Mets try to jumpstart offense by shuffling batting order

[IE]

In the midst of a prolonged collective slump for his offense, Mets manager Terry Collins decided to shuffle the deck and change the batting order. Jordany Valdespin will leadoff, making it the most drastic difference for an offense that has averaged just 2.6 runs per game over its last 16 games (12 of which were losses).

"Obviously we are doing anything we can come up with to get this offense kickstarted," Collins said.

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Johan Santana will not throw again until January, when he starts playing catch. The lefthander was shut down for the season Wednesday.

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Collin McHugh will start today in his major league debut. He has split the season between the Mets' double and triple A affiliates. He was 2-4 with a 3.39 ERA in 12 starts at Triple-A.

Collins said that McHugh will have a ceiling of 100-110 pitches. Most importantly, this will help the club's evaluation of the 25-year-old righthanded pitcher going into next season.

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Collins said he still envisions that Jenrry Mejia will be called up in September and that they will try to "get him a start or two."

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As the season has hit a frightful turn, Collins has had to be a manager and more for his team. He said that he had a conversation this morning with a player about accountability and will have another this afternoon. He did not name the players.

He has also tried to make them remember the success they had in the first half.

"We were good enough for 89 games, we've got to find that passion."

METS

Jordany Valdespin
Daniel Murphy
David Wright
Ike Davis
Scott Hairston
Mike Baxter
Ruben Tejada
Josh Thole
Collin McHugh

 

[IE]

Consider that McHugh, 25, has very little left to prove at the minor league level. After posting a 2.41 E.R.A. at Double-A Binghamton this season in half a year, he's been effective in nearly as many innings at Triple-A Buffalo. As Toby Hyde points out, McHugh has improved each month he's pitched at Triple-A, too.

Interestingly, his E.R.A. is a bit lower than Matt Harvey's was at Buffalo, 3.39 to Harvey's 3.68, and his peripheral stats were virtually identical, with a slightly lower strikeout rate, 8.7 to Harvey's 9.2, and a lower walk rate, 3.5 to Harvey's 3.9.

How he got there was very different. He throws five pitches, but unlike Harvey, his fastball is right around league average. It is control of the five pitches that makes him useful, rather than a huge difference in velocity between them. In fact, McHugh is commonly compared to another intelligent Mets pitcher who gets by on average stuff, Dillon Gee.

It is a bit too optimistic to assume McHugh can replicate Gee's 2012 success, however. Gee routinely put up walk rates of less than three per nine in the minor leagues, and still took two years in the major leagues before he got his M.L.B. walk rate under four per nine. So assuming McHugh will come in and replicate Gee immediately is asking too much, probably, and there is the distinct possibility that McHugh won't make the leap forward Gee did in 2012 at all.

Still, McHugh represents one of the pitchers in the organization most likely to do so, and finding out some information now about how ready he is can only help the Mets.

After all, the rotation prospects for 2013 are R.A. Dickey and Jonathon Niese, who are pitching well, along with a host of questions. Santana hasn't been healthy or effective since June. There's Gee, who missed the second half of the 2012 season with a blood clot in his shoulder, making both recovery and avoiding recurrence potentially problematic. There's Matt Harvey, who has been very good in his 30 innings, but has pitched, after all, 30 innings. And there's Zack Wheeler, who has just three starts at Triple-A on his resume.

Even with a rotation filled with surer bets, pitching depth is vital. See the 2012 Yankees, or virtually every other major league team ever, for examples of starting pitchers getting hurt. A young, team-controlled option like McHugh succeeding is exactly what the 2013 Mets need to maximize whatever they're going to get from the rest of their roster.

So McHugh on Thursday is best for the Mets in 2013. And shutting Santana down is best for the Mets in 2013. That was true on Monday, too. Maybe, at last, they've been forced into the plan they should have been following all along.

 

[cisco]

Hell of a jumpstart. Zero runs