How Reliable is Church?

There has been plenty of talk about the Mets’ glaring holes in left and at second, but truly what about in right. Ryan Church who a formidable job for the Mets last year when he was healthy last year. However at no point in his career has he shown the ability to be an everyday player for his team.

In his 4 full seasons in the majors Church has only had more than 350 plate appearances once, which is just about half of David Wright’s average number of plate appearances over that same period of time.

With the platoon in left field how wise is it for the Mets to assume that they can count on Church for a full season. The lineup would be incredibly weak if the Manuel was forced to play two of, Fernando Tatis, Daniel Murphy, and Nick Evans in the corner outfield spots. All of which are actually infielders to begin with.

Omar Minaya’s has brought in both Jeremy Reed and Corey Sullivan to replace the loss of Endy Chavez in the JJ Putz trade, however neither of the two have had any significant playing time over their careers and at best will fill in for Carlos Beltran when he has the inevitable hamstring issue.

How the Mets were not willing to spend an extra million plus incentives to bring in Bobby Abreu is going to haunt the Mets this year. It clearly was the biggest mistake of the off season for Omar and the rest of management.