Let’s see what we’ve got in the outfield:
Cespedes in left. Lagares in center. Granderson in right.
No, Conforto in left. Cespedes in center. Granderson in right.
Wait, Cespedes doesn’t want to play center. As dinged up as he’s been, and given how important it is to keep him in the lineup, it’s probably best to accede to his wishes.
Though he’s supposed to be in center tonight. But not much more after tonight.
Cespedes has such a great arm. He showed it off Monday night. It’s a perfect right fielder’s arm. But he wants to play left, where he’s really good…though he made a bonehead play there in the same game that he made the great throw.
He tends to make those bonehead plays in center.
So Cespedes is in left. Which is where Conforto played before being sent down. He wasn’t great at it, but it was the position he knew how to play best.
Like with Cespedes, we’re mostly concerned that Conforto hits. He hit in Vegas. He hit to the opposite field in the Mets’ last-chance, mostly useless ninth-inning rally just before the Mets lost Monday night’s mostly useless game to the Cubs. That was useful to see. Along with Cespedes’s early throw to nail a runner at home, and Flores’s homer, Conforto showing he had honed his approach while at Triple-A represented the highlight of the game.
We shouldn’t overlook Lugo’s solid relief, either, though when you identify “Lugo’s solid relief” as a highlight, it’s probably a bad sign for the night overall. No offense to Seth Lugo [1], but I actually forgot he was on the active roster.
Anyway, can Conforto play center? Can he play right? He played a little right in Vegas, didn’t he?
What about Granderson? Granderson used to be a center fielder. As is, he’s a really good right fielder, except for throwing. He throws like a barely adequate left fielder, which is the opposite of Cespedes, who’s primarily a left fielder, who throws like a really terrific right fielder. He throws well from center, too, but he’d rather not play center.
Conforto’s not a center fielder, but he might be.
Which leaves Lagares where again? Lagares was the best defensive center fielder the Mets ever had for a couple of years, then not much of anything offensively or defensively last year when he was hurt, lately better at both, even though he’s been battling his own injuries.
Lagares should be in center most of the time. Unless you can convince Cespedes to go back there. Or get Conforto used to it. Or get Granderson over there from time to time. Or make room for Nimmo.
Oh wait, Nimmo is back in Vegas. Lugo is here, Nimmo isn’t. Nimmo will be back soon, I imagine, though where he’ll play doesn’t seem obvious.
Same could be said for Flores, who hits when he starts, which isn’t often. Wasn’t there some talk at some point of trying Flores in the outfield? That ended quickly.
Come to think of it, didn’t they say something similar about Reyes, that he was going to play some third, some short, some second, some center, even though all he had ever played was short and a bit of misguided second a long time ago? Reyes somehow became the everyday third baseman at the same instant Flores became red hot.
Reyes has played a pretty good third base, but the leadoff catalyst element of his game has been a work in progress. Then again, neither Granderson nor Lagares nor Nimmo, albeit in a small sample size, was setting the top of the order on fire.
So Reyes isn’t playing the outfield, which is OK, since he’s not an outfielder and we have plenty of outfielders, but it seems to cramp Flores’s playing time. Flores isn’t an outfielder. He was a shortstop most of last year who was moved to third this year when Wright got hurt, and he occasionally plays first, but not much, because we have Loney. Plus Walker and Cabrera, who play Flores’s other positions, never sit. Walker, I heard, could play some third, but he hasn’t yet. Also, Johnson can play everywhere but never plays anywhere anymore.
That’s Kelly Johnson [2], in case you’d lost track of him. I have to admit I did. I saw “Johnson” was pinch-hitting last night, and for a moment I wondered who Johnson was.
Johnson didn’t get a hit. The Mets got only six hits. One of them was Flores’s home run, which came with nobody on. The Mets lost, 5-1 [3]. They have lots of potential outfielders. They could use more actual hitters.