At SNY.tv Michael Salfino caught up with a scout and two Baseball America writers, editor John Manuel and Kary Booher for some Mets prospects chat.

Regarding Daniel Murphy, Salfino and friends cover well trod ground regarding his hitting skills and power potential.  Said Salfino’s scout:

“Murphy has good bat speed, is short to the ball and judges the strike zone, which should allow him to hit for average. But I’m not convinced he is much more than a 15-20 homer hitter. I don’t think his bat is solid enough to play left field.”

And then we get to the big question: what about Murphy’s defense at 2B?

Scout first:

“He is below average at second base with fringe-average range and stiff hands,” says our NL scout. “Third base is his best position.”

Oh man.  I saw Murphy play 3B nearly every day in HWB and it was not MLB level good.  This makes me question whether this scout has ever seen Murphy play 3B.  On the other hand, if he has, and still believes 3B is Murph’s best position, that’s a damning indictment of his play at 2B.

BA joined the skepticism party on Murphy at 2B:

Booher:

“He showed some signs that he might be able to pull it off, but even his fall league manager said he was pretty raw over there. He just may not have enough range and agility.”

Manuel:

“The scouts and Minor League managers I’ve talked to A, believe he’ll hit, B, love his grinder mentality and C, doubt his ability to play second effectively in the Majors.”

I want to emphasize this point: the Mets employed bad defensive 2B in 2008. The issue is not whether Murphy will be a gold glover – he won’t – but whether the sum total of his contributions, with bat and glove – will be bettter than what the Mets would otherwise expect to receive from the position.

There is one decent defensive 2B in Argenis Reyes.  However, his bat is just not MLB caliber.

The two guys, Luis Castillo and Damien Easley, who saw the majority of time at the keystone in 2008 were both very bad defenders.  Neither player had enough chances to qualify among The Hardball Times’ Revised Zone Rating leaderboard.  However, Castillo (.751) was worse than EVERY SINGLE qualified 2B.  Easley beat out three of the qualifiers, but his .795 is nothing to brag about.  By the way, the worst 2B with enough chances to qualify, was … Orlando Hudson.