Terry Collins’s Baffling Mets Lineups

Leading up to the weekend series in Anaheim, all we kept hearing was that the Mets could use the designated hitter, thus they could get Ike Davis and Lucas Duda in the same games to help them make their decision about which player would be part of the future. Instead, Terry Collins hardly played at all, which is simply baffling.

On Friday Andrew Brown was the DH and batted cleanup. Josh Satin manned first. Davis and Duda eventually replaced both of them late in the game. Saturday they both started but Sunday it was back to Brown and Satin, with Satin inserted in the cleanup position. Both also entered the game late.

Now, of course on Friday and Sunday the Mets faced a left hander, which is why Collins (perhaps on orders from Sandy Alderson) started the righties Brown and Satin. First of all, I think the whole righty-lefty nonsense is completely overblown and overrated. You should play your best players regardless of the pitcher’s orientation, plain and simple. And as bad as Davis and Duda are, they are far better than Brown and Satin. No offense to the players, but do the Mets really expect to win games with Brown or Satin hitting cleanup?

Regardless of that, the Mets are still trying to see what they have in Davis and Duda (it’s been several years; they should already know, but that’s another story). They need to see them play to make a decision. This weekend would have been a good chance for that.

It is understandable that Terry Collins did not want to put two struggling players in positions to fail, but if they are unable to play half the time, why bother having them on the team at all? A platoon at first base is not the answer, especially if half of it includes Satin, who is a bench player, at best.

The Mets should have made this decision over the winter. But in Alderson’s typical passive-aggressive way, he somehow hoped the situation would resolve itself. Well, it has not. And it never will if the Mets continue to act like they did this weekend.