Jay Bruce Makes the Mets More Mets
Going into this trade deadline season, you might have thought that the Mets could use a fifth starter, or a center fielder with good glove and bat combo, or a third baseman, but instead they went and got another corner outfielder when they traded 22-year-old infielder Dilson Herrera and another minor leaguer for the Reds’ Jay Bruce.
Since the Mets have an affordable $13m option on Bruce next season, it may be a look ahead in case Yoenis Cespedes opts out of his contract. But in the meantime, Bruce makes for an uneasy fit on this roster. Sort of. Because he’s also perfect for the team, in that he’s just like the rest of the team. He makes them more like themselves.
Assuming that Bruce won’t play center — and even his biggest supporters wouldn’t wish that for the newest Met — it looks like the team just acquired their fourth corner outfielder. Cespedes’ hamstring woes, combined with his, uh, lackadaisical play in center makes him a poor fit there. That leaves a combo of defense-first Juan Lagares (once he comes back from thumb surgery in six weeks), the aging Curtis Granderson, and young corner outfielder Michael Conforto to man center field.
You might think that it would be difficult to make the Mets defense worse, but overall they’re only 21st in the league by overall defensive value, 18th by Ultimate Zone Rating, and 22nd by Defensive Runs Saved. It can get worse, and this deal, even if you think that Bruce is more meh (-8 by ZiPS) than terrible (the worst regular outfielder by UZR this year), will make the defense more terrible. Even though August Fagerstrom found that some of Bruce’s poor numbers were definitely earned, the fact that he’s pushing their only good defensive corner outfielders into center field is the real matter.
And it does have the chance to make this bad defense demonstrably worse. Take a look at how the Mets currently match up to the rest of the National League in overall defense by Defensive Runs Saved, and then how their outfield matches up. Their outfield defense is a strength right now, somehow. On the backs of Lagares and Conforto, it’s at least not as bad as the rest of their defense.
By pushing Granderson and Conforto to center, the Mets will undo their lone remaining position of defensive strength, really. They’re currently fifth in the NL in outfield DRS, and that should get worse, even if you can spell the starters with defensive wunderkind Lagares late in the season.
There are, of course, mitigating factors.
For one, the team has been worse against righties than lefties at the plate this year. They’ve been basically league average against them, while their weighted offense has been 5% better than league average against lefties. For his career, Bruce is 15% better than league average against righties, and he’ll even out the lineup offensively.
Maybe the Mets are the kind of team that need defenders a bit less than other teams. They have the fourth-best strikeout rate in the National League, and keeping the ball out of the field of play is a viable way to mitigate the bad defense. But if you add up homers, walks, and home runs to get a measure of the ‘three true outcome’ nature of every pitching staff, the Mets fall to eighth in the National League. They don’t necessarily limit balls in play an incredible amount.
One last thing, though. Dave Cameron once showed that team context matters for things like on-base percentage and slugging percentage. In his piece he showed that adding a little bit of OBP to a bad OBP team moves the needle less than adding more slugging to that same team. Perhaps, if a team is already pretty bad at defense, making it a little worse may not be a big deal.
Certainly, Bruce fits the team mold on the offensive side. They strike out (fourth in K% in the NL) and hit for power (fifth in ISO in the NL), and Jay Bruce normally strikes out more than league average and currently has the fourth-best isolated power in the big leagues. Once you have a team character on offense, you might as well stick with it. Adding a spray-it-around line-drive guy like Martin Prado is not going to change the character of this offense in one fell swoop.
So Jay Bruce came to the Mets. And he’s so very Mets. And maybe that’s okay.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
I don’t care if he sucks – I love Jay Bruce and will miss watching him in Cincinnati.
I think this is more about the 2017 season than anything else.
I think this is an excuse not to re-sign (and therefore pay) Cespedes…in the winter the argument will be “Well, we have Bruce to pay LF” and they won’t even enter a bid on La Potencia.
They replace Cespedes at $25 million with Bruce at $13 million and say they’re good to go in LF.
Meanwhile, Grandy plays RF and Lagares in CF, with Conforto getting some time in each of the three OF spots (although highly ill-advised to play him in CF the Mets will try) and Conforto biding his time to take over a full-time corner spot in 2018 as both Bruce and Grandy are free agents after 2017.
What would have made a lot more baseball sense – and not just dollars and cents – is to go the extra mile for Lucroy. The Mets are dead in the water this year, I think, but acquiring Lucroy and having his above average bat, elite pitchframing, and (supposedly, from my limited reading about the guy) leadership skills behind the plate with Harvey, deGrom, Syndergaard, Matz, and Wheeler next year would be something.
But again I think this is about dollars and cents and the Mets front office / ownership sees a cheap replacement for Cepedes next year, and a prime excuse to the fan base as to why Cespedes isn’t needed: We have Jay Bruce!
you are probably right as far as him being a cheaper Cespedes. It does at least give them the fall-back position I guess, because they can opt out of Bruce’s contract for $1mil. Best option may be that Conforto rediscovers his hitting and can take over LF, meaning both Yo and Bruce are expendable. Short of that, they will hopefully make some effort to re-sign Yo. If successful, bye-bye Bruce. If not, hello Bruce, bye-bye Yo.
