Tom Brennan - NEW METS' OWNER UNDERSTANDS THAT MAKING THE PLAYOFFS MEANS KEEPING THE TRAP DOOR SHUT

Did you ever watch those old Looney Tunes cartoons, where Wily Coyote or Elmer Fudd were chasing Road Runner and Bugs Bunny and fell through trap doors and what not?  

Great stuff.  Hilarious.

But when Jeff and Fred Wilson built their teams, they'd set up trap doors...like a couple of Daffy Ducks.

Trap doors that weren't great stuff, and which were far from hilarious.

You see, the Wilpons would build teams with a handful of very solid-to-star Mets players, sprinkle a little "hope fairy dust" on the rest of the roster, and hope that back side of the roster would perform adequately.  But as we mostly expected ahead of time, those decisions turned out to be trap doors through which many Mets' seasons plunged from Playoff Land.  

Yes, the collectively abysmal play of the back half of the Wilpon-constructed 25/26 man rosters, including call ups, acted as a trap door through which the Mets plunged and fell out of the playoff picture.

How many times in the 20 year period did the Mets make the playoffs?

Answer?  I'm sure you know, and it's far too few.

Biggest culprit, in my humble opinion?  

The "marginal back half of the Wilpon team" trap doors.

Which is why, yes, while the Mets did not sign any of the Big Three of Springer, Bauer, or Realmuto, they have done almost everything else in their power to eliminate the "crappy player, season-killing trap door" scenario going into 2021 under their new Mets regime.

A really successful team needs a number of stars, a solid starting rotation, offense and bullpen, and bunch of solid support and call-up players, and an absence of dreck players.

I look at this team and I think the following:

Starters - addition by subtraction with Steve Matz and his "20-40 in his last 60" record gone, along with Wacha and Porcello, leaving a 2021 rotation of deGrom, Cookie, Stroman, Peterson, Walker, and Lucchesi, and possibly Yamamoto.  The latter 2 were off their games in 2020, but were good prior, and could well bounce back (especially, in my mind, Lucchesi).  

That starter rotation is (to use an overused word, deep) and matched, IMO, by few other MLB teams.  And the mighty  Syndergaard should be back for most of the season.

Bullpen - a real Mets' sore spot the last few years, and still a little troubling for 2021 after missing out on the likes of Hand, Wilson, and Rosenthal, but the pen could be solid (we'll see), with Diaz, May, Lugo (when he heals), Betances, Familia, Gsellman, and Loup, and who knows, probably Sam McWilliams and Ryley Gilliam will help.  

But so could one of the starters, sliding into the pen.  And a Cohen-led team will in my view move heaven and earth to fix the pen if it starts to crap out.

Offense - you tell me you don't like (no, make that LOVE) an offense comprised of Lindor, McNeil, Alonso, Conforto, Nimmo, McCann, Smith, JD Davis, Pillar, Villar, Guillorme and Almora.  I'm still a bit nervous at catcher with Nido backing up, due to his moribund (to date, except for one game) bat, but he assures us that he is new and offensively improved.  

The above dudes to me collectively look mighty potent (although still somewhat defensively challenged).  

Oh, and Jeff Lowrie and his leg brace have slowly left the building, as has no-show, boar-hunting Yo Cespedes, which are two steps in the right direction.  Sufferin' Succotash!

Depth - when you sign a Mallex Smith, Jose Peraza, Gil Heredia (assuming they reel him back in), and others who have had fairly recent major league success as possible call ups, assuming they don't make the 25/26 man roster, you have to feel a lot better than the older retreads the Mets had signed in prior years.

I'm sure I left some dudes out, but...

THIS TEAM SEEMS TO HAVE LARGELY CLOSED THE SEASON-KILLING TRAP DOOR WITH A (VIC) BLACK AND (DEN) DEKKER NAIL GUN AND GOBS OF CRAZY GLUE.

And if there starts to be signs of trap door fatigue, I assume Steve Cohen will stand ready for mid-season moves to really nail the trap door shut. 

I for one don't think the season-killing trap door will open in 2021.  Too much quality.  Too little dreck.  Look at 1969 and 1986 - lots of quality, and very little dreck, the kind Elmer Fudd would fall into once the trap door springs open.

The notable increase in top-to-bottom roster quality should prevent this season from turning into a Looney Tunes horror show in Metsville.

