In a season where the Mets spent 103 days in first place, but thereafter collapsed and finished 11.5 games out, which is peculiar enough in and off itself, some other peculiar stuff happened:
Jake deGrom, a pitcher, was 12 for 33 (.364) at the dish. Tony Gwynn II.
Meanwhile, "hitters" Almora, Maybin, Lee, Sisco, and Hager combined to go 10 for 116. That's Point Zero Eight Six, or .086, if you prefer digits.
Funny how that works, huh?
Then it hit me...they can't hit.
Meanwhile, hitters Pillar, Almora, Guillorme and Drury combined to throw 3 innings and allow 7 runs. Bad, sure, but...
Not much worse than Szapucki’s 6 runs in 3.2 IP and Hartlieb’s 7 runs in 4.1 innings. But who's keeping score?
Marcus Stroman led the team with 179 innings, 179 more than he threw in 2020. An infinite year-year increase. Good for him.
Reliever Miguel Castro had the 5th most innings of any Mets pitcher, with 70.1 IP. Fans may not like him much, but I do, and facts are facts. Good ERA, he's a keeper. He could even close in a pinch and convert some saves, which would make him a Castro Convertible, as I see it.
Jake deGrom threw 92 innings with a 1.08 ERA before the All Star break.
After the break, he threw batting practice a few times. And even gassed up at BP a few times.
Everybody gushed over Jake’s numbers, but Aaron Loup’s 6-0, 0.95 ERA were even better. At least I think so.
LOUP LOUP LOUP!
Mets starters were an unsightly 32-57, despite a 3.89 ERA, and were a dreadful 25-55 (.313 W/L %) excluding Jake deGrom.
Mets relievers, however, were 45-28, despite a virtually identical 3.90 ERA. Many, many fans trashed guys in the bullpen, but they had the 9th best ERA of any reliever team in the majors. Bottle up that vitriol, will ya? I know, I know, 45-28, 9th best ERA sucks...but get over it already.
If the starters were 9th best and the run producers were 9th best, and then you add that to wg=hat was baseball's 9th best bullpen, and you've got yourselves a division champion.
The Mets were 25th in home runs, with 176 (no doubt, over 75% of the franchise's seasons, they've been in the bottom 5 in long balls, Their strategy historically has been to eschew the long ball in favor of not scoring with the short ball, either).
Yet, they were 14th in road homers, with 99. Not very fond of home cooking. We can have some "deep" conversations about Citifield hitting conditions. I say that the Mets should donate their current outfield fence down on the Mexican border and install a new, closer-in one in Queens.
Can somebody...please...say, "road trip"?
JD Davis had one of the best slash lines of any Mets player (.285/.384/.435) despite being hampered all season by a hand injury that will require post-season surgery.
Most fans seem to want JDD to leave, seemingly without considering how well he might have hit this year with a healthy hand. Probably drastically better than Michael Conforto, who many fans want to stay.
Could a healthy-handed JDD hit .300/.400/.500 in 2022? Why not?
C Tomas Nido walked just 5 times, raising his career total to 18, or about how many times Barry Bonds might walk in a 4 game series.
Nido's .261 OBP in 2021, though, helped raise his career OBP to .244. Jake deGrom’s OBP lifetime is .238, just as a point of comparison. And, after all, Nido was an 8th rounder and the lowly Jake was a mere 9th rounder.
The same people who like Nido and his .244 OBP seem to not like Khalil Lee and his AAA .451 OBP. The difference between a .451 and a .244 over 600 plate appearances? About 125 more times on base is what.
But, Nido can frame pitches well, so I get it. No, really, I do. No, really, I don't.
Team runs?
23rd best on the road, with 333.
Last in home scoring with 303, despite a late-season scoring pick-up.
“Houston, we have a scoring problem.”
Team Houston, though, did not have a scoring problem, with the Astros scoring 863 runs, or 227 more than the Mets. I wonder if that helped Houston win 18 more games than the Mets. Somehow, I think there is a degree of correlation there.
The Mets and the 106 win Dodgers both had the following in common…neither won their divisions.
Although, had LAD been in the NL East, their record was 17.5 games better than the Division-winning Braves. Location, location, location.
For all the grief directed towards Dominic Smith and Michael Conforto, they were 3rd and 4th in Mets team RBIs, with 58 and 55, respectively.
Of course, for perspective, 5 major leaguers had as many or more RBIs as the two of them combined. Dom and Michael kind of hit like the likable Eddie Kranepool and Ron "Rocky" Swoboda, who I liked except for their low luster RBI hitting.
