Why is Right Field a black hole for the Mets?

by BigAppleMetsTalk on Mar 21, 2011 1:30 AM EDT

In recent Memory Right field has been a position that the Mets have been searching to solidify, but continue to come up empty. Guys towards the end of the careers such as Shawn Green, Derek Bell, Gary Sheffield and Jeromy Burnitz have manned the position over the last decade. While the Mets have also tried their hand at some younger players such as Jeff Francoeur, Ryan Church and Roger Cedeno.

The Position has been a revolving door since Darryl Strawberry exited stage right in 1990. A lot of memories come to mind when I think of Right Field, most of them with odd twists to them. I remember the switch of gold glover Mike Cameron from center to right make room for Carlos Beltran, which resulted in a face to face collision. I also think about every time someone takes over the spot in right, how they mysteriously lose their stroke like Bobby Bonilla and Jeromy Burnitz. Or how they are hit with some freak injury like Ryan Church's concussion. Xavier Nady comes to mind as he had to be traded during a very good season, when setup man Duaner Sanchez was injured in a car accident at 2AM and was lost for the season. I also think about all of the young prospects who came up and never lived up to expectations once they were penciled in Right field. Guys like Alex Ochoa, Victor Diaz and Lasting Milledge were young promising players who seemed to fall prey to the curse.

Darryl Strawberry's last season as the Mets opening day right fielder was in 1990. Entering 2011, 21 seasons later The Mets have had 14 different players start in right on opening day. Players such as Karim Garcia, Butch Huskey, Carl Everett and Eric Valent to name a few. Going into the 2011 season things seem to be no different. Beltran will be the new right fielder if he is ready for opening day, if not, a new player such as Scott Hairston, Willie Harris or Fernando Martinez will get the nod. I can't seem to decide whether it is just bad luck, poor scouting or just really bad decision makers filling this position year after year. If I had to lean towards one of those it would probably be the decision makers. Going by the list of players that have played right over the years, most of them have been journeyman or players nearing the end of their careers. A lot of times the players become fan favorites because they are overachieving, but are never good enough to stick around. Other times they are just aging and unproductive or too young and inexperienced.

What is clear is that the Mets have not had an All-Star right fielder in over twenty years. Not to mention since Darryl left, they have not had a player start in right more than two years in a row. The corner outfield spots are supposed to be positions that provide power, something the Mets have lacked in right more often than not. For Whatever reason there seems to be a black hole in right field. I just hope that as we embark on a new decade, this new regime can bring some stability to the position that has been looking for it for 21 seasons.

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Comments

Why has RF been a black hole?

Because they keep putting shitty players there.

Save Jenrry Mejia!

by Ogre39666 on Mar 21, 2011 4:15 AM EDT reply actions

No, it's clearly a curse.

The Mets just aren’t meant to have a good right fielder… curses….

Kicking knowledge in the face.

by BlackOps on Mar 21, 2011 7:04 AM EDT up reply actions

Curse of the Strawberry

Any task BIG or small, Do it well or not at all

by Rickfansince76 on Mar 21, 2011 3:43 PM EDT up reply actions

If Beltran is fit to start in RF on opening day

then it is most definitely not a black hole.

by deadspy3 on Mar 21, 2011 7:11 AM EDT reply actions

Next in this series:

Why has 2B been a black hole?

What's the score, boys?
What did Bugs Bunny do?
What's with the Carrot League baseball today?

by StorkFan on Mar 21, 2011 2:58 PM EDT reply actions

Followed by

Why has LF been a black hole?

"He who gets the best players usually wins" - Bobby Bowden

by Russ on Mar 21, 2011 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Edgardo Alfonzo would like to remind you that 2B has not always been a black hole in recent times

by psiogen on Mar 21, 2011 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions

About the only exception.

My refutation is summed up as follows: the best second baseman in franchise history played just about as many games at third.

