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I agree with most of what you said, and that was an amazing stat on Piazza as a catcher vs. Piazza as a pitcher offensively this year (albeit a small sample).

I am not as optimistic as you on Reyes. If you take his major league at bats over the past two seasons and extrapolate them to a full season, he would have had about 17 walks over a full season. This would be about 4-5 walks behind every major league player who qualified with 500 ABs this season. That is flat out terrifying for a kid we have at leadoff. I also believe, as was touched on briefly in Moneyball, that once a player is facing major league caliber pitching it is usually too late to teach him plate discipline, even if he does happen to have the reactions, hand-eye, and other genetic/physical attributes it takes to lay off pitches an inch outside or inside.

Sure, if he hits .320 and gets the usual amount of errors that a speed guy will get, he'll still get on enough. But once major league pitchers sense he is impatient at the plate they will pitch him differently. And if he has to be moved down the order, he may lose the steal ops that he now often enjoys with the bases open ahead of him.

All this assumes, of course, that he stops getting injured more than John Kerry with a ticket home on his mind. Injuries can be bad luck (ex: Phil Simms breaking his thumb on a rusher's helmet during his rookie year). But the nature of Reyes injuries are "old man" injuries, stuff that a 21 (hmm?) year old should not be getting unless he is genetically predisposed to hammies and sprains and stress fractures. If he has six (or is it 8?) major leg injuries in two years in what would be his college years, what will he look like at 29 or 31 or 33?

He's wearing our laundry so I'm pulling for him, but I think any reasonable person should be starting to look askance at Jose Reyes.

BTW, I would have down the Soriano trade, I argued for it last winter on the ESPN boards, citing Soriano's record of 150 plus game seasons versus Reyes record of injuries.

RGJ -

My only real concern with Reyes is in regard to his injuries. His stats this year are marred by his bad health and lack of consistent playing time that resulted. He had an OPS of .768 last year at age 20. Do you know how many other 20-year-old shortstops topped that mark in their age-20 season (with at least 250 plate appearances)? Three.

Alex Rodriguez, 1996, 1.045 OPS
John McGraw, 1893, .866 OPS
Arky Vaughan, 1932, .787 OPS

Two of them are in the Hall of Fame, and the third will be one day. Other notable 20-year-old shortstops who didn't top Reyes' mark include Alan Trammell, Edgar Renteria, Gary Sheffield, Robin Yount, and Travis Jackson (ref: Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia).

The big concern is still Reyes' propensity for injury. Given good health, I have no such concern for his baseball abilities.

Like Wright, he is phenomenal for his age. I love Wright's plate discipline.

Would you be willing to bet your favorite appendage that Reyes isn't 23 or 27, ala Soriano?? :-) Might have to cut him in half and count his rings...

RGJ:
The Moneyball stuff about a hitter not learning plate discipline once they've reached the majors is just not true. As a matter of fact most young players don't take many walks but as they mature they become more patient. Carlos Beltran and Johnny Damon come to mind.

One potential rationale for keeping Floyd: It may not even be possible to move him for anything better, but what we could get in return could make us worse. That is, if all we're likely to get back for Floyd is somebody else's declining minor star who takes at bats away from the Victor Diaz and Brazill, or innings away from Yates, et al then aren't we worse off without Floyd?

Floyd's game, which was always been in his bat, is in undeniable decline. He's not hitting lefties worth a damn and his body is more broken down today than Rickey Henderson's will be 3 years from now. He's a platoon waiting to happen as you point out. But, he could be a reasonably productive, if a drastically overpaid, platoon player. (He's going to be overpaid - by the Mets - no matter where he plays next season. Most of his cost is sunk - period.)

My fear is that the market for Cliff Floyd the platoon player may present no better options than Floyd the platoon player, but LOTS of worse options. (There are many potential Mike Stantons out there.) I have zero confidence in the front office's ability to tell the difference.

Eric,

I agree with nearly everything you say but I am not entirely sure what the point of showing the Piazza 1B/C splits is. The way you present the stat seems to suggest that a player's position directly impacts that player's offensive production. Perhaps that is not the message you intended to convey, but that seems to be the only logical conclusion one can draw from those stats.

The proper framing, IMHO, requires one to look at Piazza's total season stats and evalutate those stats compared to other players at each position (C and 1B). The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that Piazza is more valuable as a C rather than a 1B.

Obviously it is somewhat startling that Piazza hit a whole better when he was catching rather than playing first base but I am not convinced that this is anything more than an aberation.

Also, on Soriano, I agree with you completely. I cannot understand the NY area journalists' obsession with the guy. They might want to look at his home/road splits (keeping in mind that the Ballpark at Arlington has the 4th best park factor in all of baseball) before treating him like the Mesiah.

