New York Mets
67-89, 6th NL East, 26 1/2 GB
1972 Outlook: The last two years had been unkind to the Amazin' Mets team that won 104 games out of nowhere in 1969: two years sitting right around .500. The team is very stars-and-scrubs and the stars seem to be getting older and older but still... you think that one or two good breaks and the Mets can get right up there with the kings of the division again.
1972 In Review: The Mets started out sort of mediocre-like, with 5-7 and 17-23 records after the first two months. Things never get going well and by July they're fighting the Expos for the NL East cellar. It's pretty much a team effort: NY finishes 3rd worst in both runs and runs scored and in particular the guy they always counted on in the middle of the lineup, Josh Waltenbery, slips to a .245 average with 24 HRs and 78 RBIs. The starting pitching was baaaad, worse than the 3.74 ERA (9th in the NL) suggests.
1973 Outlook: This team is bad and doesn't really have a great outlook for the near future. It's past time to pack it in and rebuild.
Pitching
John Ratzenberger
RHP No. 20
RR, 6'0" 187 lbs.
Born 1947-06-13
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 TID AAA 4 8 0 3.34 18 18 1 113.0 107 48 42 32 105
1971 TID AAA 4 8 0 4.20 16 16 1 102.2 116 53 48 35 50
1971 NYM MLB 5 5 0 4.57 16 15 1 98.1 94 50 50 37 67
1972 NYM MLB 11 12 0 2.41 32 32 9 227.0 184 74 61 70 122
Ratzenberger is a weird guy who will tell you facts such as "dust is 70% human skin" when you talk to him. To us, it's friendly weirdosity; apparently it's very off-putting to his teammates. On the field, there's no denying his talent: Ratzeberger, or, as his nickname goes, "Cliff Claven" is the clear top man in the Mets starting rotation. He led starters in all the good categories: wins, complete games (nobody else on the team had more than 3), ERA... I guess the Wild Thing Ernesto Carillo beat him out in Ks but those Ks come at a cost (more on him later).
Ratzenberger turned the corner from a rough rookie season. Mostly he just stopped trying to strike everyone out and accepted life as the finesse righty that he is, with a nice cut fastball that creates some weak outs. He's 25 and will be called on to put in this kind of work for a while. On a good team he'd be a mid-rotation guy. He is not on a good team.
Ernesto Carrillo
RHP No. 15
RR, 6'6" 205 lbs.
Born 1944-01-31
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 NYM MLB 20 12 0 3.75 37 37 8 266.1 249 119 111 150 267
1971 NYM MLB 21 10 0 3.16 39 39 8 289.2 219 109 102 156 252
1972 NYM MLB 9 15 1 4.02 32 30 3 208.0 160 105 93 145 186
Carrillo is basically Nolan Ryan and I'll be honest, I just plain chickened out and sent David Camacho to the Angels over the offseason instead of this guy. The OOTP gods did not like this and took the man's control from bad to worse: even though he led the league in Ks per 9 innings with 8.0, he allowed a career-high 6.3 walks per 9 which meant that even with a much lower innings pitched total, Carrillo led the league in walks for the second consecutive season.
"The Wild Thing" is, as you might have guessed, one of the hardest throwers in the league and is absolutely unhittable when he's on. That's kind of the issue: when he's even a little bit off, his pitches, which include a devastating cut fastball, are unlocateable too. Carrillo also had 22 wild pitches, his 2nd time in 3 years he topped 20 and also the 2nd time in 3 years he gave up that many (he threw 26 of them in 1970). As a result of all of this, he carried an ERA over 4 pretty much the entire season. Even at that, it's tempered somewhat by only allowing 1 run in 8.2 IP in October (1 start, 1 game in relief).
Carrillo also has a reputation for not being too bright. Maybe this is just people seeing a guy who throws nothing but fast (to be fair, he has learned some slow-ball pitches over the years including a circle change); we've heard from his teammates that no, he's actually kind of dumb.
Trevon Dean
RHP No. 10
LR, 6'2" 187 lbs.