What's the score, boys?
What did Bugs Bunny do?
What's with the Carrot League baseball today?

by StorkFan on Mar 21, 2011 6:08 PM EDT up reply actions

Which, itself,

had been a black hole until he started playing there!

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.

AA Gamethread Embiggening Record Holder- 453 posts (10/03/10)
3rd Place- 2011 AAOP Contest

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Mar 21, 2011 6:52 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

The Mets have had other good 2B historically, though

Felix Millan, Wally Backman, Jose Valentin, Ron Hunt, Jeff Kent….just don’t look too closely at the likes of Doug Flynn, Ken Boswell, Greg Jefferies and Luis Castillo.

by psiogen on Mar 21, 2011 6:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Hunt and Millan were half decent

I’ll give you that. Backman did well as a platoon player. (Neither of the championship teams had a regular; there was a platoon both times.) And Kent was better than the fans thought, though his best years came after he was traded. I’m not going to count Valentin, who had one god year in Queens, and whose career was basically one good year every three or four seasons. I’ve said this before in other threads — while 3B has the notoriety of being a black hole, it’s been essentially a strength for most of the last 25 years — HoJo, Fonzie, Ventura, Fonzie again and Dubs.

What's the score, boys?
What did Bugs Bunny do?
What's with the Carrot League baseball today?

by StorkFan on Mar 21, 2011 8:39 PM EDT up reply actions

Depending on how we interpret that sentence,

Jeff Kent was the best second basemen in franchise history.

The Mets could have had a HOF 2Bman from 1992 through 2008. That would have solved that problem for only, oh, seventeen years.

by Brian Singer on Mar 26, 2011 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions

The New York Mets have been a black hole

Yogi on the 1969 NY Mets....." overwhelming underdogs "

by SuperSantana on Mar 21, 2011 9:38 PM EDT up reply actions

Giving up six first round, four 2nd round and three third round picks since 1999

to fill all the other holes we always have. Not to mention the staggering number of early round busts during the Phillips era when we had picks or his trading away of Carl Everett, Nelson Cruz and Ochoa, and his failure to sign Mcilvaines last draft class including David DeJesus.

We also failed to take back picks when we had a chance with Alfonzo, Floyd, Wagner, Castillo and Perez and usually got back nothing when the free agents we signed left.

Glavine’s the only one who ever left anything behind and that was just pure luck but because of it we drafted Ike and Holt.

Free agency is really a viscous circle. For instance we voluntarily handed our 2007 #1 draft choice to SF for Alou, then drafted two busts in Kunz and Vineyard and then one pick before our 3rd bust of the draft watched Florida draft Mike Stanton at #76.

Bad scouting, bad drafting due in a large part to having to weed out anyone after round one looking for a little enticement to forgo their 4th year of college because of these franchise crippling slot guidelines and the unbelievable number of mound washouts year after year that we have drafted have caused this dependency on free agents, which in turn……

As Joe Mcilvaine once said "free agency is a short term solution to a long term problem.

by t agee on Mar 21, 2011 7:16 PM EDT reply actions 5 recs

This.

It’s incredible how poor we’ve been in the draft pick department over the years. Now obviously a few of those picks we gave up were useful—I’d give up whatever we gave up for the years Beltran gave us again, for instance. However, the Alou debacle always stands out to me, considering that it was thought to be likely that the Giants weren’t going to even offer him arbitration (of course, Minaya didn’t give the Giants that option because the Mets signed Alou days before the deadline to offer arbitration, like you said willingly handing over their first rounder). And of course, we got lucky in the same way with Glavine. It was not a given that the Mets were going to offer him arbitration that offseason and luckily the Braves decided to sign him before the deadline. Had that not happened, that likely means no Davis (or Havens depending on if Davis would’ve lasted until the Mets pick at 22) and no Brad Holt. Don’t get me started on the Billy Wagner trade. Ugh.