Amit -

While outside the scope of sabermetrics, Piazza's C/1B splits might suggest that there is something else going on when he plays first. We're looking at a fairly even split of 400 at-bats, which is not overly significant, but also not quite insignificant.

Perhaps:

a) Piazza worries too much about his defense at first -- positioning, where to throw the ball -- and this overthinking is creeping into his approach at the plate.

or

b) The demands of playing at first are significantly less than those at catcher. A first-baseman can simply show up and play, while a catcher has to review film, stats, work with the pitcher, and otherwise plan out the game, pitch-wise. It could be that as a catcher, Piazza is too pre-occupied with those things to worry about what he does at the plate, and just lets his natural ability take over.

I realize these scenarios are mutually exclusive, and may be farfetched at best. Though, the more we stare at the numbers the more we tend to forget that these players are people, and are often prone to the same foibles as the rest of us.

I had initially assumed that the reason (if any) for Piazza's better production while catching was psychological or morale -- maybe he's sits out there at 1B sulking that he is an old guy in decline, while when he's catching he focuses at the plate trying to extend his HR record :-)

One other possible factor: my 14 year old son is a catcher, and I would bet he also hits better when he is behind the plate than playing center, his other position, but for tangible reasons. One is that he has a better feel for the strike zone being called that day (albeit more of a factor with amateur umps than pros), another is that although he is catching a different pitcher, you get to see the backdrop and the lighting that day, etc on pitches. Impossible to quantify, but I think those are factors.

Interesting stat about the 20 year old shortstops.

McGraw made the HOF as a manager, although he was thought of as a good shortstop.

Vaughn made it because of the Veterans committee

As for the other guy, I think he'll be OK. It's nice company to be compared with

RGJ -

I was actually talking about that very thing with a buddy of mine the other day. I think a catcher definitely gets a better feel for the strike zone, as well as just seeing pitches coming. This is not a tangible thing, but it definitely exists, and may be more meaningful than it seems.

I agree with most of what you say but the speculation seems to hinge on what free-agent they bring in this year. Between leftfield, rightfield and first base the team needs to add a body above the caliber of Richard Hidalgo. A Brazell-Floyd platoon at first doesn't strike fear but it may just be palatable and trading a prospect away just to take Piazza as a throw in is not a good idea in his walk year and for a team reluctantly rebuilding and completely out of the realm of possibilities when you factor in Fred Wilpon's immense desire to see Piazza enshrined with a Met cap upon his head. Besides who realistically have they to replace him behind the plate? Even in free-agency who would want to come to this mess among the few decent catchers available?
However dipping into the outfield free-agent class will deliver a deeper talent pool and with Victor Diaz deserving a clear shot to win one of the corner outfield spots in Spring Training the only logical question is who will man the other.
Of course with this organization there appears to be no logic or rationale with any personnel decisions so I suppose my whole rant is moot.

WHILE I BELIEVE I'VE BEEN A MET FAN QUITE A BIT LONGER THAN MOST OF YOU, SINCE '62. I BELIEVE PIAZZA SHOULD ONLY BE ALLOWED NEAR FIRST AFTER GETTING A BASE HIT. THIS MOVE WAS A DISASTER LOOKING TO HAPPEN. MIKE PIAZZA IS A GREAT HITTER; BUT A LOUSY ATHELETE. HE COULDN'T PLAY FIRST AS A 20 YEAR OLD. IS IT ANY SUPRISE HE WAS DRAFTED AS A FIRSTBASEMAN AS LOW AS HE WAS. THE DODGERS RECOGNIZED THIS FACT AND CONVERTED HIM TO CATCHER. A POSITION WHERE THEY FELT HIS TWO LEFT FEET WOULD DO THE LEAST HARM. NO WONDER HE WAS RETICENT ABOUT THE MOVE WHEN FIRST SUGGESTED. IF HE WASN'T ATHLETIC ENOUGH AT 20 HOW CAN YOU EXPECT HIM TO BE AT 35? AS TO REYES' PROBLEMS I'D LOOK INTO DIET AND BEHAVIOR I BELIEVE GROWING UP AS POOR AS HE DID AND COMING UP AS YOUNG(?) AS HE HAS LEFT HIS BODY NEEDING A SUPPLEMENTED DIET TO SUPPORT THE RIGORS OF MLB. THERE'S SOMETHINGS HE'S ALWAYS DONE OR EATEN THAT WERE OK FOR HIS PAST REGEMIN; BUT ARE LEAVING HIM EXPOSED TO INJURY. I'D STILL INQUIRE INTO THE AVAILABILITY OF SORIANO AND OUTSIDE (SEATTLE?) INTEREST IN KAZ.