Michael Friere - So, What Will It Take?

OK, so all of the off season excitement and unbridled optimism got me thinking about the Mets' playoff chances in 2018.  Clearly, on first blush, the last sentence should be taken with a large grain of salt or viewed through the "sarcasm meter".

Off season excitement?  Unbridled optimism?   Playoffs?!?!  

It would be easy to write off the Mets for 2018, especially on January 9th when they have done very little to change the roster from the version that "veered off the road and unsuccessfully took on a large oak tree" last season.  I get it and it is easy to fall in line with a majority of the fan base who have already given up. I am also a realist and I do think the Mets are running in the same circles as the Nationals, so the division title is most likely going to stay in Washington for at least another year.

But, with the advent of the "wild card" format, we still have hope of "getting into the tournament" so to speak.  Once you get into the tournament, anything can happen, right?   Just look at Alabama winning the College Football National Title last night as the fourth seed in the CFP (sorry Mack).  The cool thing about the MLB playoffs is that a team with a couple of dominant pitchers can make a serious run at a championship due to the way the short series are set up. Last time I checked, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob DeGrom qualify as "a couple of dominant pitchers", health permitting.

So, what will it take for the Mets to turn around their fortunes and challenge for a wild card berth?

Over the last five years, the average win total of BOTH wildcard teams combined was 90.7 and the average win total of just the second wild card was 89.6, which is not too far behind.   It would be a fair statement to say that if the Mets want to contend

for one of the wild cards in 2018, they need to find twenty extra wins (i.e. going from 70-92 to 90-72). 

That is no small task, especially when you consider that the 2015 team won exactly 90 games en route to the World Series, while the 2016 Wild Card team won 87 games.  The average win total for those two seasons (88.5) would be in the conversation in 2018, but it was accomplished by teams that were arguably better then what our current edition appears to be at this juncture.

For arguments sake, where can the Mets capture twenty extra wins in 2018?

Improved health and better management would be a great start, along with a myriad of other factors that have been discussed ad naseum over the course of the last few months.   A different view would be to look at the Mets' record against individual teams during 2017.  Usually, most teams either split or come close to splitting a season series with another opponent.

Division opponents play each other nineteen times and out of division opponents play each other seven times, with the rest of the games decided with "inter-league" match ups.

The Mets were a combined 7-26 against the Nationals, Dodgers and Diamondbacks!  Additionally, they also had a 7-13 record against their assigned AL opponents!  Put those two together and you have an abysmal 14-39 record, which is twenty-five games below .500 in almost a third of the year.  Hell, they were only twenty-two games under .500 for the entire season, so if you subtract the listed opponents, the Mets actually played three games over .500 against everyone else for the other two thirds of the season.

You can't subtract tough opponents, so that option is out.  However, what if the Mets simply rebound from a horrid 14-39 record, to one closer to "break even" which would be a record of 26-27?   It would add twelve wins to the season total and push their "what if" overall record to 82-80.  Still not playoff caliber, but much closer then last year.

There are eleven remaining NL opponents on the Mets schedule, so if you can squeeze one more win out of each season series that would push their potential record to 93-69, which would be excellent and likely result in a playoff berth.  

However, you also need to temper your expectations against three opponents that the Mets did very well against last season, like the Braves (12-7), Phillies (12-7) and the Giants (5-1).  Regression to the mean works both ways, so lets say that the Mets lose at least a game or two more against the Giants, as well as one more game against the Braves and Phillies.  That would knock off three or four wins, putting the possible season record at the "magical number" of 89 or 90 wins.

Simple, right?

The general point of this article is to show that there is plenty of room for improvement in 2018 and it starts with the Mets playing some of their more difficult opponents better then they did last year when they rolled over like a dog. 

In addition to better health and management tactics, give me a .500 record against the "big boys" and I think you may be surprised by the time October rolls around.