Obviously the Minaya regime didn’t give a crap about developing minor league prospects, which is interesting considering Minaya’s supposed strength is in his minor league and international scouting. It just seems so idiotic to completely bypass an avenue like the draft and willingly toss out draft picks with ease. I mean yes, prospects are a bit of a crapshoot but drafting a high volume of talented kids is so important to the sustained success of any baseball team. That’s cheap labor for your team. But obviously we know Minaya’s shortcomings when it comes to his “understanding” of managing a payroll and contracts.

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on Mar 21, 2011 9:06 PM EDT up reply actions

It really started during the Phillips era.

Mcilvaine had gotten us from 59 wins when he took over to 88 in 1997 (on pace to win 93 at the time he was canned) with a 35 M dollar payroll and a net increase in picks (Reynosa) Immediately Phillips started dealing the prospects Mcilvaine had built up and while no one can complain about Leiter-Burnett and Piazza-prospects the payroll went to 60M and then he started with the draft picks. Ventura, Zeile, Appier, Weathers, Cedeno, Floyd and Glavine and then in 6 years of drafts missed on every single pick other than Pagan 4th 1999, Heilman 1st # 18 2000, Wright 1st #38 2000 and Kazmir 1st #18 2002 and that’s with 3 extra first rounders (Reynosa, and 2 for Olerud and could have had two more for Alfonzo)

Phillips also traded a lot of guys who could have returned draft picks like AJ Burnett and Jason Isringhausen.

This spending of so many draft choices, not getting any back and then blowing 6 drafts in a row, plus Duquette blowing his draft and trading away one of the very few players Phillips did hit on cost us a whole decade of players, who in turn could have led us to more players.

Our fortunes would have been so different if Mcilvaine hadn’t been short circuited after digging us out of “the worst team money could buy” in only 3 1/2 years.

by t agee on Mar 21, 2011 10:08 PM EDT reply actions

It's incredible how

despite all of that, we still made it to the playoffs in 99, 00 and 2006. Just think if we had a decent system how many more times we could’ve made it in that time period.

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on Mar 22, 2011 11:29 AM EDT up reply actions

'99 and '00 had a lot to do with the Marlins not only giving us their best players

but also taking themselves out of contention. Imagine how your chances of winning a horse race go up if your in the middle between 2 good and 2 two bad horses and one of the good ones stop running. Especially when coming in 2nd can be all you need.

That’s what happened. We got in by “winning” a game we weren’t even playing in on the last Saturday of the ’99 season and then winning on Sunday on a wild pitch walkoff against Pittsburgh. We then won the next day in Cinn in a one game playoff.

Having doubled our payroll in two seasons, traded away numerous prospects and spent a # 1 draft choice on “right now” you would think it might not have been left to chance for us in 1999 to make the post season.

2000 we added another 25% to the payroll, cost ourselves another # 1 pick to win 3 less games than 1999 and get another wild card.

Sure the playoff runs were great but in the end up we kept throwing money, draft choices and older veterans at it until we crashed because of all the borrowing from the future we did to get there in the first place.

2006 was a fun year too but it was also a year in which the Marlins gave us two starting players, the Braves had their first losing season in 16 years, the Phills were a year away and Washington was Washington.

The Padres won the west with 88 wins, St. L won the central with just 83. You have to ask how good was anyone else that year?

Clearly we cannot go through life contending only when the Marlins give us some good players, Atlanta has an off year or the NL is very weak overall.

That’s not really a case of good planning, it’s more a function of good luck.

That can’t be the plan can it?

by t agee on Mar 22, 2011 12:09 PM EDT reply actions

Wow

I feel like I just read the plot summary to “Inception”.

"Intelligence is not a genetic predisposition. Think stupid!!"

by Wright of passage on Mar 22, 2011 10:07 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

?????????

What do all you guys do for a living ? All this info and so so gabbing about all the METS mistakes has got my head in a spin wewwwww wish i had all that time on my hands

by wojo SF on Mar 26, 2011 9:36 PM EDT reply actions