Is Ike Davis This Year's Dan Uggla?

Over the first two months of the season, Ike Davis stunk more than a zombie wearing limburger cheese cologne.  Through June 8, the Mets' first baseman was hitting .158 (29-for-183), with a .234 on-base percentage and .273 slugging percentage.  Just how bad are those numbers?  In 113 plate appearances, former Mets pitcher Jason Isringhausen had higher career numbers as a Met in all three categories (.196/.238/.299).  Yeah.  Davis was that bad.

But Davis isn't the only National League East infielder to struggle for an extended period of time over the past couple of seasons.  Anyone remember Dan Uggla's start with Atlanta last season?

Through games of July 4 last year, Uggla was hitting .173 (55-for-318), with a .241 on-base percentage and .327 slugging percentage.  Then he embarked on one of the most unexpected long hitting streaks in baseball history.  After his poor start, Uggla hit in 33 consecutive games.  From July 5 to August 13, Uggla batted .377 (49-for-130).  The Braves' second baseman reached base at a .438 clip and slugged .762.  Over the skein, Uggla also displayed tremendous power and drove in nearly a run per game (15 HR, 32 RBI).

That brings us back to Ike Davis.  After slugging the go-ahead grand slam last night against the Baltimore Orioles, Davis is currently riding a nine-game hitting streak.  In those nine games, Davis is smoking the ball at a .462 clip (12-for-26).  Davis also owns a .576 on-base percentage and .769 slugging percentage since June 8, driving in 11 runs over the nine games.  More importantly, he has shown better plate discipline, fanning a mere five times while drawing seven walks.  (Prior to his hot streak, Davis had struck out 59 times as opposed to 18 walks.)  This was not the case with Uggla during his streak in 2011, as he struck out 27 times but only drew a dozen walks over his 33-game bat-a-thon.

The Mets have been able to remain competitive in the NL East with their strong starting pitching and a tremendous ability to drive in runs with two outs.  But prior to June 8, they were playing winning baseball without a significant offensive contribution from Ike Davis.  That was then.  This is now.  And now is the time that Ike Davis is getting as hot as Dan Uggla was last summer.

The summer heat will arrive tomorrow in New York.  But Ike Davis has shown signs of heating up for over a week now.  The Mets will need Davis to continue his recent production at the plate if they're going to avoid melting this summer as they have over the past few seasons. 

The Magic 8-Ball Predicts The 2011 Mets Season

Spring has finally arrived! Can you feel it in the air? This is the time of the year when you can be excited about the better weather (only to find out that a nor'easter is coming), your fantasy baseball rosters (only to stop caring in July when you're in last place because you couldn't find any takers for Luis Castillo. Hey, it's not your fault that you believed he was going to be in the Phillies' lineup every day due to Chase Utley's injury only to find out belatedly that he was released prior to Opening Day.) and Mets baseball!

To prepare you for the upcoming season, we'd like to present our annual Mets predictions. As always, these predictions are conducted scientifically and are guaranteed to be accurate. How do we know that? Because we're using our Magic 8-Ball! So what say we grab this ball, shake it up and see what happens.


Sorry about that. I didn't realize you were so sensitive, especially since people rub you all the time. Anyway, here's our first question to you. What kind of season will Jason Bay have in 2011?


I see. Does that mean he will finish with 23 HR and no concussions or are you predicting something else?


Apparently, our Magic 8-Ball might have a concussion of its own. Let's move on to the next question. How do you see Brad Emaus performing at second base?


That's not bad, considering that Dan Uggla signed a five-year, $62 million contract extension with the Atlanta Braves during the off-season after posting his fourth consecutive 30-homer season in 2010 with the Marlins.


Well, hopefully, Brad Emaus can be a better defensive player than Dan Uggla. Now on to the pitching staff. Johan Santana will miss the first half of the season as he continues his rehabilitation and recovery from shoulder surgery. Which pitcher will become the staff's ace in his absence?


Why do you think Dickey will pitch the best out of all the starters?


Ahem. You do realize that this is a family-friendly blog, right?


