One New York Life

2009 Stats: 155 games, .266/.313/.427, 12 HR
2010 Projections: .274/.328/.429, 12 HR
2009 Injury: Poor baseball player
Contract Status: Reserved. 1 year, $401k
Position: Projected Starting 1B

On Offense: Last year during Spring Training, Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel told everyone who would listen that Daniel Murphy was going to hit 30 homers and drive in 100 runs. He was the next coming of Don Mattingly to New York. This was entirely based on Double-A, an amazing September at the Major League level, and Winter League play. It wasn’t fair, there was no way to live up to it, and he didn’t even have a position to play. Murphy himself has been singing a pretty consistent song in interviews this year. Summarized: “I got off to a good start and then the league adjusted to me. I was really stubborn and thought I could keep doing the things I’d always done. I couldn’t because Major League pitchers are really good. Then once I figured it out, I was a pretty good hitter again.” The numbers bear this out. He had an awesome April, a miserable May to July, and hit .291/.308/.502 through August and September. By August his position settled down when he took 1B from the injured Carlos Delgado; he knew where he was playing and what he was doing, adjusted to the pitching, and had a nice two months. Most statheads argue the mental aspect of baseball is overrated. Just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it’s overrated. Remember: Bill James said defense was overrated until someone came up with metrics for it. Now it’s going to win the Red Sox the championship.

On Defense: We’ll just go ahead and say the left field experiment was a failure. He was stuck in LF in 2008 because that was the rotating position the Mets were letting all the call-ups play. In 2009, he had a terrible stretch in LF, famously costing Johan Santana (and the team) a win by misjudging a ball and letting it fly over his head. The first base experiment was markedly better. The prevailing theory is that Murphy was a bad first baseman. He wasn’t. Most defensive metrics have him at just above a league-average first baseman. So, while he’s not the return of Keith Hernandez, neither is he exactly the Mike Piazza at 1B experiment. Last year, people looked for things to be angry about, and Murphy’s attempt to learn two new positions while at the Major League level was met with contempt. Ignored was the fact Murphy skipped the whole Triple-A thing and played 2B during winter ball. The Mets have made it known that they’ve asked Keith Hernandez to work with Murphy on his footwork. Also helping with the position: actually being OK at it. Also, let’s not forget this play, which was not only among the defensive plays of the season, but was so good that the tie was broken by style points.

On 2010: Murphy will almost certainly win the starting job in Spring Training because of Minaya’s desire to prove he and Manuel were right. The other reason: he’s actually not a bad player. His relatively decent defense last year was dismissed in favor of remembering some big errors. Similarly, talk radio, newspapers, and too many fans have dismissed his late-season recovery as “taking advantage of bad pitching down the stretch.” News for you — everyone gets their stats boosted from bad pitching. And two months of sustained success with a .503 SLG is more than just noise in the signal in a player’s first full year. If Murphy can remember how to take walks when the situation’s appropriate, he has a chance to have a good year and surprise a lot of people.

Surefire Prediction: Murphy gets off to a hot start. Mets’ fans say they always knew he’d be great.