Send Ike Davis to the minor leagues. Don’t send him to the minor leagues. It doesn’t make a difference in the big picture.
Here’s the greater takeaway, as the Mets saw Matt Harvey’s turn in the rotation overshadowed by yet another Ay Yi Y-Ike moment:
He just isn’t good enough a player to be generating this much agita. So he shouldn’t be part of the Mets’ plans next year and beyond, when they vow to be out of full rebuilding mode.
“This is absolutely baffling to everybody,” manager Terry Collins said, after a very questionable Davis decision on defense led to the Mets losing, 7-4, to the Reds at Citi Field, completing a Cincy sweep. “We base what we’re doing on the fact that we’re looking down the road. We’re trying to look at the big picture here. We’ve got to get this guy going, because we’ve got to figure out where he’s going to fit.”
As of yesterday evening, the Mets (17-27) were leaning against sending Davis, who has one hit and 14 strikeouts in his past 38 at-bats and one hit in his last 25 ABs with runners in scoring position, to Triple-A Las Vegas right now. There’s the thought of giving him the weekend series against the Braves, after he walked twice (and struck out once) yesterday and hit a long flyout to the warning track in center field.
Nevertheless, it now is fair to wonder if Davis is taking his offensive struggles out into the field with him. On Monday night, he cost the team by being charged with obstruction. Then came yesterday’s Greg Focker moment, after Harvey endured his toughest start of the year — but still showed poise — and the Mets tied the game with a two-run rally in the seventh.
With the game tied at 4-4 in the ninth inning, one out and Reds on first and second, Brandon Phillips top-sided a shot toward Davis. It bounced on the foul line, and Davis, sliding toward the line, opted to let the ball go. First-base umpire Phil Cuzzi correctly ruled it fair, and Phillips had an RBI double. Two more runs scored on a single by Todd Frazier, and the Mets went down quietly against Cincinnati closer Aroldis Chapman in the ninth.
Davis said, because he couldn’t turn an inning-ending double play, he didn’t see the merits of grabbing the ball.
“In my head, when I saw it bounce foul, I pulled my glove back,” he said. “That was my thought process on that. I still can’t tell if it was foul or fair on replays, but I did think that it bounced foul right before I got it. Everything going wrong for me is going wrong. That’s just what happened.”
Asked why he simply didn’t get the ball and record the one out — after all, as the home team, the Mets were guaranteed another
trip to the plate — he said, “I thought it would go further foul. [Cuzzi] can’t see when I’m on the line like that. If I let it go, it would be obvious it was foul.”
Eh.
We are just 44 games into the 2013 season. On this date last year, Davis had five homers and a .212 on-base percentage as opposed to this year’s four and .236. And we know he wound up with 32 homers and enough good karma for folks to wonder if the Mets should commit long-term years and dollars to him.
That they didn’t now looks prescient. Because with Davis making $3.13 million and poised to jump a few more million bucks next year if he can rebound to a more respectable level by season’s end, he is approaching the point where he simply won’t be worth his salary.
Harvey, as a frontline starting pitcher, is a cherished and rare commodity. Davis, as a first baseman? Not so much. There are 14 first basemen who have collected 1,400 or more plate appearances while spending at least 75 percent of their time at first base since 2010, according to baseball-reference.com. Among those 14, heading into yesterday’s action, Davis ranked 11th in on-base percentage (.325) and ninth in slugging percentage (.438).
In deciding on Davis’ immediate future, the Mets should be preparing him for winter sale, for marketing him to a team that will give up something of value — a second-tier prospect or two, even — to gamble that he will figure it out with them. And if the in-season fix doesn’t work, then the Mets will have to non-tender him in December.
It would be a sad ending for a guy who not long ago seemed like a Mets fixture. But this dog just won’t hunt. Given where the Mets are right now, they are better off cutting bait too soon than hanging on too long.
kdavidoff@nypost.com