Born 1942-02-28
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 ATL MLB 15 13 0 4.78 34 33 6 229.2 239 139 122 99 129
1971 ATL MLB 8 7 0 4.47 32 19 2 148.2 145 78 74 57 62
1972 NYM MLB 5 11 0 4.25 22 20 2 137.1 141 69 65 50 44
This is how desperate things got for the Mets last season. Dean, who has pretty much always been a guy who got wins with the Braves in spite of high ERAs, was cut by the club out of spring training. It was the Mets who reached out to him at the end of May and he did pretty much what he'd done with the Braves for the previous 4+ years, only this time without the run support that got him all those cheap wins. Somehow this still made Dean the 3rd best starting pitcher on the staff.
Dean is another guy who, like Ratzeberger, doesn't make a lot of friends for himself in the clubhouse. If you ask him, everyone is against him, and if you ask his teammates, nobody wants to be around him, especially when he loses. And for a guy who likes to blame anyone but himself for those losses, he sure relies on his defense a lot to bail him out: last year he struck out just 2.9 men per 9 innings, a career low.
At this point the Mets will probably keep him around because he's about all they have. I can't see him being a long-term answer for this or any other ballclub.
Josh Mullett
RHP No. 65
RR, 5'11" 200 lbs.
Born 1944-05-29
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 HOU MLB 14 11 0 4.21 35 35 6 228.1 222 119 107 127 115
1971 HOU MLB 15 14 0 4.44 39 30 4 220.2 242 124 109 111 107
1972 CIN MLB 1 4 0 6.79 13 6 1 51.2 51 39 39 41 25
1972 NYM MLB 3 1 0 3.24 5 5 1 36.0 26 13 13 12 14
Speaking of desperation signings... Mullett was released by the Reds in mid-June after getting off to a start even worse than the ones he'd gotten off to in Houston previously. Like Dean, Mullett is a guy who made his name off of being on a team who liked to score runs behind him. He's probably got a bit more stuff left in the tank than Dean, just based on last season. Unlike Dean, Mullett, aka "Party in the Back" (note: the name in this case is OOTP generated; the Bermanisms are always my own) has had a really tough time with control in the past, leading the league in BBs in 1969 with 145 and allowing more than 100 of them in each of his three full seasons as a starter in Houston.
If you can get past that - although, why would you get past that? - you've got a guy who gets a lot of worm-killers with his 2-seam fastball and knuckle curve. He had a pretty decent 5 starts after the team signed him in September, possibly showing signs of getting his control under... control (then again he walked 7.1 batters per 9 in the 2 months that Cincy gave him). There's also the fact that Mullett just accepts what is coming to him - he abides, if you will. On a roster with several guys who, to put it plainly, don't do that, he might get a longer leash than you'd expect.
Geoff Saus
RHP No. 17
RR, 5'10" 200 lbs.
Born 1941-07-09
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 NYM MLB 3 3 28 3.75 71 0 0 98.1 94 44 41 35 109
1971 NYM MLB 11 12 34 2.91 75 1 0 117.1 102 44 38 43 112
1972 NYM MLB 8 5 27 1.58 74 0 0 119.1 66 21 21 28 100
Although he earned the "Hercules" nickname when he was throwing darts for an as-yet-unheralded Mets team in the mid-60s, at 31 that nickname has never been more accurate. Much like the mythical strongman, Saus toils in quite desperation for an increasingly bad Mets team. He led the NL in games pitched in each of the last 2 years and now has more than 600 of them for this team in his career. In '72 he had an excellent shutdown-to-meltdown ratio of 37 to 7 but for what? To get his team to 67 wins instead of 62?
It's like this: he's an asset, the team is bad, and they need to trade him. Doing so will make the local fanbase scream in pain and horror and boy oh boy will the bullpen feel it, but we all know that this is something that has to be done.
Roy Holm
LHP No. 36
LL, 6'1" 200 lbs.
