Reese Kaplan -- Winning is Also About Preventing Runs From Scoring

One of the hot topics among Mets fans is the relative value of defense vs. offense when it comes to playing winning baseball.  No one can deny the great thrill of beating up on opposing pitchers with hard hit line drives and towering home runs to ensure victory.  Many of us can recite with vivid memory examples of distinctive and impressive feats done with savagery by some of the best hitters in the game.  Sometimes it’s a monstrous home run landing in the upper deck and sometimes it’s a well placed base hit that pushes the winning run unexpectedly across the plate.

During the 2019 season and the 2020 seasons the Mets seemed fairly capable in this regard.  They enjoyed the exploits of Pete Alonso, Michael Conforto, Dom Smith, Amed Rosario, J.D. Davis, Wilson Ramos, Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil.  At times each of them demonstrated the ability to punish the opposition with the wooden stick in their hands and fans cheered wildly when it happened.

The other side of this equation, however, is preventing the very nature of the offensive barrage that leads to fans wild excitement.  One avenue to prevent such revelry is to pitch effectively enough that opposing hitters are not capable of delivering the hard hit balls that win games. 

Unfortunately, last season was a reflection of what happens among starters and relievers when the ability to miss bats was not readily evident.  Yes, Jacob deGrom was always Jacob deGrom and Edwin Diaz was the kind of pitcher they hoped they’d gotten when they obtained him for the 2019 season.  Pretty much the rest of them were not as predictable about when they would succeed and when they would implode.

Even further down the list of priorities is the long forgotten concept of defense.  Most General Managers and team owners have fallen under the spell of the three run homer as the only means necessary to win games.  They gave very little regard to how well the infielders and outfielders were doing at tracking down the ball, making throws and preventing opposing runners from scoring.  

A lot of the dialog this off season has had to do with getting the big pitcher or the big hitter to play centerfield.  A bit less has been written about the importance of strong infield defense when it comes to who will man third base, yet at the same time folks are throwing Amed Rosario under the bus in deference to Andres Gimenez’ superior defense.  

It always seemed that superior glove men held a double duty of preventing runs from crossing the plate as well as increasing pitchers’ confidence in knowing that anything hit was going to be handled with aplomb.  The pitchers didn’t have to feel that anything less than a strikeout was a potential failure.  As a result good defense leads to better pitching which results in more winning of ballgames.  

As the Mets make their foray into the brave new world of Cohenmania, it’s time they rethink the obsolete idea of launch angle as the only value a player contributes to the game.  Knowing double plays will be turned regularly and successfully, knowing baserunners will be gunned down with solid throws and knowing outfielders can position themselves to corral whatever is hit will go a long way towards changing the perception of the team as somehow incomplete and only partially respectable.  No one wants to see what Wilson Ramos did for his pitchers any more than they want to see Brandon Nimmo butchering balls in centerfield or J.D. Davis playing third like a brick wall.