New York Mets should consider signing DJ LeMahieu

The Mets have a lot of options for who could play second base next season. One of them currently plays for the Colorado Rockies.

In addition to an in-house second baseman, there are many players that the New York Mets could bring back to man the position next season. Some fans would love to see Daniel Murphy back in Queens. Others would love to see Asdrubal Cabrera return.

Some even want the team to go after Brian Dozier. Those are all great options, but one better one might be DJ LeMahieu. Both his skill and age would make him one of the best options for the Mets to bring in.

He’s 30 years old and that’s by far the youngest for the four players. Regarding DJ, many fans say that his great numbers are hyper-inflated thanks to playing at Coors Field. That’s not entirely the case.

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If you look at his splits, some of the stadiums that he’s played in share some curious information. For someone who has a road average of about .270, there are a surprising number of stadiums outside of Coors Field where he’s hit well, including Citi Field.

There are six road stadiums where DJ has at least 80 at-bats. He hit .300 or higher in four of them. His average is .335 at AT&T Park, .309 at Petco Park, .304 at Citi Field, and .300 at Wrigley Field.

In those four venues, he’s a combined 162 for 514. He’s hitting .267 on the road but .315 in these four venues that make up one-third of all his road at-bats. If you take out those four venues, his road average drops by more than 20 points.

That’s very curious indeed. If you keep digging through the data, you will figure out that it’s because there are quite a few places where DJ just can’t hit at all for some reason. There are a whopping seven venues where he’s hitting below .100 for his career.

In those seven, he’s a combined 5 for 86. That’s a .058 batting average. It’s even weirder when you find out that all seven are in the American League Central and West. We’re talking about the homes of the Twins, Tigers, White Sox, Angels, Astros, Athletics, and Mariners.

Average-wise, it just seems DJ can’t hit for some reason in the west outside of home, but there are some places where he can do really well. And with the Mets would be one of them. It’s possible that he’d be able to keep up a full season hitting between .280 and .305 while scoring 85 to 95 runs and hitting around ten home runs.

He’d be fairly cheap too. He might not be able to get more than $12 million a year, especially with his lower numbers. The Mets might even be able to get him for a contract similar to what Cabrera was getting.

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But honestly, even if he wants a bit more, he’s someone that they should really look into for the future.