Born 1935-09-02
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 SF MLB 7 10 0 3.77 22 22 3 162.1 146 83 68 71 165
1970 NYY MLB 7 5 0 4.99 15 15 1 101.0 110 60 56 40 106
1971 NYY MLB 10 11 0 4.07 40 22 3 174.1 142 88 79 79 158
1972 NYM MLB 5 6 0 3.27 12 12 2 88.0 73 33 32 38 90
1972 NYY MLB 0 0 0 4.50 19 0 0 20.0 21 11 10 8 28
On paper it looked like a great idea: Roy Holm is a guy who brutalizes lefties, or at least should brutalize them, and if you use him an inning at a time you should be able to hide his big weakness, which is that he occasionally will leave one out over the plate for someone to groove. The Mets signed him in August after the Yankees released him - yeah, this team was desperate - and gave him 19 games to show what he could do in that situational lefty role. Holm wound up being about even vs lefties and righties and gave up 3 HRs in 20 IP.
Chances are the 37 year old will get another chance simply because the Mets do not have a lot of options. This is a team that gave the 40 year old Tom Owens, a man who hasn't been a consistent starter since 1967, 6 starts down the stretch this year (which, he somehow threw 2 shutouts): what I am saying is, the chances that Holm will get still another chance after all of this is still high.
John Mash
RHP No. 35
SR, 5'12" 180 lbs.
Born 1937-03-25
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 NYM MLB 12 10 0 3.00 28 28 9 200.1 188 76 67 53 115
1971 NYM MLB 9 18 0 3.93 36 36 10 253.2 258 116 111 86 136
1972 NYM MLB 5 9 1 3.75 28 16 2 117.1 111 51 49 23 45
I'll end the pitchers' write-ups on... I won't say this is a high note but perhaps it is an encouraging note. Or, if the team trades Geoff Saus away like I expect them to, a "oh no, why did this happen" note. Mash was the 1st overall pick in 1958, never quite cashed in on his potential in Milwaukee/Atlanta, and was shipped off to the Mets in the offseason of 68-69 for speedster Ruberto Yebra. Mash responded to this by pitching the best season of his career in '69 (15-10, 2.93) and was coming off his second consecutive All Star Game appearance when he was laid up with bone chips in his pitching elbow. In spite of a successful surgery to remove them he was simply not effective in '71 and in '72 he was just not winning a lot so he got switched out to the bullpen in July.
So... here's where I expected to say "hey, he really turned his season around" but no, the opposite of that. Mash was 3-8, 3.40 as a starter and had a 6.43 ERA as a relief pitcher, including 3 HRs allowed in 14 innings pitched. He completely wilted in high-leverage situations, allowing 21 hits in 58 IP (.362) with 4 HRs and 24 RBIs. Needless to say, his future is in the rotation. I'd rewrite this but hey, you know, I like to get my thought processes down on "paper" to help me make determinations like this.
Infield
Jason Bushon
C No. 9
RR, 5'12" 200 lbs.
Born 1943-07-07
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 NYM MLB 0.243 127 449 53 109 19 4 11 44 68 75 3
1971 NYM MLB 0.219 124 416 57 91 15 2 14 57 70 77 1
1972 NYM MLB 0.245 120 433 53 106 16 6 19 71 58 68 2
Bushon is another guy on this team whom the fans adore but wise pundits know they should be shipping off. Bushon is among the best catchers in the game and at 29 is still young enough to be a regular on the next good Mets team, assuming that happens in 3-5 years. He's also a big, big asset the team could use to acquire younger talent and, without falling in love with prospects here, seems to have a guy behind him in the organization who could also fill the role.
Bushon's quietly been improving his power since he came into the league and in 1972 hit a career high 19 HRs. That plus hitting 5th in the order for most of the season meant that he also set a career high in RBIs as well. He would be the Alvin Romero of an all-catcher league; his 6 triples were 8th in the NL and while he doesn't steal bases often, he does steal them, even getting a high of 7 thefts in 1969. Bushon is calm and collected behind the plate, a trait that works well on pitchers (well, not this pitching staff but then nothing works well on bad pitching). His one Achilles heel last season was throwing guys out: only 23.3% CS rate. A lot of that might have been the team telling the myriad veterans they signed over the course of the season to concentrate on the pitching and not the guys on base.
Bushon is a bit of a "me first" guy who, in spite of being a lifetime Met (he was drafted 5th overall in 1965), isn't likely to show them any loyalty if the players get their way and have "free agency". Why should these Mets show him loyalty in return, I ask? WHY?
