Conforto has the right stuff
JAY Bruce deserved this week.
And Mets fans deserve Michael Conforto. This Citi Field right-field saga figures to have many more plot twists in store. With one week in the books, the Mets can feel, well, OK about how it’s going so far.
They hit the road in good spirits, courtesy of a 5-2 victory over the Marlins Sunday night that averted a Miami sweep and eradicated concerns about Noah Syndergaard’s blister. Thor allowed one earned run on five hits and struck out nine as the Mets evened their record at 3-3. They’ll play three games in Philadelphia and four in Miami before returning to Flushing.
And those seven games will probably bring more mixed feelings to one of the more unusual positional dilemmas in the industry this season. For now, Bruce, after going deep in this series finale to provide a much-appreciated insurance run in the fifth, leads the team with two home runs. And Conforto, who tagged his first start of the season with a bases-loaded walk and tape-measure homer to right-center field, leads the less tangible upside standings. You still feel that, if the Mets could simulate one season with Conforto as their everyday right fielder and one with Bruce in that role, they’d fare better in Universe A.
Good for Bruce that he has given these fans a better glimpse of the player he is. He wouldn’t have earned a contract with a $13 million team option, which the Mets exercised last fall, if he regularly slashed .219/.294/.391 — as he did in 50 games for the Mets last year after getting traded here. It had to be sweet for the Texas native that he got a “Bruuuuuce!” salute on Sunday, a subtle yet significant tweak from the 2016 “Boooooooo” that became his personal walk-up tune.
However, Mets fans appreciated all along that Bruce had fallen into a statistical sinkhole. Whether that happened because of New York-phobia — a narrative that Bruce has expended considerable energy combating — or because it marked his first time getting traded, or because he suffered a secret injury, or something else — is funny inconsequential. Such discussion actually obscures the more important point: For the prior three seasons, Bruce didn’t provide much value to the Reds or the Mets. That, not his lousy two months in a Mets uniform, explains why the Mets found minimal interest when they shopped him during the offseason.
Now, a key point that often gets overlooked: If Conforto hadn’t performed so poorly last year, if he had built upon his very promising rookie campaign in 2015, then the Mets never would have traded for Bruce in the first place and there wouldn’t be any right-field debates. So Conforto finds himself in a predicament partly of his own making.
He made the Opening Day roster only because Juan Lagares strained his left oblique, and given that Sandy Alderson has repeatedly said he wants Conforto to get atbats, the 24-year-old ranks as a strong candidate to
go to Triple-A Las Vegas if Lagares recovers as quickly as hoped.
Nevertheless, after riding the bench for five games, Conforto looked mighty comfortable at the plate. In center field? Eh. It seemed like he could have had a better bead on Miguel Rojas’ fly ball that Yoenis Cespedes wound up dropping for a two-base error. It’s hard to envision Conforto playing up the middle full time.
Playing right field full time, though, should happen sooner than later. It won’t be easy to pull off that trick now that the Mets have held onto Bruce, and hey, maybe walk-year Bruce can reach back to 2013, give the Mets what they need there and simply delay Conforto’s coronation by a season.
On nights like this, though, Conforto shows the Mets what they’re missing. How his ceiling very likely exceeds Bruce’s.
Onto Week 2, in this season and this right-field sweepstakes. So far, it has lived up to the hype.