How has the Mets' defense fared in the Sandy Alderson years?

Led by center fielder extraordinaire Juan Lagares, the Mets' defense has improved in several key areas in 2014.

It’s no secret that the Mets have one of the game’s best defenders in center field phenom Juan Lagares. Lagares’s range, arm strength, and overall defensive wizardry reveal themselves both to the naked eye and in the defensive metrics. In just 222 major league games, Lagares has saved the Mets a mind-boggling 58 runs on defense alone.

Lagares’s emergence is an important reminder of the impact that a good (or bad) defender can have on a game. A diving play made in a key spot or a crucial error committed by a defender can very well be the difference between a win and a loss, particularly in the low-run-scoring environment that exists today. By routinely converting potential hits into outs, players like Lagares save their teams a surprising number of runs and wins over the course of a season. Perhaps teams’ growing embrace of defensive shifts reflects, in part, a newfound emphasis on converting batted balls into outs.

In light of this renewed interest in defense, let’s examine how the Mets have fared defensively in recent years. Below, you will find, broken down by position, the team’s defensive output during each of Sandy Alderson’s four years as GM, with the team’s 2010 stats included as a point of comparison. We’ll use defensive runs saved (DRS) for simplicity’s sake (while acknowledging the imperfections inherent in all defensive metrics). All stats are current as of Labor Day morning.

Pitcher

It’s hard to read too much into pitchers’ defensive metrics, but R.A. Dickey’s numbers do stand out. In his three years as a Met, Dickey compiled an impressive 24 DRS. Dickey is very good at fielding his position, and earned his first Gold Glove award last year as a Blue Jay.

Catcher

Dickey’s presence is felt here as well. The perils of catching a knuckleball every fifth day probably contributed to Mets catchers’ poor defensive ratings during Dickey’s tenure with the team (although Josh Thole did improve substantially in 2012). Keep in mind that the DRS metric overlooks the impact of pitch framing, an extremely important part of catchers’ games. Therefore, Travis d’Arnaud might be much better than his terrible DRS suggests, while John Buck was probably even worse.

First Base

A few interesting notes here. First, Ike Davis had an incredibly strong rookie year at first base, with a 12 DRS that ranked first among National League first basemen. More improbably, after Davis’s season-ending injury in 2011, Daniel Murphy and Nick Evans more than picked up the slack, posting a combined 17 DRS at the position. After a couple years of mediocre play by Mets’ first basemen, Lucas Duda has been one of the better first basemen in the game in 2014.

Second Base

Here you see the results of a deliberate organizational decision to sacrifice defense for offense. While DRS is not kind to Luis Castillo’s earlier years with the Mets (-13 DRS in 2008, -12 DRS in 2009), the team certainly did not help its cause defensively by making Daniel Murphy a full-time second baseman. The numbers bear out what we’ve seen on the field every night, which is that Murphy struggles with the glove. And Justin Turner wasn’t any better as the team’s regular second baseman in 2011.

Third Base

Like Murphy’s defensive metrics, David Wright’s numbers clearly mirror what fans have seen with their own eyes—namely, that the third baseman’s defense has fluctuated wildly over the course of his career. After playing a solid third base and winning back-to-back Gold Gloves in 2007 and 2008, Wright struggled mightily from 2009 to 2011. In 2012, he turned things around and posted a spectacular year with the glove. Although he didn’t win it that year, Wright was arguably more deserving of a Gold Glove than he was for either of the two seasons he actually won the award. After a strong 2013, he’s been an elite defensive third baseman so far this year.

Shortstop

The defensive metrics are surprisingly unkind to Jose Reyes, though Mets shortstops haven’t exactly lit the world on fire since he left the team. The Mets’ shortstop defense has consistently been in the bottom half of the league for years. Coupled with Murphy’s poor play at second, the Mets’ up-the-middle defense has been a troubling Achilles’ heel and has, at times, struggled to turn even routine double plays.

Left Field

No surprises here. Jason Bay and company were mediocre, Lucas Duda was a liability, and this year’s combination of Chris Young, Eric Young Jr., and others has been a major improvement. Like Murphy’s struggles at second, Duda’s poor defensive play was a fairly predictable consequence of moving him out of position in order to keep his bat in the lineup.

Center Field

After playing a great center field in 2010, Angel Pagan struggled in 2011, followed by a lost year for Met center fielders in 2012. Since his call-up last April, it’s been the Juan Lagares Show in Flushing. Despite possessing league-average offensive abilities (98 wRC+), Lagares’s defensive prowess makes him a strong 3.5-WAR player.

Right Field

Jeff Francoeur was a Gold Glove-caliber right fielder in 2010. By replacing him with Lucas Duda, the Mets went from having one of the game’s top-three right fielders to one of its bottom three. As a result, the team lost an incredible 46 runs in right field defense alone from 2010 to 2012. Marlon Byrd and Curtis Granderson were both major improvements, although the Mets’ decision to play Bobby Abreu for nearly 200 innings in right field this year proved costly.

Team Totals