The “joke” circulating between reporters, team officials and fans would be that the Mets would have to bubble wrap Andres Torres between games. Barely half a game in his Mets career, he went down with a calf strain, thus prompting and immediate trip to the DL. For all the injury problems the Mets have had in the past 3 years, this may have been one of the quickest decisions made. Usually they at least wait overnight or Day by Day for a game or two (even though that is usually a mistake) but he said right after the game he is going back down to Florida.
The quickness in making that decision probably lends itself to the extreme lack of depth the Mets have in the Outfield, especially CF. It wouldn’t be terrible to have Scott Hairston as a fill in, but it is so far away from ideal.
The Mets announced today that will be calling up Kirk Nieuwenhuis to fill in Torres’ roster spot. I’m hoping with Kirk that they allow him to be the starting CF because if he is up with the Mets for an extended period of time, he will need AB’s (and I’m not really convinced that anyone on the bench is significantly better than him). If Vinny Rottino, or Adam Loewen were called up, then I would have expected Scott Hairston to be the starter.
There was speculation that Captain Kirk’s time in Citi Field would have started in June, but now we get some young player blood earlier. Here are some relevant stats for the Captain:
Spring Training: 4 G, 10 AB, 2 H, BB
Minor Leagues
2011: 188 AB, 56 H (.298 BA), 17 2B, 2 3B, 6 HR, 14 RBI, 5 SB
2010: 514 AB, 141 H (.274 BA), 43 2B, 3 3B, 18 HR, 77 RBI, 13 SB
2009: 514 AB, 145 H (.282 BA), 38 2B, 6 3B, 17 HR, 73 RBI, 17 SB
Baseball Prospectus 2012 Projects Captain Kirk: .245 BA, 6 2B, 3B, 3 HR, 117 PA
So BP doesn’t see Captain Kirk getting too much playing time this year, but they also had having 584 plate appearances.
It will be interesting to see what the Mets do come Saturday in an already hectic 2012 baseball season.
