Lucas Duda Could Make First-Half History For The Mets

Lucas Duda and David Wright might share more than a high-five if Duda's power surge continues. (Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

Lucas Duda has come a long way since making his major league debut under the tutelage of Jerry Manuel in 2010.  He's been a beleaguered outfielder that was sent down to the minors after every extended slump and he's also been a first baseman caught in a platoon with a player struggling to keep his batting average above the Mendoza Line.

But through it all, Duda has persevered.  Now, as the Mets' everyday first baseman, Duda has quietly put up some of the best first-half power numbers in franchise history.

You can laugh all you want at the statement in the previous paragraph, but it's true.  Let's take a look at all the players in Mets history who have produced 20 doubles, 15 homers and 50 RBI prior to the All-Star break.  As you can see from the chart below, there aren't many of them.

Player	Split	Year	G	PA	GS	2B	HR	RBI
David Wright	1st Half	2008	94	432	94	24	17	70
Carlos Beltran	1st Half	2008	94	411	92	23	15	66
David Wright	1st Half	2006	87	386	87	22	20	74
David Wright	1st Half	2007	86	378	85	21	16	51
Bernard Gilkey	1st Half	1996	84	358	84	21	16	62
Robin Ventura	1st Half	1999	87	357	85	21	15	66
Howard Johnson	1st Half	1989	79	336	78	22	22	57

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/12/2014.

Only five players in club annals have managed to reach 20 doubles, 15 HR and 50 RBI before the midsummer hiatus, with David Wright producing three such seasons.  All five players went on to post incredible full seasons.

In Wright's three years achieving these first half numbers, he ended up averaging 41 doubles, 30 HR and 116 RBI per season.  The other four players also had productive full seasons, as Johnson (41 doubles, 36 HR, 101 RBI), Gilkey (44 doubles, 30 HR, 117 RBI), Ventura (38 doubles, 32 HR, 120 RBI) and Beltran (40 doubles, 27 HR, 112 RBI) put up some of the best full season extra-base hit and RBI totals in franchise history.

It should be noted that with two games to go before the 2014 All-Star break, Lucas Duda has amassed 20 doubles, 14 HR and 48 RBI.  That's right, Mets fans.  Duda is only a two-run blast away from joining this exclusive club.

When I first pondered this amazing feat immediately after Duda launched his 14th homer of the year last night, I was shot down by a gentleman on Twitter with the following tweet.

@Studi_Metsimus @msimonespn most of that back when ASG more in middle of season. Mets will have played 95 games at break this year.
— David Stecklow (@dssteck) July 12, 2014

While it is true the Mets will have played 95 games by this year's All-Star break, allowing for players to pile up on cumulative stats, Duda began the season as a part-timer, sharing first base duties with the now-departed Ike Davis.  And since Davis' trade to the Pittsburgh Pirates, Duda has sacrificed occasional playing time to two first basemen who swing the bat from the right side of the plate.

Before his demotion to AAA-Las Vegas, Josh Satin was given seven starts at first base.  In addition, Eric Campbell has been penciled into the starting lineup ten times since his call-up from Vegas in early May.  Between Davis, Satin and Campbell, Duda has started 22 games on the Mets bench.  That's nearly 100 plate appearances Duda hasn't gotten this season.

Looking at the chart above, all five players in the 20 double, 15 HR, 50 RBI club stepped up to the plate at least 336 times before the All-Star break.  With two games left before this year's break, Duda has just 315 plate appearances.  Unless the Mets have a few 20-inning marathons against the Marlins this weekend, Duda will have come to bat fewer times than any of the members of the 20/15/50 club did in their historic campaigns, even with the All-Star Game being played later in the season than it has in the past.  All Duda needs is one homer and two RBI and he will have joined Johnson, Gilkey, Ventura, Beltran and Wright, despite the Fab Five needing more plate appearances to earn a spot in this exclusive club.

Say what you want about Lucas Duda.  He's a clumsy oaf.  He's a lousy interview.  He's never produced over a full season.  Depending on who you ask, all of those things might be true.  But with just one well-timed blast (and a teammate on the bases when said blast occurs), it will also be true that Lucas Duda will have engineered one of the most productive first halves with the bat in franchise history.

All this from a player who wasn't even guaranteed an everyday job at the beginning of the season.  History has a strange way of finding Mets players when they least expect it.

Marlon Byrd: The Almost All-Star

Photo by Eric Risberg/AP

To say Marlon Byrd has resuscitated his career in New York would be a gross understatement.  Byrd was supposed to be a small piece in a puzzling outfield situation.  But instead, he has become one of the top run-producing outfielders in the National League.

After a grand slam on Tuesday and a two-run homer in yesterday's sweep-completing victory over the Giants, Byrd now has 15 home runs and 49 RBI, making him the team leader in both categories.  In addition, Byrd's 15 homers are tied for sixth-most in the N.L. and his 49 RBI are also the sixth-highest total in the Senior Circuit.

The only National League hitters with more home runs and runs batted in than Byrd are Carlos Gonzalez (24 HR, 63 RBI), Domonic Brown (23 HR, 64 RBI), Carlos Beltran (19 HR, 52 RBI) and Jay Bruce (18 HR, 62 RBI).  Justin Upton's 16 homers are one more than Byrd's total, but Upton only has 44 RBI - five less than Byrd.  Similarly, Michael Cuddyer's 52 RBI are three more than Byrd's output, but Cuddyer is tied with Byrd with his 15 homers.

