Lost among the team success, the individual exploits of Yoenis Cespedes and Travis d’Arnaud and the Scott Boras soap opera is the performance of rookie Michael Conforto. When he was called up many were fretting that the Mets were foolishly rushing him. But not only has he looked like he belongs in the majors, Conforto is swinging a great bat. Coming into Sunday he’s slashing .289/.367/.521 and he looks much better than advertised in the field, too.

The best rookie “year” by a prospect (min. 100 PA, age 23 or younger) in franchise history belongs to Gregg Jefferies, who in 1988 came up and delivered a 178 OPS+ in 118 trips to the plate. If the 2015 season ended last night, Conforto would rank second with a 144 OPS+. Currently, the second-best mark belongs to Darryl Strawberry, who won Rookie of the Year honors with a 134 OPS+ in 473 PA. Daniel Murphy had a 130 OPS+ in 151 PA in 2008. David Wright and John Milner are currently tied for fourth with 119 marks.

Murphy is an interesting comp, in that both he and Conforto came up in years where the Mets were battling for a playoff spot and both got the long side of platoons in left field.

There are big differences between the two, however. Murphy was converted to the outfield while that’s Conforto’s natural position. Also, Conforto has been considered one of the Mets’ top prospects from the moment he was drafted, while Murphy was a low-round pick who improved as he moved up the ladder. Murphy never had the prospect sheen that Conforto does. Perhaps most importantly, Murphy had a .382 BABIP while Conforto has a more-normal .318 mark.

Conforto is simply doing it all. He’s hitting for a strong AVG, he’s more than willing to take a walk and he’s hitting for power, too. His .231 ISO ranks third on the team, behind only the big seasons of the aforementioned Cespedes and d’Arnaud. And Conforto is providing this power without producing huge strikeout numbers. He currently sits with an 18.7 K%, a full two points below the Mets’ 20.7 team mark.

The rookie is improving his strikeout mark, too. In his last 26 games, Conforto has whiffed just 13 times in 91 PA, for a 14.3 K%.

In his second game in the majors, Conforto had a four-hit game. It seemed as if pitchers immediately changed their approach, looking to paint corners instead of challenging him with their fastball. As we saw earlier, Conforto had some trouble with called third strikes. Seven of his first 18 whiffs were called by the umpire. That’s a 38.9% called K rate, while 23.6% is the average in the majors. Since then, Conforto has been called out on strikes only twice in his last eight punchouts.

Conforto arrived earlier than expected and has done better than even his strongest proponents would have imagined. But there’s still the question of how he’ll do facing southpaws on a regular basis. He has just 12 PA and a .432 OPS against LHP in the majors. However, in 134 PA against lefties in the minors, Conforto posted a .272/.381/.421 mark this year. It’s not unreasonable to project him to hold his own against lefties once he becomes a full-time player.

The rapid ascension to the majors and the instant success of Conforto just reinforces how poor the decision to sign Michael Cuddyer to a two-year deal was. The Mets will be stuck paying Cuddyer $12.5 million next year to be a fourth outfielder and gave up their first-round pick this year to make it happen. Conforto was the initial first-round pick of Sandy Alderson’s to make the majors. If this is any indication of Alderson’s drafting prowess with top picks, the last thing we should be doing is giving those away.

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