Dear Terry: Be Like Maddon

The Mets, coming out of the trade deadline, have a very strange roster. They’re carrying five outfielders—six if you count Kelly Johnson—yet all but Yoenis Cespedes are left-handed, and there’s no clear center fielder with Cespedes hurt. The infield looks more stable, but probably shouldn’t be, with James Loney and Matt Reynolds locked into regular playing time that they may not deserve, and Johnson locked into a strict backup role that gives away the value of his versatility, especially when paired with Wilmer Flores. At the center of the maelstrom is Terry Collins, who seems determined to run out the most regular lineup he can, with as few young players that he doesn’t yet trust in it as possible. It is easy to wonder how different this roster might look with a manager that leverages roster flexibility and has no qualms about playing rookies, like Joe Maddon.

The center field spot is going to be a defensive mess from here on in, no matter who the Mets play out there. Cespedes is a below-average defender there on his best days, and there may not be a lot of best days for his legs over the next two months. The best remaining defenders in the majors or Triple-A for the Mets are probably Alejandro De Aza and Brandon Nimmo, but neither of them is more than a fringe-average defender in center, so it isn’t like you’re gaining a ton by playing them out there … and neither should see more than the very occasional start down the stretch because the Mets simply have too many players that are better. Curtis Granderson used to be a center fielder (and a fine one) but he hasn’t played there more than occasionally since 2012, and his nominal appearances over the past few years have started to look really bad. Jay Bruce has only played one-third of an inning in center since his rookie season in 2008. Michael Conforto has played there some in the past few weeks, and might be the closest thing to a regular option the Mets have, especially because he needs to get regular playing time somewhere.

Cespedes, Conforto, Bruce, and Granderson all need to play a lot, both because they’re good, and in Conforto’s case he desperately needs the at-bats. De Aza really doesn’t need to play, but Terry Collins. I suspect an ideal outcome here is Cespedes playing as much center as he can—especially after this stretch of games in DH parks—with Conforto carrying as much of the secondary load as possible, in the same way that Maddon has stretched Jason Heyward and even Kris Bryant to play center when necessary. That still leaves whichever of Cespedes or Conforto isn’t playing center on a given day fighting it out in a three outfielders-for-two corner outfield spots situation with Bruce and Granderson. Maybe one of them could pick up a first base mitt?

I’ve been agitating for much of the season for one of the Met outfield options to pick up first base a secondary position. James Loney has done an admirable fill-in job, providing something slightly above league-average offensively with representative defense. He is, by and large, having the James Loney Season, with a couple surplus extra-base hits. But he’s also playing every day, and he’s not really good enough to warrant an inviolable lineup spot. There’s a reason James Loney was in Triple-A to start the season, and there’s a reason he was available for “cash considerations” when the Mets came-a-callin’. The Mets have been hesitant to expose an outfielder to first fresh, but they finally traded for an outfielder who has first base experience: Jay Bruce, who filled in over there for Joey Votto a few times in 2014. Bruce may not be Keith Hernandez defensively, but it would not be putting the inexperienced “fat kid” over there like Collins has steadfastly refused to do.

That still probably leaves a little bit of playing time available at first for someone else. Lefties, in particular, have eaten Loney alive over the course of both his career and 2016. Bruce is better than Loney against southpaws—mostly because he’s just a better hitter in general—but the Mets really could use a right-handed first base option even on top of spotting Bruce there. Wilmer Flores would be a nice fit, and has been used in that role, but his services are probably more needed at the hot corner. This is where Collins needs to take another page out of Maddon’s book and use Travis d’Arnaud more liberally outside catcher. d’Arnaud is already sitting a lot—Collins generally will not use d’Arnaud in a day game after a night game, and he’s been sitting for almost all of Noah Syndergaard’s starts and occasionally beyond that when Collins is afraid of the opponent’s running game. d’Arnaud’s future may ultimately no longer lie behind the plate full-time anyways, and the Mets have spoken of wanting to expose him to other positions for awhile now. Why not play him at first? He played there for brief stints in the minors in the Blue Jays system, as catchers often do in the minors to rest their legs. He got a first base glove in spring training in preparation for being used there this year, in those halcyon days where it seemed like between d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki that the Mets had so much offensive catching depth that they needed to find spots to play everyone. Why not play him there on days where there’s a favorable pitching matchup but d’Arnaud is sitting for reasons wholly not to do with the opposing pitcher? After all, it’s not like having your backup catcher elsewhere on the field removes him from going behind the plate like it does if you burn him as a pinch-hitter or elsewhere, as Collins is so often afraid to do.

The rest of the infield could also benefit from mixing and matching. The Cubs employ Javier Baez as a veritable swiss army knife these days, similar to how Maddon employed Ben Zobrist in Tampa. Zobrist is of course himself also in Chicago, and while he’s more of a regular second baseman now, Maddon has bounced him out to both outfield corners as needed. The Mets have two players—Wilmer Flores and Kelly Johnson—who are capable of playing this kind of role, and complement each other well as a righty and lefty hitter. Flores can play all four infield positions at varying levels of competence, and Johnson can play everywhere on the field but short and center. Yet in the absence of starting shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, it seems like Collins is simply using Flores at third base and Reynolds at shortstop regularly, ignoring that Reynolds, only a .279/.336/.410 hitter over about two seasons of playing time in hitting paradise Las Vegas, probably shouldn’t be playing much at all against right-handed pitching. A Johnson/Flores left side of the infield would be a defensive blow, but against most righty pitchers, it’s probably the best option, especially when the Mets start a flyball pitcher like Bartolo Colon or Logan Verrett.

Collins has not shown particularly creative lineup tendencies over his tenure with the Mets. The most creativity he’s shown is in not trusting his young hitters like Conforto and Flores to hit same-side pitching, and burying them in unnecessary platoons to get extra time for “veteran” options like De Aza, Justin Ruggiano. and Jose Reyes. But special times call for special measures. The Mets are all-out to claim one of the National League’s wild card spots, and have a roster that fits together more like a jigsaw puzzle than a straight, easy depth chart. Collins needs to start thinking like his bench coach and successor in Anaheim and start chasing every lineup edge he can get.

Photo Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports