Feb 01 2014 10:21 PM
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A Met Who Can Reach Base Is Trying to Stretch
By TIM ROHANJAN. 25, 2014
| After last season, the Mets did not define Josh Satin’s role. Not that he was surprised. A sixth-round draft pick in 2008, he hit for average but not for power in the minor leagues and never really seemed to be in the Mets’ plans. But cameo appearances in the major leagues in 2011 and in 2012 turned into something more in 2013, when he hit .279 in 190 at-bats for the Mets, turned some heads and finished with a .376 on-base percentage. That was the 14th-best figure among National League batters with at least 200 plate appearances and higher than the numbers for Ryan Braun, Buster Posey and Bryce Harper. On the Mets, only David Wright (.390) had a higher figure among players who took part in more than just a couple of games.  Josh Satin (13) after his game-winning two-run single against San Francisco on Sept. 18. So now what? The 29-year-old Satin, an infielder by trade, went home after the season, looked at the team’s roster for 2014 and saw Wright at third base, Daniel Murphy at second and two others — Ike Davis and Lucas Duda — jockeying for playing time at first, the spot where he often worked his way into the lineup last season. His survival instincts sharpened, he sensed he couldn’t simply report to spring training in February in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and assume the Mets would guarantee him another couple of hundred at-bats from the right side in 2014. Instead, as the off-season began, Satin went to work, refining his body and working on his swing, which he retooled before last season. And he practiced playing the outfield, shagging fly balls and perfecting his footwork, his positioning and throwing arm, all to expand his repertory as a utility man and pinch-hitter that the Mets would not want to be without. For outfield advice, he turned to Marlon Byrd, his teammate on the Mets for a chunk of the 2013 season and a solid defender. In a recent telephone interview, Satin said he found that the hardest ball to catch in the outfield was the one hit over the head. At first, he said, he “was just running like a maniac trying to catch it.” Now, he said, he is applying techniques, although the next step will be to play the outfield in spring training and keep improving. Yet getting on base remains his calling card. He never hit more than 14 home runs in a season in the minor leagues or stole more than three bases. But he could hit singles and doubles for sure, and draw walks. His minor league career average is .303, his on-base percentage .398. To some extent, he is a classic “Moneyball” player, who puts up valuable numbers at every level of baseball but is discounted because he lacks certain tools or does something — in Satin’s case, using a wavy, unorthodox swing he has since streamlined — that suggests he just won’t make it in the major leagues. But if a player can consistently get on base in the majors the way Satin did last season, there should be a role for him, particularly if he can play two, or three, or four positions competently. Satin said several moments last season made him believe he could indeed succeed in the big leagues. The first came on June 20, a little more than a week after he was called up from Class AAA Las Vegas. In a game against Atlanta, he was summoned to pinch-hit in the top of the seventh inning, with the score tied, 3-3, a runner on second base and the Braves’ talented left-hander Mike Minor on the mound. Satin was developing a routine that would help him be ready to pinch-hit. He would study film of the other team’s starting pitcher and all of its left-handed relievers, watching for tendencies and what they like to throw in certain situations. “When I’m looking for a pitch,” Satin said, “I’m not just guessing.” Or, as he put it, “Swing at the right pitch.” Against Minor, he fell behind 1-2, then hit a fastball to right field for a double that scored what proved to be winning run. For Satin, it was his first really significant hit in the major leagues, and, he said, he began to relax. Less than two weeks later, in a game in which he was in the starting lineup at first base, he came to bat in the bottom of the ninth with the Mets trailing, 3-2, against the Arizona Diamondbacks with one out, the tying run on second and the right-hander J. J. Putz on the mound. Satin knocked a 1-1 slider into left field to tie the game. Then, in the bottom of the 13th, with the Mets trailing, 4-3, he started a rally with a one-out double, then came around to score as the Mets went on to win, 5-4. Two months later, on Sept. 18, he hit a game-ending single off the San Francisco Giants’ closer, Sergio Romo, to cap a four-run rally in a 5-4 victory. “I proved, a little bit, that I can play in the major leagues,” he said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice. Last September, Dave Hudgens, the Mets’ hitting coach, said Satin was someone who was smart and knew how to make adjustments during an at-bat. “He knows how they’re trying to work him,” Hudgens said. Then came October, and Satin got to work on 2014. In November, he married and took a two-week honeymoon in Thailand. Elephant rides, zip lines, boat rides to various islands. Then it was back to work again in his quest to be ready to play half the positions on the field or to pinch-hit at a moment’s notice. And, of course, to keep getting on base. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/sport ... pe=article
