D-Whit - West Coast Come Down & Comeback

 West Coast Come Down  

Comeback

Written 7/22

This team is going nowhere. The 2014 Mets will be hard-pressed to keep their 74 win season streak alive. Forget about those pre-All Star break Wild Card dreams. The Mets have more pressing concerns for the remainder of 2014-avoiding the NL East basement.  I don’t think the Mets problem is lack of talent 1 through 9 either. Sure there are some holes but take a look at the line-up of the Padre team that took 2 out of 3 from the Mets in Petco or even the Mariner squad the team is currently playing. Seattle features a similar mix of disappointing prospects, up and coming prospects, a couple of star-level players and offseason veteran Free Agent additions. On the hill, aside from King Felix, the Mets stack up pretty evenly pitchingwise with the M’s as well. Yet Seattle sits seven games over .500 at 53-46 while the Metropolitans are their dark side of the mirror opposites at 46-53. 

You can’t say that record differential is because the Mariner’s are in a weaker division: 

AL West team records 254-239  

N Least team records 243-249.

Is the disparity of the Mets and Mariner records as a result of a vastly inferior Met bench?

Mets: Eric Young Jr., Chris Young, Anthony Recker, Bobby Abreu, Eric Campbell

Mariners: Endy Chavez, Stefan Romero, Willie Bloomquist, Jesus Sucro

I’d actually say the Mets have a stronger bench than the Seattle squad. Of course comparing NL and AL teams aren’t going to give you the most perfect comparison-due to the DH which creates an overall different style of game. However, I’d say that looking over the roster the Mets and Mariners are similar teams talent-wise.

Let’s get back to the starting 9 of each team again. I know that WAR is not an exact science but it does give a decent idea of a player’s performance. So with that in mind here’s the WAR for the starting position players of each team:

*WAR taken from Baseball Reference.com

Mariners

C-Mike Zunino 0.6

1B-Justin Smoak -0.5

2B-Robinson Cano 3.6

SS-Brad Miller 0.7

3B-Kyle Seager 4.1

LF-Dustin Ackley 0.9

CF-James Jones 0.5

RF-Stefan Romero -1.0

RF-Michael Saunders (DL) 2.0

TOTAL: 8.9 w/Romero

TOTAL: 11.9 w/ Saunders

Mets

C-Travis d’Arnaud  -0.5

1B-Lucas Duda 1.9

2B-Daniel Murphy 1.7

SS-Ruben Tejada 1.0

3B-David Wright 2.2

LF-Kirk Nieuwenhuis 0.8

CF-Juan Lagares 3.0

RF-Curtis Granderson 1.4

LF-CF-Eric Young Jr. 0.9

LF-CF Chris Young 0.1

TOTAL: 11.5 w/Lagares

TOTAL: 9.4 w/ Eric Young Jr.

TOTAL:  8.6 w/Chris Young

Not remarkably different overall. In fact right now the Mets are the better team taking the field. When Lagares was out they went 7-14 and looking at the WAR of his replacements, it’s not hard to understand why. Ironically, David Wright sat out a bunch of games the same time the Lagares returned and during the Captain’s time off the field unsurprisingly the team went 2-6. So in games the Mets played during those injuries to Lagares and Wright their record was 9-20.

When both are healthy-and in Wright’s case take the field-because Lagares inexplicably was part of some half-brained OF rotation in the early weeks of the season, the team is 37-33. So it stands to reason that after Wright’s return-and having both players starting regularly on the field-team fortunes would change. That was the case for a while but they’ve sputtered since returning from the All-Star Break. They look anemic at the plate and listless in the field. This is not the way a good ballclub, a winning team plays.

If the Mets were a good ballclub they’d have won the series in San Diego and be taking advantage of a somewhat banged-up Mariner club. They could turn it around and win the next two which would put them at respectable .500 on this swing by the West Coast. This would give them momentum going into a four game series vs. the Central Division leading Brewers. For that to happen they need to play markedly better than they have so far at Petco and Safeco.

A Met massacre at Miller Park this weekend could sink the team’s flagging Wild Card hopes and set up a battle for the basement when the hapless Phils come to Citi Field next week. I’m sorry to burst anyone’s Mets postseason bubble but it could a brutal final two months in Flushing. Look at it this way though-at least you won’t have to worry about long lines in the sweltering August heat at the Shake Shack.

(Since I wrote this the Mets took the final two at Safeco and reached .500 on their mini West Coast trip. They played better the final two games but the four hits overall yesterday indicate the bats still haven’t woken up, instead they took advantage of a wild Taijuan Walker (6 BB) to plate two of their runs on only two hits. Winning the series in Seattle is great though and thankfully they avoided facing the Mariner’s two best pitchers.

  

At this point it all comes down to hitting for this team to contend. They certainly have the pitching. Kudos to Alderson on the Colon signing because while Harvey is obviously missed Colon has more than held his own as his de facto rotation replacement. 

With Tejada becoming target practice for pitchers at the plate they should put him on the 7 day concussion DL, call up this guy again.

Only start him everyday at SS while Tejada recovers. Oh, and note to TPTB don't bury him in the 8th hole this time either. Granted Petco and Safeco are pitcher parks and Granderson missed the last two games but regardless the Mets still need another stick in the line-up. Defensively challenged or not Flores could fill that need.)