Never mind. One more player question. Will Francisco Rodriguez finish 55 games this season, causing his $17.5 million option for 2012 to kick in?


Yes. What does have to do with the question I asked you about the number of times he'll be allowed to finish a ballgame?


Fine. Let me rephrase the question, if it makes you feel better. Will K-Rod get the 55 appearances required for his 2012 option to vest?


Hey, wait a minute! Now you listen to me! How come you get to say that while I was reprimanded for saying something similar?


Forget it. I'll just ask one more question and then I'll leave you alone. I have no idea why I consulted you anyway. I could have done these predictions myself. Anyway, how do you see the Mets finishing in 2011?


One rainout not made up? You're being very precise with that prediction.


On that note, I believe now's as good a time as any to wrap things up here. That concludes this year's Magic 8-Ball predictions for the 2011 Mets. Be sure to join us next year when I take a page out of Sandy Alderson's book and use a more cost-effective way to share our prognostications with you.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming Mets season. You don't need a Magic 8-Ball to tell you that.

Joey's Soapbox: Derek Jeter, Six Years Ago & If At Second You Don't Succeed

Greetings, fellow Mets fans! Winter will be officially over in a few days, which means two things.

First, I'll finally be able to finally put away my annoying poofball hat after a long, cold winter. But more importantly, it'll be time to hear the sweet sounds of Mets baseball at Citi Field, after what seemed like an interminable off-season.

Although my thoughts have turned to baseball bats, alternate caps and Shake Shack, there are still some things happening in the baseball world that I have to get off my hoodie.

I'm Joey Beartran and it's time for me to get on my soapbox.


Derek Jeter

Earlier this week, a recent poll conducted by the Siena College Research Institute named Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter the greatest New York athlete of all-time. Let me repeat that. In a town that seen Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath and several outstanding thoroughbred race horses, Derek Jeter was the one who was named best New York athlete.

Who were the people voting in this poll, 14-year-old girls? I guess the same people who cast their votes in this poor excuse for a poll also voted for Kurt Rambis as the best Los Angeles athlete, Cliff Clavin as Boston's finest athletic star and Lazy Smurf as the top athlete of Smurf Village? Give me a break, people!




Six Years Ago

On this date in 2005, 'roids were all the rage in Washington, as Congress called for a special hearing featuring past and present baseball players to discuss the presence of steroids in baseball. It was during these hearings that Mark McGwire realized that he didn't want to dwell on the past, Sammy Sosa forgot how to speak English and Rafael Palmeiro gave the finger to Congress.

Six years later, all of these players are out of baseball and none of them has reached the Hall of Fame, as McGwire received less than 25% of the vote in each of his five eligible years for enshrinement, Palmeiro garnered the support of 11% of the voters in 2011 and Sammy Sosa has to wait until 2013 to see if he'll be able to pop the cork (no pun intended) on his Cooperstown Champagne.

So where are these players now?

Mark McGwire is now the hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. That means a man who never hit 30 doubles in a single season and only finished with 265 more career hits than Ed Kranepool is now coaching Albert Pujols on how to hit. To have McGwire impart his hitting "wisdom" on Pujols is like having Kate Moss teach me how to eat chicken nachos. That's all I have to say about that.

After playing his last game as a member of the Texas Rangers in 2007, Sammy Sosa has done his best to stay out of the spotlight, disappearing from the public eye. The last time he was spotted in public, he was overheard humming Michael Jackson's "Black or White" as he was shopping for, as he called it, one of the most important works in American literature (see photo, right). His interpreter then corrected him by saying that a CD-ROM isn't technically a piece of literature.

When not complaining about his low Hall of Fame vote, Rafael Palmeiro has quietly become one of the country's premier hand models. The former Mets' eighth round draft pick's work can now be seen wherever hand sanitizers are sold.


If At Second You Don't Succeed

We've been getting conflicting reports from the Mets on who the starting second baseman will be in 2011. Terry Collins wants Luis Hernandez. Sandy Alderson wants an offensive-minded second baseman. That would probably eliminate Hernandez, who has eight extra-base hits in 265 major league at-bats, to go with a .286 OBP in the majors and a .302 OBP in the minors.

