Mets OPS By Position

by James Kannengieser on Jun 3, 2009 12:30 PM EDT

Position	NL Avg	Mets	NL Rank
P	.361	.342	11
C	.742	.729	9
1B	.836	.809	8
2B	.752	.710	11
3B	.759	.880	2
SS	.717	.723	6
LF	.810	.857	6
CF	.774	1.024	1
RF	.779	.654	14

Where would this 28-23 team be without Carlos Beltran, David Wright, and Gary Sheffield? They've carried an offense receiving subpar production from catcher and the right side of the infield, and downright embarrassing production from right field. It's been a season to forget for Ryan Church, the main right field culprit. His isolated power (ISO), which is slugging % minus batting average, is a rotten .080 and Mets right fielders as a whole are at .076. For comparison, Luis Castillo's is .056. The Mets are still a respectable 5th in the league in runs scored per game. However, that won't last when (if?) Omir Santos and Wilson Valdez regress and if Daniel Murphy can't figure out how to stop hitting weak groundballs. The best we can hope for is that Beltran and Jose Reyes perform well when they return, and Omar Minaya adds a bat like Nick Johnson or Josh Willingham.

Some other items of note from around the league:

There's a reason the McCovey Chronicles tagline is "In play: Outs". The Giants offense is unfathomably awful, as their team OPS is .687. No amount of RsBI can mask Bengie Molina's .688 OPS, and broke-face Aaron Rowand has been the only standout performer. First baseman Travis Ishikawa is the Giants version of Church, slugging .336 as the everyday first baseman. Ishikawa has shown some promise in the minor leagues though, and is still just 25 years old.
Miguel Tejada is blowing up at the plate this season, hitting .362/.388/.546. Astros fans can't love that 2.8% BB%, and since his .367 BABIP is way higher than his career mark he should crash back down to earth pretty soon. I'll dare say his performance is unsustainable.
It's fascinating to look at stats for Rockies RF Brad Hawpe. He's absolutely mashing and has been the best hitting RF in the league. Then you look at his defensive stats, which are so bad they almost wipe out his offensive contributions.

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Comments

Really good stuff James,

I really enjoy looking at data like this but just too lazy to put it together myself, so many thanks.

I just want to point out that while our second base production has been weak OPS wise, looking at the make up of our main contributor, Castillo’s OPS is the silver lining. Luis has a triple slash of .285/.380/.340, since OBP is worth (debatably) 3 times SLG, while Luis’ OPS looks below average, he offense has been at 2004 level with a .330 wOBA.

Using the inferior metric of EqA (plus side being I don’t have to do any math,) Luis has an EqA of .271, all major leaguers manning the under-the-shirt-over-the-bra base have an accumlated EqA of .265. Meaning Castillo himself has actually been above average offensively, too bad his UZR has been less than impressive.

by Sokojoe on Jun 3, 2009 1:02 PM EDT reply actions

I wanted to do this with wOBA

but couldn’t find league average wOBA by position without doing some annoying calculations. Agreed on Castillo, his OPS is OBP heavy so it’s not as bad as it looks. +/- agrees with UZR on his defense so far, unfortunately. Projected over a full season he looks to be about a 1 WAR player, which isn’t great but I guess an improvement over the 2nd base situation last season.

by James Kannengieser on Jun 3, 2009 2:25 PM EDT up reply actions

by James Kannengieser on Jun 3, 2009 2:32 PM EDT up reply actions

murphy

ok, good, my eyes aren’t fooling me, it isn’t just an unlucky babip and those are some weak-ass worm-killers he is hitting. And frankly, I doubt the worms are too worried either.

by wobatus on Jun 3, 2009 1:21 PM EDT reply actions