The Mets have surprised early. A 14-11 start to the season has brought up the possibility of a more successful season than most previously anticipated. Well, except for maybe Sandy Alderson. Over the last two days, it has been said quite often that if their winning percentage was extrapolated over an entire season, the Mets would make that 90 win mark that was scoffed at in spring training. However, their winning percentage isn't the most important number to be focusing on so early in the season.
It is true that the Mets have outdone themselves, but they have somehow succeeded in spite of an atrocious offensive effort. Right now, this team is being held together by their starting rotation and at times, their helter-skelter bullpen. So the question becomes, how long can this last? What needs to come together for this lineup to supplement their pitching? Let us begin with the always interesting stat, BABIP.
Batting Average on Balls in Play has become a popular advanced statistic that is being heavily utilized to try and find diamonds in the rough or even to see who is due for an uptick in bating average. It basically determines how lucky you are as a hitter. Mets players are short on luck lately, as their BABIP differential is tied for the 3rd highest in the league with their rival Philadelphia Phillies at .061. This is to go along with a true batting average of .218, which is only above the Houston Astros' .210.
One of the biggest BABIP surprises on the Mets has been Juan Lagares, who should be returning soon from his hamstring injury. Before the DL stint, Lagares was arguably the Mets' best hitter. His BABIP? .395, which is the 15th highest in the league. Now let's get this out of the way, he is not going to hit .400 the rest of the year. Juan has received a fair bit of luck in his 55 plate appearances. That is not to take away from some improvements he has made. His swing rate at pitches outside the strike zone has taken a slight drop and sometimes, little improvements can pay dividends. His return to the lineup, should he continue to hit, will be a boon to the outfield.
Here's hoping the power comes back to Citi Field as well. The Mets sport the worst slugging percentage in the league at .310. And I'm not simply asking for home runs. I have given up on potential power numbers in that sense, I'm talking about can we maybe have a couple of doubles? Curtis Granderson is basically Mr. Mendoza, but even he has more doubles than David Wright and only one less than Wright and Lucas Duda combined. The Mets only have 50 extra base hits as a team. Hard to believe, yet here we are.
The Mets have scored 100 runs on the season, which is only 20th in the league, but we can only polish a turd so much. Producing 100 runs with only 185 team hits is impressive. This has been a tribute to the base stealing, which has been a strength for the Mets as well as their ability to move runners over. With 20 sacrifices, 89 walks and 24 stolen bases the Mets remain among the leaders in the majors in both categories. The hope is to compound that with some livelier bats.
The pitching has been effective, but soon, someone will get injured or start to falter. It will be the hitter's turn to pick up the rotation and make this a more complete team.
The most frustrating aspect of this team is not the payroll, but their ready acceptance of the status quo. When are they going to hold people accountable for results? Terry Collins is a god awful manager with as much fire in his belly as Art Howe, but to use your phrase, you can only polish a turd just so much. Still, the times you find yourself yelling at (or hurling projectiles at) the TV when Collins does something stupid can't be a drinking game if you value your liver. He's not even trying to get the best out of the poor hand he's been dealt. Where is it carved in stone, for example, that rookies must hit 8th with no protection behind them? Where is it written that you reward players who have a good day by benching them the next day? Where does it say you should burn through 4 pitchers to 4 consecutive batters? What about treating two members of the bullpen as if they have leprosy instead of marching into your boss' office and demanding he send him people he can rely upon not to embarrass themselves? It's going to get REALLY interesting when Juan Lagares returns and we see how the strange mind of Terry Collins works on his four outfielder rotation.
ReplyDeleteVery true - when Juan returns, what will Terry do? What he should do is let Juan, Chris, and Grandy start 85% of the games. That's about 410 of 486 possible starts if the seaon were to start today. Grandy sees almost no lefties unless he is hot.
ReplyDeleteLet EY Jr start the other 75 or so games. But given his contract, Grandy may be asked to break Cal Ripken's consecutive game record even if he is hitting .150 in a month.
Power-wise, the fences, given how the ball carries poorly, are too deep and it discourages hitters. The first iteration of Citifences were ridiculously high and deep, the revised version still too deep. Wright's fault - he is too nice. He knows the ball did not carry well at Shea.
He (and I am serious) should have asked for the proposed dimensions - and said they are too deep, and if you want me to stay and sign long term, they need to be X feet and no more. And what is X? About 6 to 8 feet shorter than right now. The stupid Wilpons did not fix the depth problem, only made it less bad. 6 to 8 feet shorter, given the way the ball carries, would have been fine. 400 in dead center would have been fine.
David was griping the other day...he should have never let the revised depth be settled by the clueless ownership - they don't have to hit there every day. deep fences only made sense if you had a team filled with Jose Reyes types. Just....so....stupid. Yanks hit a lot more HRs every year - and get a lot more fans. Yanks kick the sand in the face at the beach, and the Mets get sand kicked in theirs, because they have weakling HR totals every year.