Paul Articulates - the 20% point

With last night’s loss to Washington, the Mets have now finished the first 20% of their season at 21-11 (32 games of 162).  This becomes a good point to reflect on how things have played out so far this year and to think about how we would like to see the rest of the year play out.  With 4/5 of the season to go, it is waaaaay too early to predict outcomes.  The best run teams look at their past successes and failures, take confidence from the successes, and learn from the failures but put all behind them and focus on the next challenge.

The Positives:

There are a lot of things in this category, but here are my top ones: 

• Two incredible multi-run 9^th inning comebacks.  The 5 run ninth against the central division leading Cardinals and the 7 run ninth against the rival Phillies were thrilling to watch.  But more than that, it strengthened the team’s confidence that they are never out of a game.  The Mets were among the league leaders in late inning scoring, but these two victories will leave a lasting “can-do” mindset throughout the summer.

• Buck Showalter has created an environment where everyone contributes.   He has not left anyone languishing on the bench letting their skills atrophy.  He has rotated players through the DH spot, given Smith, Guillorme, and Davis some spot starts in the infield, and has gotten everyone some rest.  Most of all, no one gets special treatment.  Alonso and Lindor take days off just like the rest of ‘em.  This all contributes to a strong “team” attitude that will pay dividends later in the season.

• The starting pitching has done very well without deGrom in there.  Megill has shown real mental toughness and refined his art of pitching.  Excluding last night’s ugly 2 innings, he has been a bright spot this year.  Scherzer and Bassitt have turned in some great pitching performances as expected, but their greatest contribution to the team could be their intense focus on the game.  There is a constant conversation going on amongst the staff on the bench about how to get guys out – my projection is that this will lead to a continuously improving staff throughout the year.

• McNeil is back!  As many of us predicted, he has returned to the opportunist hitter that he was pre-2020.  He hits the ball where it is pitched and knocks it to where the fielders aren’t.  He has admitted that last year was consumed with hard-hit ball rates and launch angles and recognized that none of it helped him get on base against a shift.  Now he is hitting in the mid-300’s, has 15 runs scored from the #8 position, and has a .395 OBP. 

• The defense has been very good.  Despite the batting woes of our two catchers, the battery has been solid this year.  Teams are no longer entering games against the Mets with a strategy to run the bases, and pitchers are facing fewer runners in scoring position.  In the late innings of many ballgames, Buck will insert Jankowski in left which leaves us with three center fielders patrolling the outfield (Jankowski, Nimmo, Marte).  The infield has been good as well – have any of you noticed that when Eduardo Escobar fields a ground ball, EVERY throw hits the first baseman chest-high in the center of the base.

• Edwin Diaz is once again an elite closer.  He has regained control of that 100mph fastball and wicked slider.  With a 0.85 WHIP and a 15.23 K/9 he is dominating on the mound.  When he closed out the combined no-hitter the crowd was electrified like it was the playoffs! 

• The Mets have a high baseball IQ this year, and that is not something we are used to seeing in earlier teams.  The base running is taking advantage of other teams’ weaknesses, the fielders are intuitively getting into the right position, and batters are having productive outs with men on base.  Example: In Tuesday nights’ game, Lindor singles with a runner on second – Juan Soto overthrows the cutoff man, and LIndor immediately reads the throw and takes off for second.  Example: Also in Tuesday night’s game, Washington hits a ball in the gap, Marte fields it and throws to the cutoff – McNeil is perfectly aligned, and in one continuous motion he takes the cutoff throw, crow-hops, and fires a strike to the plate beating the runner by a couple steps. 

• Pete Alonso is leading the NL in RBI.  Nimmo is 6^th in OBP.

The Negatives:

Not a lot here, but there is always room for improvement:

• The Mets are not getting productive offense from the catcher or 3^rd base positions.  McCann (.196), Nido (.200), and Escobar (.216) are just not doing it at the plate, and with 32 games behind us this is more than just a slump.  Much has been said about the production of the catchers, but despite his stellar fielding Escobar is going to have to start hitting or he will start losing playing time to Davis and Guillorme.

• Trevor May and Sean Reid-Foley have hit the injured list for prolonged assignments, joining deGrom in the subset of pitchers we could really use as the summer begins.  If the Mets’ good fortunes are to continue, they can ill afford to lose much more of their pitching staff.

• Buck Showalter has been through a learning process with the pitching staff, and at times has made some questionable replacements.  I think this is more about getting to see what the arms can do in certain situations than it is about poor decisions, so this is more of a caution than a problem.

• Many of the top Mets prospects are struggling in the minor leagues.  It’s tough to put a finger on it, but there are several guys that we were looking forward to seeing at some point that are flirting with the Mendoza line in AAA.

All said, this has been a good start to the season, and some of the things that are going well should improve their chances of success over the rest of the year.  Let’s go Mets!