Q and A: - Lucas Duda

Greetings Mack,

 My name is Mike Scannell. I'm a big Mets fan and really love your site. I was hoping to get your feedback/thoughts on where the Mets are with Lucas Duda at this point. The kid can obviously hit and seemingly gets better with each week. Unfortunately, he doesn't offer much to hope for as far as OF defense goes. Ideally he'd be playing 1B but I don't think that he will supplant Ike Davis. In a perfect world, the team would be able to have both Davis and Duda in the middle of their lineup as homegrown hitting stars for the next 10 years. I hope Duda can somehow turn into solid OF. I just don't think it's possible and I don't think Ike will be the one to go.



So, what I'm wondering is what do you think Duda's value in a trade would be at this point and do you think the team will entertain moving him this offseason? My thinking is that if a team out there sees Duda as a 1B and feels that the hitter he has been over the last 150 ABs (.970 OPS) is who he truly is, they might be willing to trade premium talent for him. I'd target the teams that are looking for a 1B but lose out on Pujols and Fielder.

Thanks for your input!  All the best, Mike

Thank you Mike for your email and question.

The first time I heard the name Lucas Duda was from an old Mets minor league pitcher named Greg Mullens. Greg just arrived in Savannah after a short stint in Brooklyn and he told me that Duda had the best swing he had ever seen. I wrote the name down.

That being said, let's look first at the reality of the situation.

My high school basketball coach was John Glading. We had a white kid in school that was the tallest person in school but did not have the natural ability to excel in sports. Every time Coach Glading walked by him in the hall he'd lower his head, and muttering some curse words. You can teach someone how to hit and even catch, but you can't make them run any faster, or with any more grace than they naturally have.

There would be no Lucas Duda if there was no Bernie Madoff. You and I wouldn't be wondering if Duda has what it takes to make it in the starting lineup of a national league team if the Mets had guys like Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado in their lineup.

Beltran and Delgado are complete balplayers. Duda isn't.

The Madoff scandal has set the tone for the future operation of this team. The current team is a $90mil version in a division led by a team that spends $170mil. As long as there is no completion of this financial mess, there will be players like Duda, Nick Evans, and Dillon Gee getting a chance to play regularly on a team that always dipped into the FA market to solve their hitting woes.

To answer your question, no, Lucas Duda is not a major league right fielder. At best, he's a defensivly flawed first baseman. He is the Mets version of Adam Dunn. He has had a wonderful season with his bat and has gained the confidence needed to survive at this level (remember...  this is a very shy person that barely talked to his teammates when he first came up).

The $90-110mil 2012 version of the Mets will include Duda in RF and Ike Davis at 1B for one reason. These two are the $100mil 2012 version of Beltran  and Delgado. The Mets hope is they can create a 3-4-5-6 lineup of David Wright, Davis, Duda, and  Jason Bay, which is a pretty good lineup... for a $90-110mil club.

I don't see Lucas being trade bait in 2012. The team is going to have to financially operate without any chance of going after a big FA bat until 2013 and, frankly, there's no one in the pipeline that has this pop potential until 2-3 years from now.