I was doing the dishes and some laundry this morning, two fairly necessary but quite boring tasks. We have a Google Hub Max in the kitchen so, to divert my attention a bit, I put on last night's Baseball Night in New York from my YouTube TV DVR. I know, I know, a lot of it is mindless sports talk radio-caliber stuff, but some of it can be pretty good. Former Met Anthony Recker, in particular, can be funny and say really smart things sometimes. SNY's Andy Martino can be irritating at times, but he could be interesting, too. It depends on the day. At least with the DVR, I can skip the really dumb stuff along with the commercials.
They had a segment on discussing over and under predictions for the Braves and the Mets, with both Dan Graca and Marc Malusis picking the Braves to win the division. They both picked the Braves as over 91.5 wins and the Mets under 90.5 wins. It didn't particularly break my heart. I'm not a Malusis fan at all and fairly ambivalent about Graca. But it popped into my head to question what I would say if someone posed the same questions to me.
I would think that a solid majority of pundits would give the Braves the edge over the Mets for the Division. I don't spend much of my time following the Braves, so I have no idea what issues they might be facing this year. They've won the Division three years in a row and are returning their top players, so it's hard to argue against them. Barring too many injuries or bad performances from their pitching, I wouldn't bet against them being a 90+ win team.
The Mets are a lot tougher to prognosticate. There can be little doubt that they have the pieces in place to challenge all season. However, losing their second-best starter and a top reliever for a couple of months really points to the fragility of any team's chances.
Even the deepest teams with fully-stocked farm systems can lose enough key players to sink their chances. It's just a question of numbers. In previous years under the Wilpons, the Mets would almost always succumb to injuries. There never were enough talented reinforcements to survive. While the current regime gets gold stars for their work in building some real depth, there are practical limits that we're already approaching.
For the starting pitching, having a healthy Carlos Carrasco would undoubtedly have been a better situation heading into the season. The offseason additions of Taijuan Walker, Joey Lucchesi, and Jordan Yamamoto at least provided a layer of competent depth of Major League-caliber pitching that gives the club a chance to survive Carrasco's injury. But it's fair to point out that the deeper the Mets go into this depth, the less likely they are to put together a 90+ win campaign, particularly with the Division looking so very tough in 2021. To make things even a little dicier, you have to cross fingers, knock wood, and hope that none of our starting pitchers gets hurt batting or running the bases.
Depending on whether your glass is half-empty or half-full, you can look at the 2021 Mets bullpen and see the bones of a capable 'pen or identify the anchor that will drag the Mets season down with it. I'm probably halfway between those two positions — I see true potential, but they're going to have to prove themselves during the regular season. Of course, they're going to need to stay healthy, and Lugo needs to return and be effective.
I'm very optimistic about our offense, with the usual caveat that health matters with the position players, too. I'd be surprised if we didn't score enough runs to win 90+ games. While I understand that neither defense nor baserunning will be a strength of this club, they simply must tighten things up in both areas.
My concern about baserunning isn't really about stolen bases. It's about all of the times last year that runners didn't score from second on a single or from first on a two-base hit. It's hard enough to get big hits to score runs. Needing extra hits to do the job is inviting failure to happen. Within reason, I'd rather see a few guys get thrown out trying to score than constantly seeing runners hold at third when they should be scoring.
Panzini might be a good choice.
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