Brad Emaus and Daniel Murphy are still candidates for the position, but their defensive "skills" make former Marlins' second baseman Dan Uggla look like a Gold Glover at the position.

There is no truth to the rumor that Uggla traded in his old No. 6 uniform number with the Marlins for a No. E-4 jersey with the Braves.

Here's what I think. Wally Backman was promoted from Brooklyn to AA-Binghamton. Tim Teufel made the jump from Binghamton to AAA-Buffalo. I think they're just going to manage their respective minor league ballclubs until Labor Day weekend (the traditional end of the minor league season). Once their managerial duties are done, they will be promoted to the Mets, where they will compete for the second baseman's job. Terry Collins will be happy with the feisty Backman, while Sandy Alderson will take comfort that he has the bat of Tim Teufel. Is it a bad thing that I think a Backman/Teufel platoon would still be better than anything the Mets could throw out there right now?

I think I've worn out my welcome on the soapbox. It's time to get into mid-season form, which means I'll be sitting in front of the TV with a bunch of chicken nachos. Who knows what will happen before Opening Day? Will Carlos Beltran start the season on the disabled list? Will Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo be on the unemployment line? Will I get a tryout to play second base? Hey, if no else wants it, I'll take it (see photo below). Enjoy the last two weeks of Spring Training!

Dan Uggla To Atlanta; Castillo Still A Met

On Tuesday, the Florida Marlins traded their second baseman, Dan Uggla, to the division rival Atlanta Braves. In return, the Marlins received utility player and questionable All-Star Omar Infante and pitcher Mike Dunn.

The Mets, on the other hand, still have the one-armed bandit (Luis Castillo) playing second base.

Let me get this straight. The Florida Marlins were having difficulty signing Uggla to a multi-year deal, so they traded him to a division rival (one that finished ahead of them in the standings) and all they got in return was Omar Infante and Mike Dunn? Let's do a short analysis of this deal.

Daniel Cooley Uggla is the only second baseman in history to have four seasons of 30 or more home runs. Only four other second basemen had compiled three such seasons in their careers and none of them did it for three consecutive seasons. Uggla has had four straight seasons of 30-plus home runs, hitting a career-high 33 HR this past season.

Over his first five seasons, Dan Uggla has been incredibly durable, playing in least 146 games every season. In those five seasons, this is what an average Uggla season looks like:

155 games, .263 batting avg., 100 runs, 34 doubles, 31 HR, 93 RBI.

The man considered to be the premier second baseman in the National League is Chase Utley. Over Utley's six full seasons in the majors, his offensive numbers look quite similar to Uggla's:

145 games, .298 batting avg., 105 runs, 36 doubles, 27 HR, 95 RBI.

Despite the similar numbers (other than batting average), Uggla has always been a distant second to Utley in discussions about who the best second baseman in the National League is. It seems like the photo below is the only way Uggla can get close to Utley in anything.

Photo by Jennifer Zambri-Dickerson

Uggla has been a two-time All-Star and won his first Silver Slugger Award in 2010. Although he is a human windmill, striking out 149 times last season and averaging 152 strikeouts per season over his career, he always draws his share of walks, averaging 82 walks per year since 2008. During the same three-year time period, his on-base percentage was .361. By comparison, Mets' leadoff hitter Jose Reyes, whose primary job as a leadoff hitter is to get on base, has never had a single season on-base percentage higher than .358.

Here's one other important fact about the man whose parents gave him a middle name of "Cooley". His favorite ballpark to hit in is Atlanta's Turner Field.

In 45 career games in Atlanta, Uggla has absolutely raked. He's a .354 hitter at Turner Field, picking up 16 doubles, 12 homers and 36 RBI there. Since he will now be playing 81 games in Atlanta, that projects to 29 doubles, 22 HR and 65 RBI for the 2011 season, which would be a good full season for a second baseman, let alone half a season's worth of games.

Basically, Uggla could have a monster season playing half his games in Atlanta, especially considering that he will be eligible for free agency after the 2011 season.

