Balentien, Evans, and Other Stuff to Look Forward to

The Mets announced today that they are placing Gary Sheffield on the DL retroactive to July 17th. That means Sheffield won’t return until August 2nd, leaving the Mets with a gaping hole in left field the next eight games, including tonight’s contest. In other words, Nick Evans can easily accumulate 30-40 at-bats over that times period. Afterwards. once Sheffield proves himself healthy, the Mets should trade him elsewhere. Perfect. Unfortunately, Omar and Jerry probably prefer “trying to get Fernando Tatis’s bat going” or cash in on their $900,000 investment in Cory Sullivan.

In other news, the Mariners DFA’d Wladimir Balentien. The Mets should look into acquiring him to play center (left, if they really hat Evans that much), or at least stash him in Buffalo. I like Angel Pagan- he has a quick bat and has hit well so far in limited action (.310/.361/.425). Like the Francoeur move, however, if Balentien can untap his potential, it can pay huge dividends for the Mets.

Last year, Balentien made his major league debut with Seattle and hit .202/.250/.342 in 260 plate appearances. His xBABIP was .306. This year, in 170 plate appearances,he has hit  .213/.271/.355. ZIPS does not project him to hit all that better the rest of the way (.703 OPS). His plate discipline is more or less the same as Jeff Francoeur’s, and his fielding is terrible.

Still, he’s got less than 400 at-bats under his belt in the big leagues. He is also just two years removed from mashing AAA and being rated the Mariners number five prospect. Like most young hitters, he can hit a fastball a mile, but struggles with off-speed stuff.  We are not going to see the likes of Ike Davis, Lucas Duda, or Fernando Martinez until September, so there is no reason not to try and strike gold with him. I’m guessing  he’ll cost something of similar value (Lance Broadway?) or a C-level prospect (Mike Antonini, Sean Ratliff, etc.), but nothing the Mets should lose sleep over.