Tom Brennan - WISHFUL THINKING ON METS OFFENSIVE SUBS AND SCRUBS PLAYERS
Most delis have delicious heros a/k/a "subs." De-lish.
Aside from food, every team has offensive starters - and subs.
Aside from food, every team has offensive starters - and subs.
Hopefully, the starters play like starters, stay healthy, and minimize the need for subs to play.
The Mets had to use subs more in 2018 than they might have hoped, due to injuries to the likes of guys like Cespedes, d'Arnaud, Plawecki, Frazier, and Lagares.
Contending teams understand that injuries are part of the game, and have solid alternative scenarios to not let a spate of starting position player injuries deep-six their teams.
The Mets always skimp when it comes to subs and scrubs.
The Mets employ a lot of wishful thinking.
And it really costs them.
Don't believe me?
Look at the subs and scrubs hitting stats, then.
Let's run down the list - really positive stats are highlighted in blue, while sub-par stats are highlighted in yellow:
J. Bautista: 245 AB, 37 R, 50 H, 13 D, 9 HR, 37 RBI, 41 BB, 75 K, .204
J. Reyes: 228 AB, 30 R, 43 H, 12 D, 3 T, 4 HR, 16 RBI, 22 BB, 39 K, .189
A. Jackson: 198 AB. 17 R, 49 H, 9 D, 1 T, 3 HR, 19 RBI, 12 BB, 74 K, .247
D. Smith: 143 AB, 14 R, 32 H, 11 D, 1 T, 5 HR, 11 RBI, 4 BB, 47 K, .224
T. Nido: 84 AB, 10 R, 14 H, 3 D, 1 HR, 9 RBI, 4 BB, 27 K, .167
L. Guillorme: 67 AB, 4 R, 2 D, 0 HR, 5 RBI, 7 BB, 3 K, .208
J. Lobaton: 49 AB, 3 R, 7 H, 2 D, 1 T, 0 HR, 4 RBI, 7 BB, 15 K, .143
J. Reinheimer: 30 AB, 4 R, 5 H, 0 D, 0 T, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 5 BB, 9 K, .167
P. Evans: 21 AB, 1 R, 3 H, 0 D, 0 T, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 8 K, .143
M. Dekker: 18 AB, 0 R, 1 H, 0 D, 0 T, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 9 K, .056
T. Kelly: 11 AB, 1 R, 1 H, 0 D, 0 T, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K, .091
K. Kaczmarski: 4 AB, 0 R, 0 H, 0 D, 0 T, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K, .000
TOTALS OF THE ABOVE SUBS AND SCRUBS:
1,098 AB, 121 R, 218 H, 52 D, 6 T, 22 HR, 103 RBI, 108 BB, 309 K, .198.
That's a whole lot of yeller, fellers.
Those 1,098 at bats represent 20% of the team's 5,468 ABs for the year, in which the team hit a dead last at .234.
The 80% of the team not comprised of the subs and scrubs hit .241, so the subs and scrubs hit 43 points lower than the rest of the hitters.
Even worse, exclude pitchers from the team totals (42 for .300, .140) as well as subs and scrubs, and the rest of the team's offense hit a (still low) .248, so the hitter subs and scrubs actually hit 50 points lower than the starting position players!
CONCLUSION:
A team that really, truly, honestly is serious about contending cannot have 20% of its line up attempts (the aforementioned subs and scrubs) hitting .198.
Off the top of my head, that subs and scrubs number needs to go up at least 30 points to .228 to have any serious hope of competing for the Division title or a Wild Card.
Of the subs and scrubs, only Joey Bats and Austin Jackson were both solid enough for subs - the rest simply were not.
The rest, collectively, were gosh-awful.
And where did that Subs & Scrubs hitting deficiency show up?
IN A SUB .500 WIN/LOSS RECORD, THAT'S WHERE.
SOLUTION:
YOU CANNOT GO CHEAP ON SUBS AND SCRUBS.
DOING SO WILL KILL YOU AS A TEAM.
"Wishful thinking" franchises, like the Mets, have been hoping that the number of Subs and Scrubs at bats will be no more than 500, and that they will predominantly be taken by the better hitters.
There must, however, be a much better plan to get Subs and Scrubs collectively hitting at least around .225 or higher. Not too difficult a goal to ascribe to, I'd say.
Simply, sign subs who can hit, who will produce more blues, and less yellows.
Going cheap here will save a few bucks in the short run, perhaps, but cost you playoff revenues come October.
The Mets' approach leads to a bottom line that is SUB par.
The Mets' approach leads to a bottom line that is SUB par.
13 comments:
Wow.
We really scrubed it up last year.
Is 'scrubed' a word?
Though, it is hard to evaluate some of these guys with the small about of at bats or appearances.
That kind of scrubititude is Staigering!
Interesting and quite telling, to be honest.
Add some offense, shore up the bullpen and keep your starting pitching intact. Pretty simply, really.
There is work to do, but I don't think we are that far away.
And Citifield itself. Killer article to come next week.
Mack, true, some did not get up much. I also excluded McNeil, treating him as an instant non-sub starting player. .329 ain't the stuff of subs.
Same old Same. Until new Owners this is what we get year in year out.
Very true.
As bad as the offense was last year, which is VERY, it was primarily the pen that killed us. There were enough late-inning leads to allow us to be at or very close to the ML lead in blown saves. And that does not include the middle inning runs given up that cost us Ws. I'd say that even a league average pen with a solid closer would have added at least 10 Wins to our total.
Brodie is still looking to make more moves, but even if today's roster is the one we take to ST we are much better all around.
I refuse to surrender to the pessimists among us. Remember Tug's immortal plea. YA GOTTA BELIEVE! 🙌
Bill, true...the pen was the worst. Hitting is also a culprit...an article I have coming out next week reveals the real culprit besides the pen.
If you were a Quad-A caliber player, you were begging your agent to get you a minor league contract from the Mets. It was your best chance of earning some major league playing time.
That, Mike, was very true. The Wilpons loved AAAA guys. Far too many helped the team miss the playoffs. Steve Cohen gets that.
WOW back to back to back Tommy Brennan's and there awesome. Tom so the truth will set us free and it comes with the name Steve Cohen because to fight with the big boys we need lots of ammunition so again thank you Steve and LGM
Gary, thank you. I just am trying to peel back the curtain on what made the Wilpons fail so much more than they had to over the years. They're not the only team to try to play it safe monetarily and in essence concede.
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