I love those paint by numbers kits, how about you?
I have the art skills of a challenged 4 year old, so it is an area where any numerical support for me is helpful.
The Mets are painting their season by numbers.
Through Wednesday's games, here are a few brush strokes:
We all know their hitting with runners in scoring position has been gosh-awful. They do however lead the majors in on base % by a wide margin (.356, vs the next team's .347), so there has to be great hope that this team will pick up its RISP in the second half and score in bushels.
They also are 2nd in batting average, at .266 (White Sox are at .270). If last year's productive foursome of Alonso, McNeil, Ramos, and Rosario pick up out of their doldrums, the scoring damage will begin in earnest.
Due to those 4, and the RISP problem, they are 22nd in runs scored. Of course, missing 4 games hurt a bit, but the disparity between OBP and runs scored is glaring.
The oft-vilified Orioles are 14-16, with a 4.77 ERA, while the Mets are 13-16, 4.85. Another jaw-dropper.
Three other teams have very low ERAs (combined, close to 2 runs per game better than the Mets), and those 3 (LAD, Cleveland, and Oakland) are 63-31 combined.
Pitching wins.
The Mets without deGrom's 1.80 ERA over 35 innings clock in at an ERA of 5.36, which would place them in baseball's bottom 3.
I don't know about you, but I haven't seen anything to make me think the team ERA in the second half will be better than 4.85, so the bats will have to win the day for the Mets to succeed.
Lastly, for a team rated as having poor defense, they are 6th best in baseball with 6 unearned runs allowed, so ease up on the fielders, will ya?
And to conclude on this brief statistical analysis, let me note that this article is shorter than 92.6% of all my articles.
Anyway, I know your chances of having a great day today ate 100%, because I said so and I'm the numbers guys, so don't mess me up there and go and get miserable, OK?
SMILE! YOU'RE # 1!
P.S. Dom Smith is # 1, too, for speaking out. He is a lot more than just words. He is a man of action and a man of great heart. Keep it up, Dom. Perhaps you can get many in MLB to also truly reach out as you do, to change hearts and minds.
I've never been a big believer in the RISP stat, because it's based on small sample sizes. To address it, you could never go out and seek players who do well in RISP situations. It fluctuates too wildly.
ReplyDeleteSo, yes, give me good hitters and the RISP sub-category will take care of itself.
You named the right four culprits: Rosario, Alonso, Ramos and, to a somewhat lesser extent, McNeil.
Both Alonso and Rosario have been awful. They throw away so many ABs. Very hard to watch those two flail about, completely at the mercy of the pitcher. I think Rosario is up to 87 ABs without a walk.
Ramos has been bad. And with that defense, it's a big negative. Unfortunately, catchers are hard to come by. He's been going the other way more and that's a good sign.
McNeil looks lost. Zero HRs. He hasn't been terrible, but hasn't been productive, either. An All-Star last season.
That's just under half our starting lineup.
To me, Rosario needs to sit more. Guillorme can play SS better. Just about anybody can play SS better.
Pete has 0.0 WAR this season -- and counting!
Very few teams ever put it all together. They all have flaws. The Mets defense is very poor and the starting pitching is on the ropes. Needed Matz to be good, needed either Porcello or Wacha to be good. The pen is a positive. But the offense needed to be very good, it SHOULD BE very good, but this whole team looks still and glum and out of tune.
It's a freaking year.
Jimmy
Jimmy
I've lost count of the number of fly balls not caught. Poor defense does not always show up in # of errors.
ReplyDeleteJimmy, I agree. Pete in particular needs to wake up. Just before the season started, I watched the Home Run derby. He hit them to all fields. Take it a game at a time, Pete, forget the past, and hit the ball hard to all fields.
ReplyDeleteRDS, great to catch OF balls, but if I have a choice, I’ll take great OF offense and weak D, rather than weak offense and great D.