Daniel Murphy views the glass as half full, even as the Mets have an outfield that appears two-thirds empty.
But Murphy senses the front office probably isn’t finished for the winter.
“I feel as an organization we don’t want to quite get sucked in to some of the prices that are going on right now for outfield,” Murphy said yesterday in Far Rockaway, where he distributed food and supplies to residents affected by Hurricane Sandy.
“But I still like the group of guys we’ve got. It’s tough to see R.A. [Dickey] go, but I like the pieces we got back for him.”
Those pieces from Toronto included catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud, pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard and catcher John Buck.
Murphy said he understood the rationale behind general manager Sandy Alderson’s decision to trade last year’s NL Cy Young Award winner.
“[Dickey] had more value in trade than he did re-signing,” Murphy said. “You’re not going to replace a Cy Young award winner, but I do think with the catching help we got, not only immediately with John Buck, but also maybe not far away in d’Arnaud and then Syndergaard, he’s on the way, so I thought it was a good deal.”
Murphy pointed to Scott Hairston and Chris Young, both of whom played for the Mets last season, as potential free-agent help. Murphy indicated he and Young have kept in touch through text messages.
But Murphy acknowledged the uncertainty of an outfield that currently includes Lucas Duda, Collin Cowgill, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Mike Baxter, Andrew Brown and Brian Bixler.
“Some of the question marks that everybody has is the outfield, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about Collin Cowgill,” Murphy said. “While it may not be big league free-agent splashes that we’ve made so far, I think we’ve added some pieces that definitely are going to help us.”