Reese Kaplan -- A Happier Mets New Year in 2021

With the trends in baseball over the past 20-30 years, it’s an interesting debate over what makes for a memorable game watching experience.  Some folks would think that a home run is the only base hit worth noting.  Others think that the strikeout is the only pitching achievement that is memorable.  

Maybe it’s a testimony to my age, but I seem to recall a great many other achievements that are just as important and that get automatically committed to your brain cells as if it was yesterday.  Who can’t unsee a steal of home plate?  What about a triple play?  What about a bunt for a base hit that sets up a run?  What about the long throw from anywhere on the field to nail a baserunner who gambled he could advance one more bag?  What about the way in which some pitchers take away the strong swings and make the best offensive players capable of weak popups or grounders?  What about the delayed steal from 1st to 2nd that dupes the other team into trying to nail that runner while the guy who was on 3rd can pretty much walk home?

As we begin the new year rather than focus on what the Mets haven’t done and instead think about the plays in the games we look forward to seeing as the 2021 season arrives.  I’m not as interested in launch angle or strikeouts as I am in steady contact from the hitters and weak contact induced by the team’s pitchers.  You can’t hit every ball out of the park just as you can’t strike out every single batter.  Many people forget about aspects of the game like baserunning, hitting behind the runners, defensive positioning and forcing the other team to make mistakes.

Right now the Mets do have some pretty interesting hitters who regularly make contact but they don’t get the accolades the way sluggers do.  For all the hoopla that surrounds the prospective contract of D.J. LeMahieu, why is it that no one thinks Jeff McNeil who has a higher career batting average by 14 points is worth just as much?  It is a case of overvaluing someone who accomplished offensive production with another team and undervaluing the folks who do it on your own team already.

Brandon Nimmo is another player who gets either celebrated or condemned by the Mets fans for what he does with the bat.  His greatest attribute as everyone knows is not swinging it which leads to his amazing on base percentage which has twice exceeded the .400 mark and has led to a career OBP of .390.  Everyone knows that getting on base is an area in which he excels.  However, do they also know he has shown decent power with 17 HRs during one full season?  Or are they aware that he is only a .258 career hitter?  You can go either way on Nimmo, but he’s not what you’d call a difference maker on a good ballclub.  When you factor in his extremely substandard centerfield defense, you have to think he perhaps should be among the names the team bandies about in prospective trades.  

I won’t rehash the whole shortstop question again but I do want to pay some attention to J.D. Davis.  No matter where you try to hide him on the field, he’s simply not a good defensive player.  The Mets have faced this challenge in the past with guys like Dave Kingman and Roger Cedeno whose offensive abilities were strong enough to let them withstand what they gave back in defense.  The question is whether or not Davis can consistently perform where he did in 2019 or is he also someone the Mets should be marketing to other ballclubs (particularly in the AL) where a DH role is probably his future?

One area where I think pitchers struggle mightily is in eluding the opposing hitters’ bats.  Everyone loves to see a guy who can strike out 17.5 batters per 9 IP (unless his name is Edwin Diaz).  However, I grew up greatly admiring the sidearmers and the screwball pitchers and the guys who worked up and down as well as in and out around the strike zone.  Yes, everyone loved seeing a Billy Wagner or an in-his-prime Armando Benitez or Jeurys Familia blow the ball by everyone, but those careers are often derailed by injury or control.  Remember the Tomato Farmer, John Franco?  He was likely never the top of anyone’s best reliever in the league lists, yet he finished his career with a winning record, a 2.89 ERA and 424 saves.  By comparison, the guy they gave up that everyone loved, Randy Myers, finished with a losing record, a 3.19 ERA and 347 saves.  I think the little guy with the funky delivery proved you don’t have to strike out folks in huge numbers to be successful.

So, going into the new baseball season there are a lot of things that can change for the better for the Mets that are not necessarily named George Springer or Trevor Bauer.  Everyone wants to see a winning ballclub, but there are many ways to make that happen.  I remember vividly the good team filled with solid but not necessarily All Star players that easily beat the Mets in the 2015 World Series.  I won’t rehash what the New Yorkers did wrong but instead point out that good defense, smart baseball and contributions from everyone was what made it happen for Kansas CIty.  Maybe it’s time to think beyond the fantasy box score.