Mets Have Upgraded Their Outfield Defense

On ESPN's MLB site, Mike Petriello was documenting some of the upgrades that teams have made that have been less heralded than others. Among them, he listed the improvement of outfield defense fans will see this year at Citi Field. From the article:

Things turned around when Juan Lagares took over the bulk of time in center, since even in a partial season he proved himself to be one of the best defensive center fielders in the game. And now that Lagares is going to be flanked by Curtis Granderson and Chris Young, the Mets should head into 2014 with one of the better defensive trios in baseball.

For years, Young roamed center for Arizona and was very good at it, putting up top-three Fielding Bible Awards finishes in 2010 and '11 while coming in second in DRS at the position in both years. Granderson was obviously signed for his bat, but he has years of center field experience as well, putting up a total of 27 DRS in his time there.

 A lot of this is common sense, and clearly any removal of Lucas Duda from the outfield is going to result in an improvement in the defense, but both of these signings made people look directly at their impact on the lineup. However, even with the new dimensions Citi Field has a pretty large outfield, and it will be nice to have a bit more capable outfield to man it. Lagares looked like one of the best defenders in the league last year, and now he'll have better coverage in the corners.