Strong up the Middle?

Jerry Manuel made an excellent point yesterday about the value of interior defense, and most people will tell you that defense "up the middle" is more crucial than the exterior positions. "Up the Middle" includes 4 positions: Catcher, SS, 2B and CF.

Amazingly, we have a void in almost all of those positions. Carlos Beltran is a great CF, but will miss quite some time to start the year. Is Gary Matthews Jr. a strong defensive CF? Not even close. How about Angel Pagan? Probably not.

Luis Castillo, who is an experienced 2B, is no longer a good one. His range is sorely lacking and he does nothing exceptionally well defensively. His wheels have always been his only plus and with those gone so is his game. His UZR/150 has been in decline for years now, and he posted a career worst -12.0 last year.

At catcher, we have Henry Blanco, who has soft hands and a strong arm, but he doesn't strike me as an incredibly mobile catcher. He's also going to be 38 this year and that wont help him defensively. Visions of Jake Taylor (from the movie Major League) icing his knees come to mind. I'm picturing that most excellent sequence where Jake Taylor and Lou Brown exchange words about Jake's physical condition, but with Blanco and Manuel taking their place:

Jerry Manuel: Hey, Henry. Hows the knees holding up?

Henry Blanco: Great! Never been better.

Jerry Manuel: Mobility's good? No problem getting off the throw to second?

Henry Blanco: No problemo.

Jerry Manuel: I need a catcher, Henry. Someone who can lead this team on the field. But I want the absolute truth, here, are you one-hundred percent?

Henry Blanco: Yeah, would I bullshit you about something like that?

Jerry Manuel: You better ... if you wanna make this team.

Omir Santos has some limitations defensively as well, ranging from a mediocre (at best) arm to poor pitch selection management (according to the Mets front office). Our other options are Chris Coste (a utility player that catches) and Josh Thole (a position player that just recently converted to catcher). I'm not stricken with confidence in out catching defense, although I do feel we have enough options to avoid defensive embarrassment at the position.

And then there is Jose Reyes. People love to praise Jose as a talented shortstop, but Reyes is no where near as good defensively as most fans think ... and when you factor in his amazing speed and very strong arm, he's actually a disappointment defensively because despite being quicker, faster and stronger than most shortstops, his actual performance is average.

His one plus year defensively as a shortstop was in 2007, when he had a 7.5 UZR. In pretty much all of the other seasons, he has been around average, and last year he was actually bad, a -1.9 UZR (which would have been on pace for a -9.4 UZR had he played an entire season that way). I'll assume that was a sample size issue, but no matter how you shake it, unless he reverts to his 2007 form, he's nothing special with the glove.

To give you an idea of what better fielding shortstops give you as far as UZR, look at the leaders. Jack Wilson had an UZR/150 of 20.4. Adam Everett was a 13.6. Cesar Izturis was a 14.1. Even Derek Jeter, who had been a negative UZR for almost all of his career, had a breakout season last year and posted a solid 8.4 ... which is better than any year Jose Reyes has had in the field. Jose generally comes in around the top of the bottom 3rd of regulars defensively.

So it's safe to say that between Jose's averageness, no real strong (and young) defensive catcher, a well below average 2B and weak defense in CF (at least untul Beltran returns), that this team is pretty weak "up the middle".

To make matters worse (and add fuel to the fire) consider that we have Daniel Murphy playing first base (out of position, converted, and young) and Jason Bay - an outfielder known for his bat not his glove/range - in left field. Franceour is a fair right fielder, and David Wright had a horrible year defensively last year (-13.2 UZR/150) despite a few solid years before that.

Conclusion: It's safe to say that this team as currently constructed, supposedly built around pitching and defense, is somewhere between bad and average defensively.