Picture a see-saw and you have Conforto’s time with the Mets in a nutshell. Even to the point where the Mets had to send him back to Triple-A Las Vegas for a tuneup after looking completely out of sorts during a stretch in 2017.
Conforto’s 28 home runs and 82 knocked in last year look decent enough on paper. But when you couple that with a .243 batting average, 132 hits in more than 600 plate appearances, and only 25 doubles, the complete player has not yet arrived at Citi Field.
Conforto’s production in the power department is good, but the Mets need more than home runs from him. They need more hits, so they total up to the 175-180 range and more of those hits that find gaps equating to more doubles. In other words, more of a year like Robinson Cano is expected to have.
Cano will help in another respect too by removing the spotlight off Conforto, and subsequently, taking some of the pressure off. The Mets don’t know yet whether or not Michael Conforto wants to be or is capable of being “The Guy” on the team – a la David Wright for so many years.
That aside though, Conforto needs to step up the pace a bit in order for the Mets to move ahead.
Next: Zack Wheeler, Starting Pitcher
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
