OK, class.
In recent weeks, Professor Tom has shared a few key things:
1) The non-performers on the Mets annually are way too many and get way too many at bats and innings to allow this team to excel.
2) The luxury tax cap is a cost of doing successful business in many cases. Just look at the 3 biggest spenders in that regard over the years: the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox. Sure there are teams like the Rays. But the Mets are not about to morph into the low-cost, excellent Rays any time soon by trying to contain payroll costs in the short run.
3) Smart teams know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em. Justin Turner, Daniel Murphy, Travis d'Arnaud and Hansel Robles are just 4 recent GLARING examples of that - cases where there was a SHORTAGE of talent on the team that could do what they were capable of, yet they were foolishly dumped.
Real teams with deep, deep pockets do not fear busting through the luxury tax cap, especially when the existing team already has a lot of talented players.
This Mets team had tons of talent at the top in 2020...
But also had tons of truly miserable performers.
The latter group killed this team - the (as I recall it) 14 guys in 2020 with ERAs over 5.00 threw HALF their innings, allowed 7.4 runs per 9 innings, and went 8-26.
Who can make the playoffs with THAT?
Answer? No one.
Hard to have an 8-26 contingent and make the playoffs in a 162 game season - impossible to do in a 60 game season. As a reminder, the rest of the staff went 18-8. What a disparity.
And don't think for a second that having absolute dreck like those gosh-awful 2020 bottom-half pitchers and, to a lesser degree hitless utility hitters who also failed, does not put huge pressure to perform on everyone else.
Would Pete Alonso have had such an off year, for instance, if those clowns who went 8-26 instead were competent enough to have gone 16-18?
I postulate that "WOULD NOT" as the correct answer.
A pressure’s-off Pete would have done much better.
The Wilpon Mets annually counted on luck that rarely showed up.
In 2015, it did, Their lower end hitters hitting about .180 in about 800 at bats (as I recall) through mid-July, and as a result, the team was on the verge of falling out of the race.
Then, David Wright revived, Daniel Murphy transformed, and Messrs. Cespedes, Uribe, Johnson, and Reed were added and miraculously, baseball's least potent offense turned into baseball's most potent offense the rest of the way and its bullpen got a boost.
That was a confluence of a lot of luck. Luck is not a real baseball strategy, although it works once every few decades.
The simple fix for 2021 is to greatly minimize the number of at bats and innings of such miserable Mets performers.
Get REAL BACK-HALF PLAYERS, not the types of bums the Mets use in their back half virtually every season.
Let me put it to you this way - do you ever, in your wildest dreams, think that the Yankees or Dodgers would have kept using two guys like Paul Sewald and Tyler Bashlor until they were 1-21?
Absolutely ZERO chance of that occurring, because for those teams, trying to skate by on AAA talent is not an option.
The top playoff teams do exactly that - those low competence guys play hardly at all for them.
That is what the Mets need to do in 2021, if at all possible.
It is time for the Mets to no longer half step it and hope that luck is a viable strategy.
It is time to act upon what it takes to make the Mets a year-in, year-out playoffs participant.
Mr. Cohen, the fans deserve no less.
What's in it for you, bottom line?
WINNING...AND DOMINANCE.
Spend a lot more, wisely of course, and turnstiles will spin faster, concessions will rock and roll, playoff money will pour in, and franchise value will climb.
Please do it. Do it big.
So, dear reader, you are the big bucks, build me a winner.
Which players will do that?
Gotta find the diamonds in the rough like the Yankees did with Luke Voit and Gio Urshela and like the Rays did with Arozarena. Spare us the Keon Broxtons, the Jed Lowries, the Jake Marisnicks, the Wilmer Fonts, the Walker Locketts, and the Donnie Harts.
ReplyDeleteWill this be the Sandy that dumped Murphy and Turner and signed Frank Francisco and Antonio Bastardo while trading for prospects like Eric Hanhold, Gerson Bautista, and more?
If I told you before 2020 that DeGrom would be top 3 Cy Young contender. We would have to break out prospects (Peterson/Gimenez) and that our offensive core would be near the top of baseball but we would still miss the playoffs with the 13th worst record in the NL you would wonder how that was possible.
ReplyDeleteDallas, it was possible for the Mets to so poorly because 14 guys with ERAs over 5.00 allowed 7.4 runs per 9 innings throwing 48% of their innings and were 8-26.
ReplyDeleteThat is a historically bad failure. Clean house of most of those non-performers.
John, I wonder if Murphy was dropped by Sandy or the Wilpons. I think the latter.
ReplyDeleteSandy showed us in mid-2015 what he could do when the purse strings were loosened.
Its important to know that Jeffy has left the building.....he has right? Not signing Wheeler was criminal (he alone would have gotten us in the playoffs) considering the very fare contract he signed and bad luck for us that this year wasn't his free agent year because you know Cohen wouldn't have let him go. Also we need the depth in the organization to find the Soto's and Acuna's of the world AND BE MUCH SMARTER OVERALL! Lets Go Steve!
ReplyDeleteCohen would have kept Wheeler.
ReplyDeleteGetting zero innings from Thor and Stro in 2020 killed them, though.
That 48% of innings from guys with ERAs above 5 would have been low @0% if both had given the Mets 12 starts.
If they pitched AND Wheeler was kept, 10% dreck innings, not 48%. If that had happened, we win at least 60%. And who knows, maybe the World Series.
Tom, I agree. The terrible baserunning, untimely hitting and bad defense did not help either.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the Mets beat and bloggers are not running the team. All these nutty suggestions for Lindor and Arenado. Arenado is basically Cano in a year or two, an aging elite player past his prime that costs a lot of $$$$$. Trading assets to tie up big money in more in soon to be mid-30 year olds is not how you build a sustainable winner. Giving up tons of young controllable talent (for a position you already have strength in) to pay huge money for Lindor is also not a way to do it.
ReplyDeleteDallas, I couldn't agree more on both of your last two posts.
ReplyDeletePlease pass on Lindor and Arenado. I was reading the blog on three potential trades for Dom Smith. No Thank you on all of them.
As far as 2020 goes, while the pitching certainly met with a lot of bad luck (Syndergaard going down, Stroman going out, and Matz going completely south, I believe the real reason they were 26 -34 and did not make the playoffs was the poor hitting with runners in scoring position, just scoring runs at the right time, poor baserunning and poor defense. Arguably a better defensive outfield would have made all those pitchers better, and scoring a few more runs in the close games would have gone a long way for some of those guys to have had better records. Not saying that they need to do better than what they had, but it wasn't simply bad pitching that trashed this year.
I just wonder how they would have hit with RISP if the pitching backing them was better and take some pressure off the hitters. That said, we have a core, and the rest of the guys are in play, or ought to be. 100 wins or bust.
ReplyDelete