I have a Hispanic friend of mine with a heavy accent who says Conforto should get a "multi-jeer" contract. I agree with the "jeer" part.
I did notice that the Mets love daytime.
The Mets were a commendable 31-23 in day games, but a reprehensible 46-62 at night.
I dunno, little power naps in the afternoon might help win those night tilts. Want them to win a pennant? On days with night games, around 3 PM, give them some milk and cookies and tuck them in for a little nappy.
I know I was left snoring watching them lose night games, maybe they were snoring too.
Other than noting that I am batting 1.000 on deranged articles this year, I'm fresh out of Mets stat oddities and anomalies.
Which weird stats did I miss? You must have a few.
15 comments:
One stat I missed: 0 for 20 in both the POBO and GM manhunts so far.
Eickoff: 4 starts, 17 innings, 9.00 ERA
Williams: 3 starts, 13 innings, 1.98 ERA, but people don’t want to re-sign him…
Jake had the fourth most starts on the team and he missed half the year. The two two guys had 33 and 29, and then no one over 20.
Stroman’s K% of 7.94 was the 14th highest of the 19 guys that started games. However,that was the highest of his career.
What seems very strange, it appears Steve Cohen is interviewing candidates with Chris Christie while Alderson has no role in the process.
Bring in the fences!
Gus, maybe Christie will get Cohen to move the Mets to Piscataway.
With Christie's influence, there will be no voting ballot boxes or same day voting for Mets All Star candidates.
Trevor Williams non-interest would be a puzzler. Eickhoff is needs in 2022 to pitch BP.
A half season of Jake is better than a full season of most starters.
Jake sure gets a lot of attention for a guy who won just 32 games over the past 4 season, and whose best two W-L record years are just 15-10 and 14-8. As Gary said, move the fences in. Give Jake an extra run here and there to work with.
I also don't recall if I pointed out in my article the oddity that Jake and Tylor Megill both debuted with the Mets when they were 25 years, 330 days old. Hopefully not the start of a trend, since JT Ginn will be in the 2025 season when he is 25 years, 330 days old.
I’m thinkining..Christie is a long time fan,maybe ….
Once the POBO/GM/Manager situation is settled (hopefully sooner then we all think), they need to take a long look at this roster and make some good baseball decisions, not "name/popularity" decisions. To your point, why not keep JDD around as an excellent bat off the bench, part time fill in and possible DH? The dude can rake and that seems to be missing in this lineup. Conforto is a nice player, but not a 20 million dollar a year player, IMO.............let him go (post QO) and bring in someone who can actually play CF, like Mr Marte, perhaps?
The list of possible changes goes on and on, but my point is that this roster has not gotten it done, so why keep things the same and hope for a better outcome? They need to get better on the field and not just in the tabloids.
Speaking of stats, the Mets had a season long -32 run differential (despite the hot start) and an expected record of 77-85.......or exactly how they finished. The team we need to pass (Atlanta) had a +134 run differential (despite a horrible start and similar injury numbers to the Mets) and an expected record of 95-66 (or seven games better then they actually finished).
Until that gets sorted out, we will continue to exist in the Braves rear view mirror.
Noted.
On Sandy Alderson
I like the guy, but his w/l record here as GM/Prez and his age have some meaning too. We need someone who "gets the gold" and is outstanding (not just good) at player personnel decision making for not only this season but seasons to come. It all has to lend itself well to "dynasty building" so that a team can stay ahead of competition and continue seamlessly.
Each time a team drafts, develops, plays, and starts their own, that team gets stronger and depends less and less on outside acquisitions in the off season when prices are their highest. The savings from this, allows a team to add in just the few right players it will need to get to the dance. Whereas this particular Mets team tends to go out and get way too many players from other teams each off season as a fix but at highway robbery prices. To me, it is a very clear sign that a team doing so isn't drafting and developing it's own young players as they should be doing.
Right Now.
It looks like Carlos Cortes is ahead of Wilmer Reyes maybe for a real shot at the 2022 Mets 2B. He is hitting .286 in AFL. The other solid bat and slick fielder for the Mets at AFL is Brett Baty who is hitting .267.
I know most fans will want Javier Baez re-signed by the Mets for 2022. But I have no problem what-so-ever with Carlos Cortes or Robbie Cano manning the two bag. I just don't like the idea of fielding two steaky hitting middle infielders at one time (Baez and Lindor). Where could you bat them in a really good batting order is my question. Five and six?
