Sunday, March 22, 2009

Lineup coming into view

It's been confirmed that the Jose Reyes experiment is over, and when the regular season begins, he will be batting lead off for the New York Mets. That leads to the next question, who's going to be batting behind Reyes?

Adam Rubin is reporting that the young Daniel Murphy will be the patient hitter the Mets tab to hit behind Reyes.

In 131 at bats last season, Murphy posted a .313 batting average and a .397 on base percentage, highest among first year players.

This bumps last year's No. 2 hitter, Luis Castillo, down to 8th in the order. This weakens the bottom of the order, but obviously strengthens the top of it.

Here's how a lineup might look with Murphy in left field:
  1. Jose Reyes -- S
  2. Daniel Murphy -- L
  3. Carlos Beltran -- S
  4. Carlos Delgado -- L
  5. David Wright -- R
  6. Ryan Church -- L
  7. Brian Schneider -- L
  8. Luis Castillo -- S
  9. Pitcher
I think this might be the best lineup the Mets can put out. I like the way it's structured with a switch hitting in the first, third and eighth spot. It is a little left-heavy, but if the switch hitters flip to the right side of the plate, they should be all right.

No comments:

Post a Comment