What about the guys Atlanta gave up for Uggla? How do they stack up against the Cooley Man?

Well, Omar Infante has been in the major leagues since 2002. Only once has he reached double figures in home runs (he hit 16 HR in 2004 for the Detroit Tigers). In that one "magical" season, Infante also reached his career high in RBI, with 55.

Considering that so many people were talking about Infante in 2010 when he "earned" his first All-Star appearance, he only finished the season with eight home runs and 47 RBI. Uggla had reached those numbers by the All-Star Break.

Yes, Infante hit a career-high .321 this past season, but that lofty batting average only raised his career mark to .274. Prior to the 2010 season, Infante's career batting average was .264, or one point higher than Uggla's .263 career average. Also, Infante has never met a pitch he wouldn't swing at, as evidenced by his career .319 on-base percentage.

Before the 2010 season, Infante's career OBP was .310, a number that should be familiar to both Mets fans and Braves fans, for that is the same career on-base percentage of a Mr. Jeffrey Braden Francoeur.


So clearly, Infante is an inferior offensive player when compared to Dan Uggla. That must mean the other player in the trade, Mike Dunn, must be a stud pitcher, right? Not quite.

Most people reporting the deal made note of the fact that the left-handed Dunn was 2-0 with a 1.89 ERA in 25 games for the Braves. He also struck out 27 batters in 19 innings. When you look at those numbers, he looks like a promising young pitcher. But there's one thing they neglected to mention.

Mike Dunn makes Oliver Perez look like a master of control.


In those same 19 innings, Dunn walked 17 batters. In four innings with the Yankees in 2009, Dunn walked five batters in four innings. Therefore, in his brief major league career, Dunn has walked 22 batters in 23 innings, which averages out to 8.6 walks per nine innings. That's actually worse than Oliver Perez's walks per nine inning ratio over the past two seasons (7.9 BB/9 innings in 2009 and 8.2 BB/9 innings in 2010).

In fact, Dunn looks like he's getting worse as he gets older. His control was actually very good in the minor leagues in 2007. He walked 45 batters in 144.2 innings playing A-ball for the Charleston River Dogs (a Yankees affiliate). His average of 2.8 walks per nine innings would be an excellent ratio in the major leagues. However, from season to season, that number has gone up at an alarming speed.

In 2008, Dunn pitched 18.1 fewer innings than in 2007, but walked 14 more batters (4.2 BB/9 innings). In 2009, he pitched in Double-A, Triple-A and briefly in the major leagues with the Yankees. Combining his minor league and major league numbers, he pitched 77.1 innings and walked 51 batters (5.9 BB/9 innings). Then came his 2010 season, where we walked almost a batter per inning for the Atlanta Braves.

So basically, this is what the trade boils down to. The Atlanta Braves are trading away a player who gets on base at a Jeff Francoeur rate with similar power numbers to Jason Bay's 2010 season, along with a pitcher that has studied and graduated with honors from the Oliver Perez Pitching Academy. In return they get the only second baseman in major league history to hit at least 30 HR in four consecutive seasons, who is coming off his best season in the majors, with career-highs in batting average (.287), home runs (33) and RBI (105). This is also a player who has always performed well at his new home ballpark, Turner Field.

Why am I making such a big deal about this? Because the Mets still have Luis Castillo as their second baseman.

Neither Uggla nor Castillo are great defensive second basemen, although Castillo used to be. But surely, the run-production contributed by Uggla more than makes up for his Hole-In-The-Glove caliber defense he provides. What can Castillo contribute offensively? He gets hit by pitches occasionally.


In 2007 and 2008, the Marlins put the final nails in the Mets' coffins. The Mets nailed their own coffins throughout the entire 2009 and 2010 seasons. Now it looks like the Marlins are doing it to the Mets again, this time in the off-season, by sending one of the best offensive second basemen in recent history to their division rivals for Jeff Francoeur and Oliver Perez clones.

The Marlins traded away Luis Castillo to the Minnesota Twins after the 2005 season to make room for Dan Uggla. It's too bad the Mets couldn't think to do the same in 2010.