Tom Brennan - Early Projection For 2019 Mets
The Mets in 2018 won 77 and lost 85, despite the following:
Starters:
Jason Vargas got hamated (yes, it's my word and I'm going with it) and essentially stunk almost all season. He produced less than a win per million dollars of salary.
Matt Harvey stunk, then left early for Redder pastures.
Before Zach Wheeler was great later in 2018, he wasn't.
Steve Matz had trouble winning.
Thor missed a chunk of starts again (still won 13, though).
Bullpen:
Familia was OK, despite getting hurt, and also traded mid season (which was not OK, except we recently re-signed him, which was OK).
Ant'ny Swarzak got hurt as an April fools joke, missed much of the season, stunk all of it.
Paul Sewald remained major league winless - the way he pitched in 2018, he deserved to be winless.
The bullpen, except for a few guys, deserved to be bottom 3 in baseball. Fifteen of the weakest pen guys had pen ERAs of 5.00 or higher, and combined to allow over 7 runs per 9 innings - a formula for success exactly - umm - nowhere that I can think of.
Hitters:
Main man La Potencia Cespedes found his Achilles heel(s), which kept him from finding the plate after early May. He earned a new nickname: LA ABSENCIA.
Fellow slugger Jay Bruce hit like a slug. He also went on Social Security Disability during the campaign.
Juan Lagares went toe-to-toe with the fence, and it ended in an early 2018 TKO. His surgeon was happy to see him again. Replacement Jose Bautista managed to hit over .200, but barely. Fellow OF replacement Austin Jackson had a .710 "off base %", also known as a substandard .290 OBP.
Jose Reyes gave new meaning to the term super sub, by hitting sub - .190.
Jose and Bautista led a cadre of subs and scrubs who combined for 1,100 ABs and just .198 in 2018, a formula for success exactly - umm - nowhere that I can think of.
K Plawecki and T d'Arnaud did what they do best for much of 2018 - got hurt, and nicely synchronized in early April at that - and their fill ins T Nido and J Lobaton didn't do what was needed - hit anywhere near .200. Another masked fill in, Devin Mesoraco, was OK until he got hurt too.
Dom Smith overslept, overstayed his time in Las Vegas, and under-performed in Vegas and Queens. The Vegas over/ under on him was not good.
Adrian Gonzalez started the season old and mediocre, and he left early on the same way.
Michael Conforto and Amed Rosario hit very well on the road, and very awful at home in the decidedly suckiest stadium for hitters anywhere.
Todd Frazier proved to be the model of consistency, hitting .213 - again, after his .213 the prior season. He was also consistent with many on the team in terms of getting injured for a significant stretch of time.
Jake deGrom did win 10 games, and a Cy Young, but set a record for least wins by a Cy Young award winning starting pitcher ever, a victim of sucky home field syndrome. He went 4-6 at home in 16 starts despite a mind-boggling 1.54 ERA.
David Wright returned to action - for half a game.
The team was dead last in MLB in hitting and scoring at home, a formula for success exactly - umm - nowhere that I can think of.
WHAT WENT RIGHT IN 2018:
Jake was magnificent, as was Zach for a considerable stretch, the Squirrel Jeff McNeil hit a terrific .329 over 60 games that no one but me saw coming (well, I kinda saw it coming), Seth Lugo was a highly solid swing pitcher, and Amed and Michael did pretty well overall.
Asdrubal Cabrera did pretty well, too, until he was traded, and Wilmer Flores was OK, but to me, disappointing in not achieving more than he did in 2018. Brodie agreed, and non-tendered him.
So, wait a sec - how exactly did the Mets win 77 games?
That stuff above sure sounds more like 62-100 to me.
2019, so far, looks like a major upgrade:
Jake, Zach, Thor, Matz and Vargie could use their late 2018 strong success as a springboard to a top 5 rotation in 2019.
Edwin the Oh-So-Great Diaz, the return of Jeurys Familia, and addition of some other improved arms already to pen holdovers Seth Lugo and Rob Gsellman, ought to knock at least a run per 9 innings off last year's 4.96 pen ERA - maybe a run and a half to around 3.50. "3.50 or bust in 2019."
Adding Robbie Cano, Wilson Ramos, and Jed Lowrie should provide a big boost to an offense that includes other fine holdover guys that should (in my mind) be collectively very, very solid in 2019 (Brandon Nimmo, Amed Rosario, Jeff McNeil, and Michael Conforto) - combined, those 7 should make the offense more potent than the one that scored just 676 runs last season.
