Both New York teams are heading into the Winter Meetings trying to fill needs on the pitching staff. It has been no secret that the Yankees are going all-in Vegas style for C.C. Sabathia, and on the other side that the Mets are looking at K-Rod to be their closer. However, each team could potentially benefit from signing some hitters. It has been reported that Sabathia, who would prefer to sign in California, is waiting to see if the Angels keep Teixeira because if not they could move in on him. In that case the Yankees could look at Teixeira. Not much has been mentioned about the Mets lineup, but Ben Shpigel addressed the idea of helping the Mets unbalanced lineup recently in his blog.
He makes a good point about the left-handedness of the Mets lineup. Although Reyes, Castillo, and Beltran hit from both sides, the other non-Wright regulars are lefty with Carlos Delgado, Brian Schneider, and Ryan Church. Getting a right-handed outfielder would normally seem like a pretty easy-ish task, but with Ibanez, Burrell, and Dunn all being lefties, if the Mets want to add a righty not named Manny it may have to come from something creative. Tatis was a nice story last year but he's no regular or even a semi regular. It'd be nice to see some of the youngins come up but like Shpigel mentions they're lefty.
How imperative is it, Shpigel asks, that the Mets add a potent right-hander? Not something huge, but it's something. In the National League with more changes having an overload of lefties could hurt the Mets late in games, although not nearly as much as their relief. Let's face it, the Mets missed the playoffs because their healthy closer stunk when it mattered and his replacements were laughably worse. The Mets didn't miss the playoffs because they couldn't hit lefty specialists late in games. Both New York teams need to, like they are, focus on pitching. If that fails plan B can be hitting, but wasting any money or time now to tweak already good lineups shouldn't be part of the plan.
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