New York Mets at Miami Marlins Series Preview

     

The Mets will head back down to Florida to face the Miami Marlins at loanDepot park (yep, that's how it's spelled, capitalization and all). The banged-up Mets, with enough players on the IL to fill out an entire team, played some of their scrappiest ball to win their three-game set against the Atlanta Braves. The Marlins are coming off of a series win against the Phillies and have gone 5-5 in their last 10 games. Even though they currently sit in 4th place, Miami is only 3 games behind the Mets for first in the division. 

    Much like the Mets, the Marlins have had great pitching but their poor offense has dragged them down. As a team, the Marlins rank 27th in OBP (.295), 26th in OPS (.663), 26th in wOBA (.291), and 24th in wRC+. Since the start of the 2019 season, they are dead last in OPS, SLG, ISO, and HR and 29th in runs, OBP, and wOBA. 

    First baseman Jesus Aguilar has been one of the better offensive first basemen in 2021. He entered play on Thursday ranked 7th in MLB in RBIs with 32 and was slashing .273/.354/.525 with 9 HRs, which is already more than he had in 2020 in 10 fewer games. Aguilar has also maintained his double-digit walk percentage while cutting his strikeout rate to 15%. 

    Up the middle, rookie Jazz Chisholm and de facto captain Miguel Rojas have been large parts of the lineup. Chisholm has burst onto the scene, hitting .301/.372/.554, good for a 154 wRC+, .393 wOBA, and 1.3 WAR in 25 games. Chisholm has had some luck with a .408 BABIP and a .343 xwOBA and has shown some growing pains with a strikeout rate above 30%, but he's also walked at an above-average clip. He's also one of just two players to take deGrom deep this year, so that's got to count for something. SS Miguel Rojas has continued his good 2020 season (.302/.394/.496, 1.6 WAR in 40 games), hitting .297/.358/.448 with 1.4 WAR in another 40 games. He had never had a wRC+ above 100 (the league average) before 2020. Since then, he has a 135 mark which is 5th among all SS with at least 100 PAs in that span. 

    Outfielders Starlin Marte and Corey Dickerson are putting together good seasons as well, with both rebounding from tough starts with Miami last season. While Dickerson has made a home in the middle third of the order with his 116 wRC+, Marte has only been on the field for 16 games and will miss the upcoming series. In his place, Magneuris Sierra and Garrett Cooper have gotten starts in the OF. Sierra possesses good speed and fielding skills but his bat is sorely lacking, with a career OPS of .565, 0.25 BB-K, and -0.4 WAR. Cooper has been the far better offensive player with a career 106 wRC+ (including a .283/.353/.500 line with a 134 wRC+ in 2020). The catch, though, is that he is a first baseman by trade but is being blocked by Jesus Aguilar. Cooper has also been much less productive at the dish in 2021 but put together a good performance in Miami's last game, going 2-4 with 3 RBIs. 

    RF Adam Duvall has had more of the same, with a low average and OBP but a high SLG evening out to about average production. He had a good stretch with the Braves in 2019 and 2020, homering 26 times in just 98 games. He has hit 8 HRs in 40 games but his walks are at a low (4.1%) and his strikeouts are at a high (31.7%).

    Speaking of low walks and high strikeouts, the Marlins' catching position has had plenty of that. Once-promising prospect Jorge Alfaro has never been able to breakout of his earlier ways, maintaining astronomical strikeout rates while never walking or getting on base at all much. He has provided solid defense, with above-average framing metrics and a cannon for gunning down base stealers. Other catching options include Chad Wallach and Sandy Leon, who have combined for -0.4 WAR with anemic offense and poor defense. 