Peter Alonso (he of the 38 doubles, 42 homers, and 146 RBIs in the minors and winter ball last season) hopefully can provide half those numbers (19/21/73) or more for the Mets at 1B in 2019. Perhaps a rookie of the year award in November 2019 too?
And there should be much better depth, beyond those 17 regular fellas named above, than there was in 2018, such as two pen arms that got the rookie thing out of the way last season in Tyler Bashlor and Drew Smith. Along with Brodie Van Wagenen's stated intention to have real, winning-team-depth, unlike in 2018.
To me, this looks like an 87 to 92 win team right now for 2019.
Let's see who else Brodie adds between now and when the Mets ride down the Canyon of Heroes this fall for the first time in - yes - 33 seasons.
(Cue in the great Bob Murphy: "Gets by Buckner.")
I like and agree with your optimistic view of the upcoming season, Tom. But I wonder why you (along with others here and elsewhere) are so down on players who get injured, as if they did it intentionally
ReplyDeleteDid Vargas plan to put his hand in front of the line drive? Well, maybe he did in the erronious belief that he should try to catch it. Did Lag really plan to kick the only part of the wall without padding, in the same belief that he's supposed to try to catch the ball?
Did Bruce and Yo develop foot problems so that they could rest instead of spending more time running around the field?
Yes, injuries cost us many Ws, but blaming the victim does no good. In wedding ceremonies the phrase "in sickness and in health" is there for a reason. I believe it applies to our players, too.
Harsh words to begin the work week.
ReplyDeleteI read last night that one of the MLB baseball dudes whose name already escapes me (Nightinggale?) said that Cincy and the Mets havw done the most in the off-season to improved themselves.
I have always lived by the motto "don't look back and don't look too far forwards".
I'll stick with the baseball dude's analysis.
I'm still not sold on Jeff McNeil adapting to a starting role in the outfield and definitely not sold on Juan Lagares and Keon Broxton being starting caliber major league players.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see some more starting pitching depth at least held in reserve in the minors and want to see a roster spot open up for Luis Avilan to come north with the team.
I keep telling myself that BVW isn't done, but as each day gets torn off the calendar it gets more worrisome.
@Mack -- one reason they have done the most to improve themselves is that there was nowhere to go but up. If you are the Boston Red Sox how much do you really have to do?
ReplyDeleteBill, I am hard on the injured - Juan in particular is, to my way of thinking, reckless - he's the guy on the road who weaves in and out of traffic never figuring he'd hit the median and flip.
ReplyDeleteBruce should have sat more early on - don't be a hero - that hero stuff ended up in horrible hitting and a longer DL stint.
Vargas I am hopeful for, frankly, that was a freak injury - he came back too fast because the pitching staff was in tatters.
Cespedes - I just wish that he'd figured out he needed the surgery in Oct 2017. Perhaps it just wasn't as debilitating then, but he have just missed one full season.
You forgot about BOTH of our Catchers going on the DL simultaneously leaving us to call up Lobaton and Nido, then getting Mesoraco. Of the 3, only Nido had any knowledge of our pitchers, and none of the 3 helped with the at.
DeleteNice job Tom. Your analysis of 2018 left out a 5-21 June, and an almost as bad (8 wins?) May. The team suffered from a Lobotomy that Nido not happen again.
ReplyDeleteI like the Nido not happen, Texas Gus - and that horrendous May/June stretch was shades of 1963 for sure. Making the 77 wins even more Amazin'.
ReplyDeleteBut I hope this team can make us not talk in the future like, "wow, if it weren't for THAT saving grace, the season would have been a total disaster." Met fans have had their fill of that sort of talk over the decades. Hopefully Brodie's leadership will lead this whole organization to a permanently higher plane.
You know, Tom.....reading your post show just how much went wrong last year!
ReplyDeleteEven with all of the negativity and bad breaks, they won 77 games last year which was 13 games off the pace that the Braves set.
That's a lot of ground to make up, but if they have a normal season (along with the improved roster), I don't think 90 is out of the question.
Mike, what scares me is that it should have been worse - but that "McNeil-led" 37-26 finish makes me feel a lot better.
ReplyDeleteI say McNeil-led because the streak only occurred after he got here - he gave this team a huge shot in the arm when he got here.
Tom, without May and June, their record is 64-40. Nice until you realize that those are the months they played the muscle teams and were unprepared for them. So, the injuries to the catchers really couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
ReplyDelete