Tom Brennan - Hometown Sluggers and Home Field Advantage - and Carrasco Gets to Ten

Pete Alonso - that hombre is most wanted.

   

There are 2 titanic NY sluggers in NY baseball:

Pete Alonso and Aaron Judge.

Judge has more home runs this year than Pete, at least Judging by the numbers.  (If you think I was not attempting to inject humor there, you mis-Judge me.)

But how much does home field advantage help or hurt each hitter?

Let's look at recent career numbers and find out.

Both make doing that very easy to do, since each has played for only their current NY team.

I am starting first with road slash lines, since they encompass many parks for each of the two gents, and remove the home field advantage / disadvantage factor that the slugger may experience.  (Stats are from start of career through late June.)

ROAD SLASH LINES:

Alonso: .280/.362/.593 - excellent

Judge: .257/.361/.521 - solid yes, excellent, no

Clear edge to Pete Alonso.

HOME SLASH LINES:

Alonso: .238/.336/.494 - far lower than his road totals

Judge: .300/.406/.608 - far higher than his road totals

To whatever degree is applicable, bandbox size, psychological aspects, etc., Judge has found home cooking at the Pinstripe Palace to be far more savory than eating road slop.  

Pete, I believe, shows his true beastly colors when he gets into any park - other than his home park that penalizes his power.

Some talk about the coup that it would be for Steve Cohen to snatch Aaron Judge away from the Yanks, as he is having a statistically awesome MVP type of year, after the season ends with Cohen Cash.

Two notes of caution on that, and two positive ones:

1) His home field would be Citifield and his home numbers would be impaired, almost certainly, and perhaps very significantly.  That might concern Judge, who no doubt wants to make the Hall of Fame someday. 

2) He will he 31 early next season, and will assuredly want a long-term deal (10 years?)  How many years before he declines?  Albert Pujols wasn't the same after 30, not nearly, and he was a far better offensive machine than Judge up through age 30.   Many others could be used as examples.  Couple that with a somewhat reduced, but high, career strikeout rate, and you risk reduced production and increased Ks going into his mid 30's.

Positive are:

1) Strong fielding and good speed.

2) A female WFAN weekend talk show host was raving about Judge being the ultimate marketing machine, with a top-notch image, a big value-added factor.

Lastly, would Pete Alonso welcome, or bemoan, sharing his super-beast status on the Mets with an equally colossal bopper.  Personally, I think Pete is all about winning, and that would be a non-factor.

So, if the deal is 10 years, $400 million, do you pull the trigger at year end or look elsewhere?

But Steve, I've said it many times from my articles on this site: move the fences in again.  Not a lot, just enough to turn 5-7 Alonso long fly outs a season at Citi into home runs.  

How? 400 to dead center, not 408, and with a curved fence not the straight across fence currently in dead center; bring in the foul poles another several feet to give a little more corner action; and get rid of the outward right field bullpen dip.  

Not only would Pete like it a lot and be more wind at his back over the course of time for a Hall of Fame bid - it would help entice Judge to switch political parties to the Queens Machine.

TWO EXCELLENT RELIEVERS ON OTHER TEAMS:

1) Paul Sewald…left Mets, went from Least to Beast. 13-5 as an ex-Met, 13.5 Ks per 9 since he left.

2) Rafael Montero…1.83 ERA, 36 outings.

Mets win 8-0.

Carrasco 10-4, 4.27.  

That's why they call it an earned run AVERAGE.  He's given up 24 earned runs in 15 innings in his 4 losses, hence the high ERA.  

In his 10 wins, 2.27.  In his 4 ND's, 3.05.  

It's what you want for every pitcher...have a few (4) very bad outings and a slew (14) of excellent ones. That's how you get to 10 wins (and 100 Ks) by mid-July. He had 6 shutout innings last night. 

Trevor Williams (3.56 ERA) threw 3 innings to get the save. Nimmo 3 hits, Alonso 2 run shot, tying him with David Wright for most RBIs prior to the ASB. Of course, former MLB star Juan Gonzalez had 101 RBIs at the break one year. 

Marte and McNeil back and combine to get on base a welcome 4 times (they along with Nimmo make the offense go), and Mazeika collected a 2 run double.

Incredible, as an aside, that LAD's Tony Gonsolin (11-0) and Tyler Anderson (10-1) are a combined 21-1 at this point.

Minors: That Kid Named Jake:

42 pitches, no earned runs for JDG. Probably some extra throwing in the pen afterwards.  A likely FCL outing during the All Star Break, then back starting for the Mets in the San Diego series in 10 days.  Not a moment too soon.

Frankie Alvarez is struggling, 2 for 24 in AAA, but also 7 walks, 2 HBP and a sac fly, so his OBP in his short stint there is .324 and his BABIP is .125.  He'll be fine.

Syracuse won 6-5; Michel Otanez gave up 3 runs in the 9th to make it close.  So far, he is losing the battle of the new Syracuse closers to red-hot Bryce Montes de Oca.

Binghamton won 6-1 behind 6 early runs and a fine outing by Jose Butto, who no doubt hopes to be promoted to AAA after the ASB.  Cody Bohanek had 3 welcome hits, raising his average to .176.

Brooklyn lost 6-5. Jose Peroza 2 run shot (5). He is .313/.389/.688 in July, as he is trying to dig out of a miserable start to the season with the bat.

St Lucie won 5-4, after trailing 4-3 entering the 9th. One in the 9th, one in the 10th to win.  Carlos Dominguez hit his 16th, and Junior Tilien 2 hits.  Nice start by Keyshawn Askew, and Benito Garcia pitched 3 scoreless for the win.  Bet you didn't know the Mets had a Benito, certainly no relation to the WW II Italian dictator.  St Lucie faced Fidel Castro the other day, just saying.