With Murphy down, who will the Mets turn to?

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According to Sandy Alderson, Daniel Murphy may begin the season on the disabled list with a right hamstring pull. The 2014 All-Star was originally listed to miss a week with his injury, but it appears like the organization would like to make sure he is 100% healthy before returning to the starting lineup. 

In the meantime, Alderson also said that top prospect Dilson Herrera will NOT return to the big league camp, after being re-assigned to the minors last week. That leaves Matt Reynolds and Danny Muno as the final two infielders with experience at second base this spring. The question is, who will the Mets go with?

It is expected that Wilmer Flores will begin the year as the starting shortstop, despite fouling a ball off his foot yesterday and "being in a lot of pain" while wearing a walking boot. That said, Flores will not be considered for second base, which makes complete sense in my opinion. The club seems comfortable with Ruben Tejada as it's backup middle infielder, so he will not be considered for the starting 2B spot either.

Photo Courtesy of Nj.com

Matt Reynolds is a shortstop by trade, but is also capable of playing 2nd. His bat would obviously be his strong suit, and he is expected to play adequate enough defense to hold his own. The former 2nd round pick is hitting .379/.400/.483 in 14 ST games this year. He had his 1st breakout season in 2014, hitting .343/.405/.454 with 6 HR and 20 SB in 126 games for Binghamton and Las Vegas. 

Muno has had himself a fine spring as well, hitting .387/.424/.419 in 17 games. The 26 year old has never been regarded as a top prospect by any means, but has garnered some attention from minor league analysts over the last few seasons. He certainly has more experience at second base than Reynolds, playing there in 239 of his 384 career games. His minor league offensive numbers do not indicate that he will be an elite hitter, but should be able to put up league-average numbers for a position that is rather shallow. 

It remains unclear who exactly will start at second base, but there should be some interesting competition throughout the final two weeks of Spring Training. I'm going to give the edge to Reynolds for now, but Muno is just as capable of taking over.

It's funny, at this time next year, Murphy will likely be gone via free agency, and we'll be having this same discussion again, except it will probably be between Reynolds and Herrera, who will certainly be ready by then.