You can stop reading here, but if you want to revisit what past seasons' Wilpon Dreck looked like, I copied a few of my old articles here for your consideration:

10/13/20

Tom Brennan - ANOTHER METS SEASON, ANOTHER CLUSTER OF HORRID METS PITCHING PERFORMANCES

Far too many Mets pitched like Fauci

I would never beat a live horse. I love horsies.

But let me take a minute to soundly and roundly beat a dead horse.

The Mets, again this year, had a slew of horrific pitching performances.

How bad?  Horrid, like I said.  But you be the judge.

What, I might ask you, are the combined stats of the 14 man law firm of Wacha, Porcello, Matz, Gsellman, Lugo, Brach, Betances, Sewald, Kilome, Castro, Lockett, Smith, Jurado, and Strickland?  

247 innings, 310 hits, 103 walks, 53 HRs, 8-26 win-loss record, and 203 runs allowed (7.4 runs per 9 innings).  

Gosh-AWFUL!

The 247 innings of these 14 bumblers constituted an astonishing FORTY EIGHT PERCENT of all of the Mets' innings thrown in 2020.

The other 52% of the innings, by the good pitchers, involved just 105 runs allowed in 266 innings, or a solid 3.5 runs per 9 innings, less than half the rate of the previously mentioned 14 bumblers, and those good guys had a commendable 18-8 record.

I am sorry to include Seth Lugo in with these bumblers, only doing that because of his "above five" 5.15 ERA, which was the result of 2 horrendous late season starts that marred his 2020 season. 

Without his 3-4 record, of course, the other 13 bumblers had a Roger Craig-like  5-22 record.  Of course, Roger Craig (pitching for the early 1960s Mets) didn't deserve his 5-22, since when he compiled that record in 1963, his ERA was a solid 3.78, while the above 13 guys most certainly did deserve to compile so many losses and so few wins.

In 2018 and 2019, that bottom half of the entire pitching staff allowed more than 7 runs per 9 innings, too.

It is, IMO, THE KEY REASON that the Mets missed the playoffs the last three seasons.  You sign junk, the results are junky.

So how horrific were the Awful 14?

Well the Dodgers, the pitching Gold Standard of all major league squads, had just 3 guys with an ERA over 5, and they went 4-4, while allowing 48 runs in 63 IP, a touch under 7 runs per 9.  

That's 63 innings of bad compared to the Mets' sucky pitchers' 247 IP.  While the sucky Mets hurlers aggregated 48% of the team's innings, for the Dodgers, their Sucky 3 pitchers totaled less than 12% of the LAD's total innings.

That's why the Dodgers win, and the Mets lose - the Dodgers have DRASTICALLY FEWER SUCKY PITCHERS.

Solution?  

Make good and darned sure you have TRULY DEEP AND ABUNDANT quality pitching.

The Mets tried to fake it in that regard the last 3 years.  

Result?  It cost them the last 3 years.

Hoping sucky pitchers will not suck is not, it turns out TIME AND TIME AGAIN, a winning strategy.

Nope.  It is a strategy for LOSERS.

Another perspective on why the Wilpons cannot leave fast enough.  They have always done enough to LOSE.

Tom Brennan - SUBS AND SCRUBS - METS HITTERS IN 2018

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.  

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.

10/13/19

Tom Brennan - THE IMPACT OF SUBS AND SCRUBS ON METS' SUCCESS

Subs - YUMMY!!

In case ya didn't notice:

The Mets just missed the playoffs in 2019.

I am not telling you anything you don't already know.

In 2018, they were further back.

Both seasons led me to a conclusion:

SCRUBS ON HEALTH CARE PROS READY TO DO TRIAGE ON THE METS

I blame the Mets owner/leader team... 

for allowing subs and scrubs to help ruin the seasons.

Every team in any given season will have guys do surprisingly well (Alonso) and surprisingly poorly (Diaz).

For instance, on the Mets World Series win team in 1969, Duffy Dyer, Ed Charles, and some Edwin-Diaz-like bum named Amos Otis (maybe you heard of him) hit .196 in 437 combined at bats.

And on the 108 win Mets World Series win team in 1986, George Foster hit just .227 in 233 at bats.

Anticipating injuries, a certain number of key players' sub-par seasons, etc. and building a strong foundation is paramount to counteract such occurrences.

The Yankees did that astoundingly well in 2019 - lots of injuries, and the depth kept them dominant almost the entire year.  Why, in 2018, Judge, Stanton and Andujar had 1,603 at bats with 103 doubles and 92 HRs.  In 2019, those same 3 had just 1,166 fewer at bats - 437 at bats - with just 21 doubles and 30 HRs.  And yet the team thrived.  I'd say their substitutes filled in for those 3 key players PRETTY DARNED WELL

Two things about the Mets' subs and scrubs (guys I would not have expected a lot out of) - they:

1) got into games far too much

and 

2) did very poorly when they got into games.