Gerry Adams
C No. 49
RR, 5'11" 192 lbs.
Born 1948-11-02
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 BRK R 0.281 8 32 9 9 0 0 5 7 1 3 0
1970 VIS A 0.274 86 223 24 61 10 0 11 29 13 36 0
1970 PB A 0.121 20 66 2 8 0 0 0 3 5 9 0
1971 MEM AA 0.268 70 261 29 70 13 2 10 39 12 34 0
1971 TID AAA 0.303 32 119 11 36 7 0 3 9 7 6 0
1971 NYM MLB 0.302 17 53 7 16 3 0 1 10 3 5 0
1972 NYM MLB 0.297 46 138 13 41 6 0 4 21 8 8 0
One possible reason to keep Bushon in town - I mean, outside of the fact that the New York fanbase can and will riot at the news of his departure - is that his backup and heir apparent is... volatile at best. Gerry Adams insists he is not a member of the terrorist organization known as the Irish Republican Army, but the British government seems to disagree, interning him on the HMS Maidstone this past year (the organization got a special dispensation from the British government to allow him to play here... but will they do so in the future?).
Enough of the off-the-field stuff though. Adams looks like a legitimate high average hitter with a .298 major league batting average stretched across 2 seasons. He works hard and gets along with everyone, reputation or no reputation. Only stupid people would expect him to be another Jason Bushon, but he surely can be the team's #1 for a few years.
Joshua Waltenbery
1B No. 81
LL, 6'2" 204 lbs.
Born 1940-08-05
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 NYM MLB 0.296 156 571 83 169 42 3 19 83 111 96 1
1971 NYM MLB 0.313 154 588 112 184 41 4 25 99 91 75 0
1972 NYM MLB 0.245 149 518 71 127 18 1 24 78 96 79 0
The man Mets fans call "Superman" turns out to have found his own kryptonite: losing. That final statline doesn't look so bad but you should take into account that Waltenbery had a monster month of September with 10 HRs in 104 at-bats. Prior to that point it looked like he was going to hit around .245ish with the lowest HR output of his career. He snapped his consecutive All-Star Game total at 9 when he was not selected this year. After leading the league in doubles each of the past 2 seasons, Waltenbery couldn't even manage 20 in 1972.
Out of anyone who had a bad season in '71 on this team, Waltenbery has to be considered first in line for a rebound. He's still as good as ever at taking a pitch when it isn't perfect - this in spite of NY sportswriters getting on his case for not swinging enough when the game is on the line - and the 10 HR month, coming in garbage time as it was, is still proof that power still exists in the 32 year old's bat. He's slow as molasses but has great instincts on singles to the outfield when he's on base to the extent that he runs well above his weight... that just sounds like he runs like a fat guy. He's better than you'd think, let's leave it at that.
The Mets would love for Waltenbery to get back to the levels he at as recently as 1971. At the current level of production he's still an above average first baseman.
Bill Heyen
2B No. 23
RR, 5'11" 195 lbs.
Born 1943-08-31
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 SF MLB 0.256 144 589 75 151 16 8 0 40 44 84 10
1971 MON MLB 0.281 148 616 72 173 26 15 2 55 35 95 11
1972 NYM MLB 0.219 137 525 53 115 10 11 3 26 41 57 10
Heyen, on his 3rd team in 3 years, seemed to have forgotten how to hit once he arrived in New York in an offseason trade with Montreal (they sent back a trio of players including semi-prospect Danny Waters). After hitting .163 in April, Heyen got his average back up to .250 as of May 29, but then hit .224, .143, and .220 before semi-salvaging the season with a .258 September. The only plus for him, I guess, is that Heyen managed to keep his job throughout all of this. He's a very good defensive second baseman and he does a lot of the "little things" but more to the point, his backup was Adri van Zanten (.200/0/4), a guy the team had specifically moved away from because he's a really bad defender.
This seems blasphemous to say but one thing that accompanied Heyen's fall last year was a big dip in strikeouts. We like the added bat control and hit and run possibilities this presents but... maybe he should go back to his old whiffing ways? If he can't, one way or the other, find his old hitting stroke, the Mets had themselves a very interesting season in AA from 1969 13th round pick Mark Spitz (.268/3/38 with a .400 OBP at that level). It might be too soon for the 23 year old but this at least is a position where they do have some pressure.
