The Mets optioned Extra-Base Omir Santos back to Double-A Binghamton after their win over the Marlins yesterday and will reportedly call up outfielder Jesus Feliciano before tomorrow’s matchup with the Padres.
This is good.
Feliciano is not particularly exciting*, mind you. He is 31, and the definition of an organizational soldier. He has been patrolling the Mets’ Triple-A outfield since 2007. He plays all three positions, but by most accounts is not a great center fielder. And though Feliciano is hitting .385 this season, he is not a particularly patient hitter and he has never demonstrated any appreciable power.
But Feliciano puts the ball in play. He has struck out only 17 times in 206 plate appearances in Buffalo this season. When you make a lot of contact, sometimes a lot of balls fall in and you hit .385. It’s happening this season for Feliciano, and so he’s on his way to the Majors after parts of 13 seasons of Minor League play. That’s how baseball works sometimes, and it’s awesome.
And as exciting as the promotion must be for Feliciano, what it represents may be even more thrilling for Mets fans.
For one thing, Feliciano is very likely an upgrade over the man he’s essentially replacing, Gary Matthews Jr. If neither player is a great defensive center fielder and neither packs a punch at the plate, the Mets should at least carry the backup outfielder who might actually make contact with the ball with some regularity. Feliciano can do that; Matthews — who struck out in more than a third of his chances with the Mets — apparently no longer can.
During this season, the Mets have parted with “proven veterans” Matthews and Frank Catalanotto and replaced them with Minor League veterans Feliciano and Chris Carter. When “Major Leaguer” Mike Jacobs failed as their starting first baseman, they replaced him with prospect Ike Davis. When Luis Castillo went on DL last week, they called up 20-year-old Ruben Tejada and promised to give him the bulk of the playing time at second base.
If I spend so much time criticizing Omar Minaya and his administration for their past failures to maximize the production from the margins of the Mets’ roster and for their apparent preference for broken-down old players, I should commend them when it appears they’re doing things the right way. And that’s about how it looks now.
And while it would be easy to argue that several of these moves should have been made before the season even started or further blast Minaya for backtracking on his decisions without an adequate sample of evidence, well, whatever. What happened happened, and the important thing is that the Mets are making moves now to better the team going forward.
*UPDATE, 12:08 P.M.: I changed the language here, thanks in part to Carlos’ point in the comments section. I initially said “isn’t particularly good,” but I realized that sounds obnoxious. Everyone who succeeds in Triple-A is particularly good, because Triple-A baseball is an insanely high level compared to the level any of us could handle. And Feliciano makes a lot of contact there, which is a skill. He’s just not going to make the Hall of Fame, is all.
Tedquarters 
Now all they need to do is replace Tatis with Hessman before the 9 game inter-league road trip, and we’ll be all set.
and send Mejia to the minors to be a starter
Can we give this guy a little more credit than “When you make a lot of contact, sometimes a lot of balls fall in and you hit .385”?
There are tons of guys in professional baseball that make a lot of contact, and almost none of them hit .385 – just ask Sandy Grimes.
It sort of appears that this is the case for Feliciano this year, though — his BABIP is .406, which is 72 points over his career average. It doesn’t diminish his incredible season so far, but it honestly does appear that he’s just finding a lot more holes than he ever has on the balls he puts in play.
BABIP tends to be higher during a laser show
That’s also true, but it’s generally expected to be about 12.5% higher than a player’s line-drive rate. Feliciano’s, according to Minor League Splits, is 22.4%, so his luck-neutral BABIP should be about .349.
Making contact is a skill and Feliciano’s doing it very well; I’m really not trying to disparage a guy I’ve seen play all of five times. But guys who rely on balls in play are subject to huge variations in their level of performance, and it is often largely random.
I think everyone in the front office has a super-uber man crush on Fernando Tatis, and are probably obsessed with the fact that he belted two grand slams in one inning in ’99.
“Feliciano is not particularly good”. You could not be further from the truth. I have seen Feliciano play in for both the Zephyrs and the Bisons and he has been a solid hitter and good outfielder in both places. I would not make the comment you made of a player with good hitting and low erros. He is getting the chance he so well deserves.
I changed the language, in part because of this comment and in part because I realized it seems obnoxious to deem a guy not good before he even plays a Major League game.