Strangely, in his limited (31 innings I think) time in CF, Conforto has been very good. Watching him play CF, I hold my breath every time a ball goes out there, but he has done well so far. Nevertheless, there is no reason that should hold up and it’s not a long-term solution. Not even sure it should be a short-term solution.
The dollar and cents argument gets a bit more complicated when you include finding a new second baseman for next year. I had always heard that the Mets intended to start Herrera next year. Now the Mets will likely have to find a free agent (i.e. more money) or settle for a less than ideal internal option (i.e. keep playing already mediocre infielders out of position).
The Mets have Gavin Cechini, former #1 pick with an .829 OPS at AAA, ready to take over at 2B. He is playing SS now, but seems destined for 2B (28 errors at short). The trade of Herrera I think speaks to Mets deciding Cechini was their future over him.
Ditto on Cecchini, or they’ve decided to stick with Flores. If you can get the kind of production he’s given of late from a 25 year old 2B, you’re in good shape.
I imagine Conforto is now insurance for Duda, and will learn 1B in the offseason.
As a Mets fan, [five minutes of heavy sighing]
As a Cubs fan, I want to know what their plans are for Conforto. Do the Mets even like him? At the beginning of the year, I liked him as much as Schwarber.
Physicals might hold this one up. As a Mets fan, I’m honestly hoping it does, but the price doesn’t seem too unreasonable.
How does one add up homers, walks and homeruns?
Percentages.
Not a fan of this trade. Cincy is a bit of a band-box.
Bruce’s career WRC+ is 117 at home and 99 on the road.
saw that too. Bruce has hit well on the road this year for what it’s worth. I don’t like adding him but I don’t think the Mets gave up much depending on who the other two players end up being.
If you observed Bruce mash SF pitching in AT&T park a week ago, the road concerns should be quelled. When he’s on, he’s among the best in baseball. Just hope he doesn’t fall into a funk. Among top 10 streakiest players in MLB
“If you observed Bruce mash SF pitching in AT&T park a week ago, the road concerns should be quelled. ”
I’m supposed to take a one-series data point over a career data set ?
That’s silly.
I’ll go out on a limb and say Bruce will never have a 30 HR season for the Mets. I’ll go farther and say Herrera will have at least 2 20HR seasons.
After a closer look, I have to give Bruce and Sandy an apology. His home / road splits are actually pretty good since 2013, despite being pretty bad overall.
I’ve always thought Herrera was pretty good, and also still sore about trading Fulmer. I was here a year ago whining about that too.
Judging a player’s offense on road stats is a terrible path to go down. Almost every player hits better at home. Not to mention the fact that the Reds play the majority of their away games at Busch (22nd most HR friendly this year), PNC (26th), and Wrigley (27th), which definitely skews the road numbers downwards.
There are plenty of reasons not to like this trade. The fact that Bruce is coming from GABP is not one of them.
Jay Bruce is having a career season this year (which makes sense – he’s in the prime of his career). His home/away splits have held up quite well in 2016.
Home: 253/314/538
Away: 277/318/582
Mets have the 3rd worst offense in the entire major leagues this year. I think they would gladly sacrifice defensive value for an uptick on offense.
This just gets worse and worse. Trading Dilson Herrera ? Just awful.
It really is a little incomprehensible. The Mets seem to have soured on Herrera a lot in the last year — until recently he was supposed to be a big part of the team’s future. The middle-infield plan for 2017 and beyond just got a lot more confusing.
I think the fact that the Mets have avoided giving Herrera chances so far has signaled to us what they think of him.
Yeah, this seemed pretty likely a week ago and now seems very clear indeed. Just why they think it, I don’t know.
I don’t that necessarily means anything. Plenty of players haven’t gotten their chances yet and are still untouchable. Texas just demoted Gallo for like the third.time, but they wouldn’t deal him.
And I imagine the Mets thought highly of Michael Fulmer last year, but hadn’t given him any chances either.
My best guess is that Flores is establishing himself as an everyday offensive player, and that they now see him as a 2B long term, making Herrera expendable.
Reyes is signed for 2017 as is Cabrera and even Wright is in the mix on the left side. Flores would be the 4th guy on the list for SS/3B, but he’s ahead of Herrera at second.
Michael Fulmer was in AA most of last year – Mets not calling him up was because he was still working his way through the minors, not because the Mets thought poorly of him.
Herrera on the other hand has had short call ups in 2014/15 and has been at AAA for 2 years. Both indicate that he *should* be ready. He’s already done his time in the minors. The Mets not giving him a more extended chance despite this is potentially very telling.
Well he wasn’t replacing Walker this year.
And don’t forget, Nimmo was the first offer, but the Crew didn’t like his physical.
My guess is that they got enamored with Bruce at some point and once Nimmo fell through, they decided that Flores has made the case to be the 2B in 2017.
I get a Jeromy Burnitz flashback from Bruce.
And amazing how the Rangers were able to get Lucroy AND Jeffress from Texas while the Mets couldn’t even get Lucroy alone.
I guess they’ve decided to go with Flores at 2nd next year, Reyes at 3rd, and Cabrera at short. And they’re probably ditching Cespedes.
Totally agree. If Milwaukee demanded Roasrio and we backed off, I’d be okay with that, but I don’t buy that that happened since they have a blue ship shortstop prospect of their own. Given that Cabrera and reyes are currently injured, I don’t get why we’d get rid of Herrera right now. Don’t even get me started on Jon Niese.