In case you didn't know, Gonzalez, Brown, Beltran and Cuddyer are all going to be at Citi Field on Tuesday as members of the National League All-Star team.  Byrd, who plays half his games at Citi Field, will not be joining them.  But it's not as if he hasn't earned the right to be mentioned in the same breath as those fine players.

Marlon Byrd's most productive season in the majors occurred in 2009, when he swatted 20 homers and drove in 89 runs for the Texas Rangers.  Naturally, it was in that campaign that Byrd achieved a career high in RBI before the All-Star Break, with 44.  The following year, as a member of the Chicago Cubs, Byrd was selected to his only All-Star team.  At the break, he was hitting .317 with 27 doubles, nine homers and 40 RBI.  The nine homers were a career-best for Byrd at the midsummer hiatus.

Those career highs in homers (9) and RBI (44) by the break have been wiped out, courtesy of Byrd's unexpected first-half performance for the Mets in 2013.  And Byrd reached his new highs in homers (15) and RBI (49) in fewer at-bats (265) than he needed to achieve his previous career highs in those marks (287 AB in 2009, 331 AB in 2010).

As seen in the chart below, which details Marlon Byrd's first-half performances since his first full season in the majors in 2003, Byrd had never been much of a run producer in the season's first half.  His 2009 and 2010 campaigns were the only ones in which he hit more than five homers and drove in more than 25 runs.  You can now add the 2013 season to the short list of All-Star caliber first halves for Marlon Byrd.

Year	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2003	65	198	31	57	14	0	2	18	3	.288	.362	.389	.750
2004	58	214	25	48	7	2	2	18	2	.224	.297	.304	.600
2005	48	144	5	37	6	1	0	16	1	.257	.311	.313	.623
2006	78	197	28	44	8	1	5	18	3	.223	.317	.350	.667
2007	40	143	23	54	8	3	3	25	0	.378	.438	.538	.976
2008	59	175	28	43	9	2	4	15	2	.246	.328	.389	.717
2009	77	287	36	82	28	1	8	44	3	.286	.327	.474	.801
2010	87	331	47	105	27	0	9	40	4	.317	.365	.480	.845
2011	53	205	27	62	9	1	3	13	2	.302	.347	.400	.747
2012	47	143	10	30	2	0	1	9	0	.210	.243	.245	.488
2013	76	265	37	71	14	2	15	49	1	.268	.313	.506	.818
Career Total	688	2302	297	633	132	13	52	265	21	.275	.333	.412	.745

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/10/2013.

Marlon Byrd is not going to the All-Star game this season.  In fact, Byrd wasn't even one of the top 24 vote-getters among National League outfielders.  Players such as Jason Heyward (.221, 7 HR, 21 RBI in 249 AB) and Gregor Blanco (.274, 1 HR, 27 RBI in 263 AB) received more support from the fans than Byrd did.  Even B.J. Upton, who had an Ike Davis-like first half (.179, 8 HR, 20 RBI in 273 AB) got more votes than Byrd.

Byrd might not have the name recognition or track record that Heyward and Upton have in Atlanta.  He also doesn't play for a team that has won two of the last three World Series, a la Gregor Blanco.  But there's no denying that he has put up the best run-producing first-half numbers in his career.  And there's also no denying that he has quietly become one of the best run-producing outfielders in the National League.  But he's also performed well in clutch and late-inning situations.

Going into the ninth inning of their game on June 16, the Mets were down 3-0 to the Cubs and were three outs away from having a 24-40 record.  As many Mets fans know, Kirk Nieuwenhuis' three-run walk-off homer gave the Mets an unlikely victory at Citi Field, but it was Marlon Byrd's homer to start the inning that set the stage for Nieuwenhuis' game-ending heroics.  Byrd's blast was the catalyst for the Mets' resurgence over the last month, as the team has gone 16-9 since the morning of June 16.

Byrd's ninth-inning shot on June 16 should come as no surprise to fans who have been Byrd-watching all season.  Of the 29 extra-base hits (14 doubles, 15 homers) collected by Byrd in 2013, more than half of them (eight doubles, seven homers) have taken place in the seventh inning or later.

Photo by Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus

The Mets are 10-4 when Byrd hits a home run and they are 18-12 when he drives in a run (10-4 when he drives in more than one run).  That means the Mets are 14 games under .500 when Byrd doesn't produce a homer or RBI.

Marlon Byrd may have been overlooked as an All-Star, but he has certainly not been overlooked by his teammates, his manager and by those who have a vested rooting interest in the team.  His teammates know how instrumental he has been to their recent success.  His manager can't take him out of the lineup (Byrd has played in each of the last 40 games).  And his fans go crazy on Twitter after every big hit or RBI ("Byrd is the word", "There goes another Byrd dropping in the outfield seats", etcetera).

Byrd is most definitely the word.  And those words are part of wonderful narrative for a career that looked dead after the 2012 season.  Byrd may not be an All-Star this year, but he's certainly been one of the most productive outfielders in the league in 2013.  Word.