get himself fit and healthy. I therefore think we;ll see an upgrrade from Castillo from that capacity whether he plays for us or someone else.
Is it possible that having a healthy Reyes and a full season of Murphy at first could hide Castillo’s lousy range? Reyes could cover more balls up the middle and Murphy has to be able to handle more balls in the hole at first than Delgado ever could. It’s pretty sad that there are actually two or three decent free-agent options at second and we’re stuck with Luis for another season.
Murphy is probably worse than Castillo! If the Mets start both, “Good luck,Big Pelf, Good luck, Pineiro!
I’ll never understand the Murphy hate amongst fans. As if no one’s never struggled at a new job… These same people probably hung Mark Sanchez in effigy midseason.
I’ll never understand why the fact that people like Murphy clouds their ability to see that he was given a major league starting job before he was ready for or had earned one, because the Wilpons wanted (or needed?) to save money on left field last off-season. To have iffy production from first base just because Murphy seems like a great guy, so let’s put him somewhere, is the kind of thing that sends a team home at the end of September.
I love it, the Jets win a playoff game and you all think Mark Sanchez is the next Tom Brady.
Also, Daniel Murphy has absolutely zero business being a starting position player in major league baseball.
Good job putting words in everyone’s mouth. Who said Sanchez was the second coming of Brady? I don’t disagree that Murphy wasn’t ready – the Mets are notorious for rushing players. But NOONE on that Mets team performed well last season – I think the jury on Murphy is still out and he should be given at least one more season. And a full season of not being jerked around like he was all this season.
I think it is odd that Castillo’s defensive statistics were better in 2008 when he was injured than in 2009 when he was healthy.
This leads me to believe that a reason for his poor defensive number had more to do with the players around him.
Instead of playing with Reyes everyday Castillo had to play with 6 count them 6 different SS last year this leads to a lot of confusion and miss-communication.
He also had to deal with a first baseman in Murphy who was “learning the position” as he was going along which lead to the same problems.
Castillo probably knew Reyes and Delgado’s range well and was able to cheat one way or another like many good defensive players will do, but playing with 6 different SS and a rookie first basemen he doesn’t have that ability which not only affect his numbers but also affect what people see on the field.
BTW take UZR with a grain of salt, because according to UZR Daniel Murphy was a better first baseman then, Mark Teixiera Adrian Gonzalez and Albert Pujols.
Just because it goes against popular opinion doesn’t mean it was wrong. The problem with Murphy’s UZR number is that it is in a very small sample size. It’s possible he’s an excellent fielder at first or that he just had a lucky stretch last season. There is way too little evidence to make a definitive statement about his defense at this point in his career.
Problem is that O-Dog isn’t that much better than Castillo. It’d be an upgrade, but not by much.
Felipe Lopez is still available, but he’d probably cost too much.
Hopefully, the Cubs can be convince to take Castillo, otherwise we better hope Castillo found some new knees.
I watched almost every game last year and I can tell you that Daniel Murphy has pretty good range at 1st and that his UZR is pretty accurate.
I will say that he made some pretty dopey mental mistakes defensively, but most of those were made while trying to catch horrible throws from David Wright. One particular event I remember where Murph was at fault is when he failed to show up for a routine double play. Overall though, I saw him make tons of amazing plays Delgado, and many first basemen, would have never made. Batwise, his 2nd half season showed promise. I say he should grow a Mustasche and be labeled a defensive 1st baseman. Beyond that, let’s just see what he can do in his second full season. After that, jury’s out.
I truely believe that people need to lay off Murphy at 1st base. Check his offensive numbers against Keith Hernandez’s numbers from 1976 [His 1st full season] and they are closer than you’d believe.
I’m not saying Daniel is the next coming of Keith, but Keith did praise Daniel on a frequent basis once he got settled into 1st base. In Daniel’s limited time at 1st, he lead the league in starting double plays and his range is 3x what Delgado’s is. I bet you see a .270-.280 average, 20+ HRs, 40+ doubles [Daniel lead the team in both catagories] and around 85-90 RBI. He had 63 last year, and another 20 isn’t out of the realm of possibility.