Mark Hamill
3B/2B No. 14
RR, 5'11" 183 lbs.
Born 1949-06-09
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1971 VIS A 0.378 11 45 6 17 3 1 1 7 1 8 0
1971 PB A 0.264 15 53 3 14 1 1 0 5 3 5 1
1971 MEM AA 0.250 3 12 1 3 1 0 0 1 3 2 0
1971 NYM MLB 0.250 67 268 30 67 17 3 1 15 16 36 0
1972 NYM MLB 0.258 98 322 31 83 19 2 5 37 14 44 1
What kind of stupid nickname is "Luke Skywalker"!? It sounds like he's some kind of space alien or science fiction hero. The boyish Hamill, the 12th overall pick in the 1971 draft, was rushed to the major leagues because Nick Hawkinson aged in a big hurry (well, to be fair TOOO BEEEEEE FAAAAAAAAIR Hawkinson was 42 at the time Hamill was called up for the first time; I would not call that "a big hurry" except that I just did). In spite of having just 29 games of professional service, he looked OK in 1971, like a man who deserved to be in the majors at least, and started the year in a time-share with the elder statesman.
Hamill hit .194 in April of this year and, after a promising May, hit an empty .214 in June. Then, just as he was getting his season going in July, he missed a month and a half with a strained hamstring. He did come back to hit .274 in September and over the course of the season raised his average from a low-water mark of .193 on June 16th to the perfectly adequate .258 he ended up at.
Hamill's still at the point in his career where just looking competitive is enough in terms of promise. He need to cut back on the strikeouts to have continued success and a .289 OBP is not exactly making the stat nerds leap for joy. Scouts insist he's got good HR power but we've yet to see it in his limited time in the bigs. Defensively he's a good third baseman although not a good candidate to move leftward. Teammates say that even at 23 he possesses the kind of moxie that could lead to him doing things like learning telekenesis from a 900 year old green man and then accidentally killing his father. What am I talking about?
Danny Pellot
3B/IF No. 18
RR, 5'11" 180 lbs.
Born 1934-12-20
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB 0.257 77 214 18 55 8 4 3 25 18 45 2
1971 MIN MLB 0.285 71 200 20 57 9 3 2 12 20 30 1
1972 MIN MLB 0.234 39 107 10 25 3 2 1 12 9 18 3
1972 NYM MLB 0.298 19 57 7 17 4 0 1 8 5 8 0
The normally laid-back Pellot demanded a trade from the Twins, a team he'd been a member of since 1965, and instead they cut him loose. The Mets, because this is what the 1972 Mets did, signed him 10 days later and used him mostly as a replacement when Hamill was out. After Hamill returned, he got into only 12 games and 30 at-bats in September and October. He's reportedly not super-happy about the situation. As a 37 year old longtime vet, the demands we're hearing - he thinks he should be starting - are a bit misplaced but it's clear that this is not the time or the place for the guy. Pellot did show that he still can hit and get on base so while I doubt he'll get another chance to start, someone out there with a better shot at glory will surely want to use him as a backup.
Chris Adams
SS No. 25
RR, 6'4" 204 lbs.
Born 1940-11-11
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 CAL MLB 0.295 154 579 69 171 28 8 19 97 36 70 11
1971 CAL MLB 0.222 148 553 63 123 10 4 15 68 45 75 22
1972 NYM MLB 0.245 126 485 46 119 12 2 9 50 26 65 14
Chris Adams bounced back a little bit from a very disappointing 1971 season but the Mets were expecting a lot more, namely a return to that top of the lineup form he had in '69 and '70 when he hit .272 and .295. The verdict in '71 was that he'd fallen in love with the homerun and the chance to get 100 ribbies. '72 saw him make a better attempt at putting the ball in play, which cut his HRs down but did raise his BA to 9 points above the league average.