Not everyone who did poorly as a Met is what I'd consider a "sub and scrub" - for instance, I thought Travis d'Arnaud would have a bounce back year once healthy.  So the fact that he was 2 for 23 as a Met before dazzling with the Rays is not factored into my subs and scrubs.  I did not see TDA as a scrub.  I saw him as a legit # 2 catcher and #1 if Ramos had gotten hurt - and he proved to be terrific with the Rays.

Offensive subs and scrubs - guys when going into the season who I thought would under-perform, or guys added during the year who would do the same, included:

8 such subby/scrubby guys: 

Rene Rivera (age), Juan Lagares (tendency to under-hit, and frequently get hurt), Carlos Gomez (age), Rajai Davis (age), Adeiny Hecchavaria (career light hitter), Tomas Nido (very weak OBP), Keon Broxton (KKKKKK), Aaron Altherr (has not hit in recent years).  

I left Luis Guillorme out of this list, because going into the season, I thought he would find a way to be serviceable, and not be a scrub sub, and it turned out he did just that in limited use.

Combined, the above 8 guys had 744 at bats, hitting .197.  Hardly pitcher-worthy-hitting.

The pitchers in 311 at bats were not far behind at .167.  The rest of the Mets' hitters?  They hit a commendable .273.

Those 744 subs and scrubs at bats were 14% of all non-pitcher at bats for the Mets. And, at .197, hit 76 points lower than the regulars.

Pitcher subs and scrubs - guys who, if you asked me to be truly objective, I would have guessed prior to the season they'd under-perform (or I would have reached the same conclusion if added during the season):

There were 14 such pitchers in 2019: Brach (who actually did well); Rhame; Sewald; Peterson; Font; Zamora; Mazza; Pounders; Flexen; Santiago; Bashlor; Lockett; Gagnon; and Oswalt.

Those 14 threw 194 innings and surrendered 139 earned runs….Combined ERA?  6.59.

Those 194 innings are 13.3% of all Mets innings.  Almost one of every 7 Mets innings.  

The regular non-scrub pitchers (including substandard performers like Diaz, Familia, and Avilan) had a far better combined ERA of 3.89.

In 2018, perhaps due to being further out of the race almost all of 2018, those subs and scrub #s were higher in at bats and innings.  I wrote about this last year, too.

As I recall, off the top of my head (see links to those articles at the end of this article),  .198 for 20% of the non-pitcher at bats (compared to 14% this year), and 15 subs and scrubs pitchers allowing 7 total runs per 9 innings (since the 6.59 ERA for 2019 above is "earned" runs, results in Scrub Land in 2018 and 2019 were similarly poor.)

My guess is ownership would agree that if they saw the list of these 8 hitters and 14 pitchers pre-season, they would have very little optimism of solid performance from them.

Owners have to realize the magnitude of "subs and scrubs" under-performance and, if they really want the Mets to win, set real acceptable targets for usage of these guys - such as:

No more than 6% of at bats taken by subs and scrubs hitters (rather than this years 14%).

No more than 100 innings thrown by subs and scrubs pitchers (rather than this year's 194).

Because:

If utilization rates of subs and scrubs stay at 2019 levels, the Mets will miss the playoffs again in 2020.  

At least, that is how I see it.

After all, the Mets got within 3 games of a wild card DESPITE the magnitude of subs and scrubs poor performance outlined above.

My intent is not to name the names I named.  

My intent here is to demonstrate linkage between the excessive tolerance of ownership to such a large amount of non-performance and the missing of playoffs.  

I highlight this in hopes something more will be done by the leadership team to prevent the same from occurring in 2020.

My intent also is to point out this excessive use of subs and scrubs flaw (as I see it) so that our favorites (All Stars Jake, Pete, Jeff, etc.) can get to where they deserve to more frequently be - the playoffs.

P.S.

Here are my article links from last fall on this same subject, should you care to peruse them and give yourself a detailed look at the failing fringes of the Mets 25 man roster over a 2 year period:


http://macksmets.blogspot.com/2019/01/tom-brennan-subs-and-scrubs-mets.html

http://macksmets.blogspot.com/search/?q=bullpen+subs+and+scrubs

http://macksmets.blogspot.com/2019/01/tom-brennan-subs-and-scrubs-mets_9.html