Huge Shoes to Fill: Getting to Know the Newest Mets Shortstop, Ruben Tejada

As the 2012 season is quickly approaching for the New York Mets, one of the biggest questions of the year is how will Ruben Tejada be able to fill the huge hole that Jose Reyes leaves?

Reyes's production at the top of the lineup last year (when healthy) was unrivaled in baseball. There is obviously a big difference between Reyes and Tejada, but I'm going to explain why Ruben Tejada has the talent and ability to perform well for the Mets this year.

OFFENSE

Reyes left the Mets after becoming the first Met in history to win the league's batting title, hitting .337 last year. Now, I don't believe that Tejada will ever get to that point, but there are numbers to suggest that he will be able to sustain a quality batting average.

After being called up in May of last year, Tejada started out well, batting .293 in that first month. However, as you can expect with a 21 year old player, he began to decline after pitchers started to get better scouting on him. This is when one of the more positive signs came to light.

Like I said, young hitters tend to go into slumps as the year progresses because pitchers better learn how to pitch to them and young hitters have a hard time adjusting quickly.

However, the exact opposite happened with Tejada.

After his batting average dropped to a still respectable .272 in June, he started to really struggle in July, batting only .174. But then, in August, he became an everyday starter and really started to figure things out.

Tejada hit .318 over the final two months of the season. Now I'm not saying that he is going to do that for an entire year, but he does have a very good contact bat and that is something for the Mets and their fans to get excited about.

The thing you also have to remember about Tejada is that while he is filling the hole at SS, he isn't filling the hole at the top of the order. Tejada will most likely be the number eight hitter for the Mets this year, which seems to suit him perfectly.

Despite what most people believe, the Mets actually have a very good lineup, so there will often be people on base when Tejada comes to the plate. This seems to be exactly what he wants. Last year in 177 ABs, Tejada hit only .266.

However, in 151 ABs with runners on, Tejada hit .305 with 36 RBI, including a very impressive 6 for 11 with 16 RBI when the bases were loaded.

If you look at some of the more advanced stats, they also paint a good picture for Tejada.

Over the last 2 months of the season, Ruben got on base at a very nice .373 percentage clip. Also, he is never going to hit for power, but he still posted a respectable 4.67 runs created per 27 outs and had a WAR of 1.8.

There is going to be a drop off offensively and it will be sizable, but it may not be quite as large as people think.

DEFENSE

This is the area where there will be the least amount of drop-off, if any.

There was never any question about Tejada's glove, he was always touted as a defense middle infielder. He had a few rough spots with the glove last season, but that can be chalked up to being a younger player. Once he gets starts every day at shortstop, he will become more acclimated to the position and it will come easier for him.

I'm a believer in the fact that advanced defensive statistics tell you the most about a fielder's ability. Tejada's range factor was 4.41 at shortstop last season, but it was also 4.74 at second base. That would have put him right around the middle of the pack in the MLB.

Keep in mind, however, that this was during his age 21 season when he wasn't even starting every day.

Tejada also had a zone rating of 5.597 at shortstop, better than that of NL gold glove winner Troy Toluwitzki. Does this mean that Tejada is a better fielder than Troy? No. All I'm trying to say is that the potential is there for Tejada to be a top of the league quality glove at shortstop.

Just to compare him to the man he's taking over for, we'll look at Tejada's stats compared to Reyes. As I said, Tejada posted a zone rating of 5.597, which was one of the best in the league. Reyes's zone rating was 5.552. There's not really enough of a difference to give the advantage to Tejada, but that does show you that the kid can move. Reyes's range factor was 4.44, Tejada's was 4.41. Again, virtually a tie.

If you're an optimistic Mets fan and you're trying to look for the good in this situation, you can turn to the defense.

BASE RUNNING

 This is the area where Reyes leaving will have the biggest impact on the Mets.

It's not just the stolen bases, it's what Reyes's base running did to the team. It was something that non-Mets fans just couldn't understand. People used to get mad when analysts talked about Reyes's "electricity" and what that did for the Mets, because it's not something you can measure.

However, I can tell you that it was definitely real.

Reyes was constantly creating runs for the team, as evidence by his 7.59 runs created per 27 outs last season. For people that don't completely understand advanced statistics, that number is very high for a non-power hitter. Most of those runs were created on the bases, not at the plate.

If Reyes got on to lead-off an inning late in the game, it was steal, sac bunt, sac fly and there was your run.

If Tejada is going to get to that point on the bases, he is going to need to really work at it.

Last year, Tejada was 5 for 6 in stolen bases, a promising sign in an extremely small sample. Again, this is a little bit different because Tejada will be batting 8th this year and not 1st, but he's the type of player you might eventually want to see hitting lead-off.

If he can work on his base-running and get up to around 30 stolen bases this year at a clip of at least 70%, I think that's something the Mets would be willing to living with.

Sadly, there is probably no one that will be able to have the effect on the lineup that Reyes was able to have with his energy alone, but if Tejada really works at it and continues to develop like we saw at the end of last season, the Mets will have a very good shortstop in the making.