Adams was never more than a decent shortstop in his prime and at 31 he's beginning to slip. I'd say he should move to 2nd but the Mets already have a vet there. In the meantime, he's got a guy who wants to push him but... well, see the next entry
Rick James
SS/2B No. 11
RR, 6'0" 196 lbs.
Born 1948-02-02
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 VIS A 0.265 38 151 19 40 11 0 5 16 6 36 1
1970 PB A 0.224 27 98 8 22 0 3 0 11 8 24 1
1971 PB A 0.341 10 44 8 15 1 0 1 2 3 4 1
1971 MEM AA 0.242 108 368 35 89 15 6 7 34 19 79 5
1971 TID AAA 0.300 12 40 3 12 2 1 0 5 2 2 0
1972 TID AAA 0.319 39 144 19 46 10 0 7 29 7 16 2
1972 NYM MLB 0.168 33 95 8 16 1 1 2 7 8 11 1
James was anything but mighty mighty and while he has a reputation for letting it all hang out, that was not enough last year. The 3rd round pick in the 1970 draft looked really nice in 39 games in AAA, nice enough to get a long look late in the season, but he hit well below the Timonen line. Scouts think he's more of a .270 hitter, so split the difference between his 1971 showing in AAA and what he did in Tidewater the last 2 years (and just ignore the majors I guess). As a fielder he's only roughly equal to Adams; there is a *little* room to improve but it's clear he'll ever have the range to be a glove wizard.
Outfield
Ethan Keesee
OF No. 22
LL, 6'1" 201 lbs.
Born 1947-07-22
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 ARK AA 0.338 126 497 79 168 21 11 6 42 42 40 20
1971 ARK AA 0.351 14 57 9 20 3 1 1 6 4 9 2
1971 TUL AAA 0.261 68 249 27 65 6 1 2 19 15 21 10
1971 STL MLB 0.358 43 106 15 38 3 2 0 8 6 6 9
1972 NYM MLB 0.258 97 302 36 78 7 2 5 24 25 36 11
Keesee was never going to repeat the .358 average he hit in 106 at-bats for the Cardinals last year; in fact, he pretty well established himself as a guy who'd hit in the .250s from the get-go. It was still pretty OK, all told, especially for a team with gaping holes elsewhere on the roster. He's decent with the contact and I guess to be fair TOOO BEEE FAAAAIR he has a history of hitting in the .300s in other stops along the way. The Mets platooned him for all last year but the small sample size of 27 at-bats indicates that maybe he's worth playing full-time.
Keesee's big selling point is his speed. He stole 20 bases for the Arkansas Travelers in 1970 and could get up there with playing time in the majors. He's got the bat control to hit 2nd in the lineup. Keesee knows how to lay down a bunt and can get his way on base with them as well, which might make his power numbers look not as exciting as he's capable. In the field that speed doesn't really translate into good enough range to play center although he's a plus at either corner position (his hitting might get in the way of playing in LF or RF longterm though).
Keesee is still only 25 and while I think at this point what you see is what you get, it's more than possible that he's got some contact potential waiting to be hit.
Gabe Martinez
PH/OF/1B No. 24
SR, 6'3" 200 lbs.
Born 1942-06-15
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MON MLB 0.265 124 325 27 86 14 2 2 31 19 57 4
1971 MON MLB 0.282 101 170 16 48 10 2 1 16 14 24 2
1972 NYM MLB 0.260 102 169 15 44 8 0 1 18 6 26 2
Martinez is back with his original team after 3 years away. He has a history now of hitting in pinch roles well enough to make his parent club think he's ready to start or at least to enter into a platoon setup, only to disappoint in a bigger role. At that, when he hits in that .260-.280 range it's kind of an empty .260-.280, which is really good in late and close situations where you're hitting for the pitcher and everyone just wants you to get a base hit, but not so great if you're in the lineup every day. This year Martinez didn't play a lot against lefty pitching but hit .286 against them, which further complicates the case for platoons.
Martinez can use his height to get long throws at first base but if you put him at first you've got other issues, quite frankly. He's decently fast as a runner. That does not translate into any kind of outfield range and at this point in his career he's just a liability whenever he plays anywhere in the field except first.
Expectations are low for the 30 year old. The Mets may not be in a position to want to give up a roster slot to a luxury such as a full-time pinch-hitter.
