Byrd is the word — thoughts on the Mets’ second half

How much is a 36-year-old outfielder worth to a team looking for an extra bat? That’s the question that the Mets should try to answer over the next couple of days in respect to Marlon Byrd.

Here are the top 15 outfielders ranked by RBI (from ESPN):

RK	PLAYER	TEAM	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	WAR
1	Jay Bruce	CIN	420	62	115	30	1	22	73	3	3	31	128	.274	.323	.507	.830	3.5
2	Domonic Brown	PHI	373	51	101	17	4	24	69	8	1	25	76	.271	.316	.531	.847	3.1
3	Carlos Gonzalez	COL	377	71	112	23	6	26	67	19	2	41	114	.297	.366	.597	.963	4.7
4	Michael Cuddyer	COL	318	51	105	22	1	17	60	7	1	35	62	.330	.398	.566	.964	1.9
5	Marlon Byrd	NYM	320	46	90	17	3	17	59	2	3	20	101	.281	.326	.513	.838	3.1
6	Carlos Beltran	STL	356	53	106	13	3	19	56	2	1	19	66	.298	.332	.511	.844	2.0
7	Andrew McCutchen	PIT	382	61	115	27	2	14	55	21	5	40	65	.301	.373	.492	.865	5.3
8	Alfonso Soriano	CHC	362	47	92	24	1	17	51	10	5	15	89	.254	.287	.467	.754	0.7
	Hunter Pence	SF	411	55	114	24	4	14	51	14	0	26	71	.277	.320	.457	.778	2.4
	Carlos Gomez	MIL	366	58	112	23	9	17	51	26	4	18	96	.306	.347	.557	.904	6.8
RK	PLAYER	TEAM	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	WAR
11	Matt Holliday	STL	317	64	84	16	1	13	47	3	1	38	53	.265	.349	.445	.794	0.2
	Justin Upton	ATL	365	61	91	16	2	16	47	6	1	51	104	.249	.343	.436	.778	0.8
13	Carlos Quentin	SD	274	42	76	21	0	13	45	0	0	31	55	.277	.365	.496	.861	2.0
14	Nate Schierholtz	CHC	281	40	78	23	3	14	43	5	2	22	50	.278	.339	.530	.869	1.8
15	Jayson Werth	WSH	269	47	82	9	0	15	42	4	0	29	63	.305	.374	.506	.880	2.1

Yes, Byrd is having as good a season as Carlos Beltran and Hunter Pense and a better season than Matt Holliday, Justin Upton Carols Quentin and Jayson Werth. He is having a better season than the entire Yankee outfield, a better season than the entire Red Sox, Rangers, Braves and Athletics outfields, as well.

The Mets, with Byrd, are going nowhere. At the same time, they need to find out whether guys like Juan Lagares can play at the Major League level and they need to make a real decision on Ike Davis at first, which means they need somewhere for Josh Satin to play. Byrd, in this setting, is a luxury.

True, he is having a career year — his career high in home runs is 20, which he should blow by, and in RBI is 89, which he has a shot to surpass. But he is not the Mets’ future. That belongs to the young pitchers, possibly to Ike and Tejada (no guarantees, but they deserve a final chance to prove themselves), and to a few others. Byrd’s usefulness to the Mets now is to keep the offense competitive, but his value might be greater if they can use him to pry away a prospect or two from a contender.

The same may go for John Buck, though his experience may have some value in terms of how he helps Harvey, Wheeler, et al.

The upshot, I think, is that Byrd should be offered to teams like Texas, which has had trouble scoring runs, and the Mets should be open to offers for everyone aside from Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler and David Wright (the face of the franchise) — along with Travis D’Arnaud and the crew of young arms likely to be hitting the Major League roster in the next year or two.

***

A final thought: There are three players who have shown some promise but have either been maddening or injured in recent years and deserve a chance to show that they can be Met corner stones going forward: Ike Davis, Ruben Tejada and Jenrry Mejia. Davis has been in a season-long funk — though he has been a bit better in July (not great, but better). The problem is that this funk comes after he wasted the first half of last year. His second half last year, which allowed him to finish with 32 home runs and 90 RBI, along with his torrid 2011 start (he was killing the ball when he hurt his leg and then missed the rest of the season) and solid 2010 rookie campaign make it hard to give up on him at the age of 26. That said, Davis has to pull out of the slump. The Mets need to avoid bailing on him too early, but that does not mean the time will come when they have to say “it’s time to move on.”

Tejada is a more difficult one, because there never was an expectation that he would carry a big bat and because he is just 23. The problem with Tejada is that he regressed this year and not only at the plate. His calling card is supposed to be his glove and his head, but he has played stupid baseball this year and was among the worst defensive short stops in the game at the time he got hurt. There is no excuse for that and the Mets are right to wonder whether the steps backward he has taken this year are an indication that he cannot be counted on in the future.

As for Mejia, the Mets jerked him around in 2010, moving the then-20-year-old into a relief role with the big club, when they should have left him in the minors to mature as a starter. Now that he has recovered from arm surgery and on the heels of Friday’s dominant outing against the Nationals, the Mets should leave him in the rotation to see what he really can do. 

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