    The Marlins will open the series with an opener, sending RHP Jordan Holloway to the mound. Holloway made his MLB debut last season, recording just one out while walking one and allowing a pair of hits. That was all the action he got in 2020, but in 2021 he has looked like a different pitcher, tossing 16.2 innings with a 2.70 ERA across 7 appearances. Holloway came out of the bullpen in his first 5 games, combining for 10 shutout innings. He has started both of his most recent games and faltered in both, throwing a combined 6.2 innings and allowing 5 earned runs. Batters have hit .269/.424/.423 against him as a starter vs just 118/.189/.176 as a reliever. One of his biggest issues as a starter has been his walks and strikeouts. He has allowed 7 free passes and only gotten 3 punchouts when starting against 3 walks and 10 strikeouts as a reliever. Still, his overall K/BB numbers aren't good, but Holloway balances it out by inducing plenty of weak contact, allowing just 1 barreled ball on 47 batted ball events. Hopefully, the Mets can get the version of Holloway without any control, but even if Holloway has his best stuff he shouldn't go more than 4 innings.

    On Saturday, the Marlins will have another young right-hander starting in Pablo Lopez. He came up with the Marlins as a 22-year-old and struggled in his first two seasons, throwing 170 innings with a 4.76 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP. Lopez has turned it around and become a big piece in Miami's rotation since 2020, pitching to a 3.39 ERA and raising his strikeout rate by more than one K/9. It is important to note that he has only thrown 106.1 innings in this time frame, but Lopez only has 276.1 major league innings to his name. In the minors, he had a 3.14 ERA across 410.1 frames. Like Holloway, Lopez is not elite at getting strikeouts or limiting walks, but he is among the best in limiting hard contact. His two primary pitches are his changeup and four-seamer, which have played off of each other nicely. Lopez is now concentrating his fastball much higher in the zone after sticking it around the middle of the plate and the results are certainly there. Hitters have a .263 wOBA against it, the best of any pitches in his arsenal. He mixes this with a changeup that is concentrated around the lower right corner of the plate. 

    The Marlins' starter for game three is TBD, just like the Mets' starters in every game of the series. The Mets can't afford to keep leaning on their bullpen so heavily, even after a day off on Thursday. Their relievers combined to throw 19.1 of the 27 innings in the Mets-Braves matchup. Even with this in mind,  another bullpen game seems likely. The probable starters come down to Jordan Yamamoto, Thomas Szapucki, Marcus Stroman, and Joey Lucchesi. 

    Yamamoto, who was acquired from the Marlins this winter, seems like a near-guarantee to pitch as a starter or following an opener on Saturday or Sunday. He was only scheduled for two innings in his last start in Syracuse, so the Mets seemed to be planning for him to pitch this series for at least a few days. Jordan has already appeared in one game, pitching 2.2  innings in relief against the Cardinals. He didn't look his sharpest, allowing 4 hits and an earned run while getting some hard-hit outs. Yamamoto's spin rates and velocities were down on most of his pitches, most noticeably his sinker, which was only thrown 5 times but put into play 3 three times (for three easy outs). 

    Marcus Stroman is also a near-guarantee to take the bump, with a much more defined role than any other starting candidate. Stroman has had a 2.72 ERA in 46.1 innings with great walk numbers but not a lot of strikeouts to go with them. Hitters have been barreling him up slightly more than average, making his poor start in Tampa almost inevitable rather than unexpected. Still, he has provided quality innings for a team that needs them less than very few others. His turn in the rotation would be due for Saturday's game. 

    Southpaw Thomas Szapucki could get the nod from the minors after his turn in the rotation was completely skipped on Thursday. Szapucki has had great success in the minor leagues, posting a 2.51 ERA with 198 strikeouts in 154 innings. He is still only 24 years old and ranked as highly as #69 on Baseball Prospectus' top 100 prospects, but that came back in 2017. Another southpaw that could start the first few innings of a game is Joey Lucchesi. Lucchesi intrigued many initially with his churve, but has disappointed in New York with an ERA north of 9. His peripherals show that Joey has gotten unlucky but he has still been pretty mediocre. Still, he looks likely to throw at least 2 or 3 innings after not pitching at all against the Braves.

    Even with the Mets' injuries, this still looks like a series win for the Mets, although it could be closer than one might think. I doubted the ReplaceMets before their series against the Braves, and they proved me wrong. I'll go 2 out of 3 to the Mets, with them dropping the middle gaame against Pablo Lopez.