See my point with this.
We need at least one to be at the two batting spot behind Nimmo. But neither Lindor or Baez really are this.
I said it a very long time ago. They need to convince Sandy for his health that he needs to retire. At least that will be the cover story for his role in helping Cohen transition to ownership instead of continuing to be an impediment to bringing in viable candidates. I used to have a modicum of respect for Christie and at this point I'll just swallow hard and say I welcome his input.
AFL
I was sort of hoping that Wilmer Reyes would hit for a higher average in AFL. I like his skill set overall. I think that 2B Carlos Cortes may be ahead of Wilmer at this point. All the NYM need for second base are two possibilities. I think Cortes and Cano or even Cortes and Mauricio could handle this.
Brett Baty is interesting as well.
Could the Mets be well served by looking at all five top MiLB Mets (Vientos, Baty, Cortes, Alvarez, and Mauricio) this Spring Training? I think so.
Ideally I'd like Baty to get one more season in at AAA first. But sometimes really good players can play well at the MLB level while finishing up their own development. So for me it is hard to say how each one will fare before I see them in Spring Training. But I do really like this idea of giving each one a fair shot.
On the 2022 NY Mets starting rotation.
When the Mets excelled in past seasons of fame, they had an almost perfectly stellar rotation assembled each time. 1986 and 1969 come to mind immediately. Look at those rotations as sound examples. To many of us, this was NY Mets baseball at it's very finest zenith. Those memories are ingrained in many of our brains and still make us smile.
The Mets had something coming along this way a few years back with Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard (Thor), and Zachary Wheeler, their top three. But Wheeler's contract demands were quite high, especially for someone who could more easily get hurt. I understood this and concurred at that time with not re-signing him. But the team really, really did miss him in 2021. Outside acquisitions did not get'r done. The team lost Noah and then Jake second half, and went belly up. This has got to be the major concern this off season. Not to allow this to happen again. It must now be repaired wisely. We want this to be the teams hallmark once again and in the future as well.
I recently suggested that if the NY Mets only acquired two top lefty pitchers this entire off season, no one else even, that it would put them back in full mode starting pitcher and playoff wise in MLB. It would. My suggestion yesterday, was to go "full tilt" to get both lefties (CWS) Carlos Rodon and (TBR) Robbie Ray added into the mix here with Jacob deGrom and the re-signed Noah Syndergaard. It's a perfect balance.
Theoretically speaking (at least) the rotation would become ideal. The five spot would be between Taijuan Walker and Tyler Megill. Easily here, the Mets could employ a six-man rotation with these six starters. One without much drop-off from one pitcher to the next. It would literally be that good.
So what about the eight in the field and the Mets utility guys?
What stood out most to me in 2021 was that beyond Alonso, Nimmo, and JD Davis really no other Mets everyday player stood out really. McNeil, Conforto, D. Smith, and even Lindor (hitting wise), did not stand out or step up beyond where they had been the last few seasons. I was very surprised by this. So here's my thoughts "once again" here with the 2022 starting Mets field.
1B Alonso 2B Cortes or Cano SS Lindor 3B Vientos LF JD Davis CF Nimmo RF Lee, Mangum, or possibly Mauricio C Francisco Alvarez Bench: McCann, D. Smith, Cortes or Cano (whomever does start at second), Pillar,, and Villar.
Some will disagree with this idea above. I understand. But I want make it clear here that: (A) It's all about the rotation (B) There is enough good talent within this construction that takes into account the organization's top younger MiLB talent which to me looks ready for this challenge (C) It brings back into balance not only veterans and younger players, but what should always have been this organization's true tradition, a stellar starting rotation.
Gotta' love it!
Let's Go Mets!
Mr. Steve should have gotten...
Kevin James instead.
The guy is truly a NY Mets nut fan-atic. And seriously funny too!
Maybe Kevin could be the new GM?
Mike Friere, those +/- numbers in net team runs are a cruel reality. The Mets need a 200 run net increase.
It is too early to opine on AFL stats' meaning - they haven't played long enough into the season to be meaningful yet.
Jeff McNeil ought to be a good # 2 behind Nimmo at lead off - both are slightly above average in speed and, in a normal season, get on base a lot.
Mangum is not ready yet. Cortes missed a lot of ABs after June and that may impact his chances to make the team in early 2022.
Forget Kevin James.
Joe Biden should be the next POBO, so with the Mets he could "Build Back Better." Would any Mets fan want that? I'd look elsewhere. I'd prefer Christie.
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