Curtis Hope
CF No. 21
LR, 6'0" 190 lbs.
Born 1945-10-16
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 NYM MLB 0.259 146 567 93 147 17 13 18 79 89 163 21
1971 NYM MLB 0.287 152 565 80 162 33 8 22 85 67 109 11
1972 NYM MLB 0.211 145 508 55 107 21 4 7 46 56 130 22
Hope had what everyone hoped would be a breakout season at age 26 in 1971 when he set career highs in average, HRs, and RBIs, and seemed to have overcome his issue with the strikeout to become the superstar people thought he could be. The Ks came back with a vengeance in 1972 - he led the league in the category - and with them, his average tumbled by 66 points. The Mets even toyed, if briefly, with the Swedish decathlete Kjell Isaakson; that experiment came to a pretty abrupt end when Isaakson hit .149 in 67-at bats.
Hope covers a lot of ground and is a good centerfielder. In spite of the fact that he hit 5th or 6th for most of the year, Hope is very fast and wound up 5th in the league in stolen bases and 3rd in triples. He's shown a great ability to take balls in the past but started swinging at the first pitch more often last year and the tradeoff - fewer walks but also fewer strikeouts - did not swing back all the way when the Ks returned. Hope is a guy who prefers to have a set role and the moving around in the order so much (he had 110 at-bats in 5th, 181 in 6th, but another 220 everwhere else from 2d to 8th) might have gotten under his skin.
The Mets are very hopeful - some would say desperate - for Hope to return to his '71 form. If he can't, his long-term future with the club might be in jeopardy.
Barry Cooper
RF No. 5
LR, 5'11" 183 lbs.
Born 1943-07-20
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 SF MLB 0.319 158 653 95 208 35 7 8 62 45 39 29
1971 SF MLB 0.258 109 445 44 115 14 2 3 34 27 59 20
1972 SF MLB 0.340 14 53 5 18 4 2 0 6 7 4 3
1972 NYM MLB 0.259 128 514 48 133 17 5 5 44 24 60 15
When incumbent Jimmy Washington went down with a torn PCL in his knee in early May, the Mets, not considering themselves to be out of the race just yet, acquired Barry "The Ritz" Cooper from the Giants in exchange for Charlie Bechtel and a whooole lot of cash. Cooper had hit .300 or better for 4 consecutive years before slumping to .258 on a bad team where he was being asked to be everything and everyone. The Mets paid the price thinking that he'd be able to get back to those former levels; instead, he showed that 1971 might just be his true level of talent.
Cooper still has all the speed he had when he stole 29 bases in 1970. It's the getting on base that's the issue. He's got decent enough bat control but for a guy with his kind of speed he sure hits a lot of weak popups. The Mets will be working with him to recapture that stroke; if he can't find it, that opens up a spot for old Jimmy Washington.
Jimmy Washington
RF No. 32 LL, 5'11" 200 lbs.
Born 1943-04-25
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 NYM MLB 0.257 148 572 68 147 34 1 19 100 44 80 0
1971 NYM MLB 0.254 119 456 62 116 22 1 17 66 29 69 0
1972 NYM MLB 0.100 17 50 3 5 0 0 1 1 8 4 0
Washington had always chafed at being known as Joshua Waltenbery's sidekick, his Jimmy Olsen if you will. In 1972 he blew the cover off the ball in spring training - 8 HRs in 91 at-bats and announced to the world that he was going to be the leading man in 1972. Instead, he got off to a terrible start, hitting just 5-50 in his first 17 games, and then on May 9 went down for the season with a leg injury. Now his entire career is in doubt.
Before the injury, Washington was a big RBI man, drivig in more than 100 men in '69 and '70 and getting to 95 in 1967. He's exactly what you want from a middle of the order hitter - well, generally you'd like more power, but when you bring home those runners, that makes you the man. He missed 40 games in 1971 or else he'd have been right up there with those totals again. Speed-wise, he's more of a guy who drives you in rather than the other way around. His arm is why he plays in right field and should the team decide to break camp with both him and Cooper in the same outfield, "The Ritz" is the more likely bet to move over into left.