Chip Hale is a wise man. Not just about Murph, but he is a smart dresser (you’d never see him mixing blue with black at a dinner party) and he’s with 28.
“The bat plays,” Hale said Wednesday when asked about Murphy, meaning that if a player can hit he will find his way to some position on the diamond. “At some point, we’re going to have to figure out what his position is, and put him there.”
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“What ends up happening, whether you’re a commentator, a fan, a coach, is that you don’t look at the big picture of how many plays he has made, how many outstanding instinctual plays he’s made,” Hale said. “But they don’t talk about that; they talk about the mistakes.”
via The Mets’ Latest Problem – Finding a Position in the Field for Murphy – NYTimes.com.
And since Murphy has no future at first or third (unless Sandy is going to throw a bomb this winter) it is short-sighted that the Mets don’t play Murphy at second while they play out the string.
2B is a hard position to play…try OF again…then AL (the American League)
He’s made more big mistakes than clutch plays. Remember there are 5 tools to judge a player by: hit for avg, hit for power, arm strength, defensive skill, and speed. He has one tool, hit for avg. And no instincts. I’m not saying every big leaguer has all 5, but they usually have a few of them and good instincts.