The fact of a would-be batting champ, but facing big obstacles.
Jeff McNeil is great. He ought to win a batting title in 2022.
Most likely he won’t. Biggest reason?
Paul Goldschmidt. Paul thru Saturday? .341. Jeff? .318.
Not insurmountable, but not easy, by no means.
Paul is, to be clear, an excellent hitter.
But when you play 45% of your season’s games within your division, and the 4 teams in your division are 57 games below .500, you’ve got a hitter’s advantage. The Mets’ division is just 16 games below .500, mostly caused by one team, the Nats, whom the Mets only play 19 times. The other 3 division teams, in total, have VERY good pitching. You hit less, generally, against excellent hitting.
Through Saturday, Paulie G had 64 games against teams below .500, 49 against teams above .500. That’s 57% against weaker teams, 43% against tougher teams.
Against sub .500 teams, he thunders: .368.
Against .500 + teams, he’s good but not thunderous: .303.
McNeil gets 54 games against above .500, and 54 below .500, a far more challenging schedule.
He hits .330 against the weaker teams, just .305 against the tougher.
If you had Paul playing 50% against good teams and not 43%, and McNeil playing 57% against weaker teams rather than 50%, I dare say the batting averages of the two hitters would be about the same.
Then there is the 2nd factor:
Home vs. away.
I beat a dead horse on the subject of Citifield being difficult for hitters.
McNeil through Saturday? .352 on the road, but just .282 at home, a 70 point negative gap.
Goldschmidt? Yeah, you guessed it. .368 at home, but just .315 on the road, a 53 point POSITIVE gap.
My conclusion, when I think about the two players hypothetically switching teams and divisions?
McNeil would be hitting .345 as a Cardinal, Goldschmidt .300 as a Met.
Hypothetical, of course, but when McNeil does not (most likely) win the batting title, his tougher division and tougher home field prevented him from winning it.
That’s my conclusion.
Just as an exclamation point, Alonso at home this year? .252.
On the road this year? .293.
Lindor? 9 HRs and several near misses at home, 12 on the road.
Any suggestion, of course, that the Mets should move their fences in again is utterly absurd, as is anyone who would make such a suggestion.
Call me Mr. Absurd. I don’t mind.
I think the only one more bothered by me, but too professional to say it or show it?
Jeff McNeil. He is my batting champ.
MINORS MUSINGS
Of course, by now, you know that MARK VIENTOS is hitting .404 in August. Ted Williams told me he can do a few points better.
The FCL Mets lost 15-8 Monday, which is hard to do, considering 4 of their pitchers threw 4 innings, allowing one hit, no walks, and fanning 8. The other guys? Well, I won't go there, to be nice other than to say, 15 runs on 7 hits and 9 walks. Yipes.
BEACH BOYS
I believe they are Mets fans. They recently rewrote California Girls as, "I Wish They All Could Be Daniel Vogelbachs." Gotta love the big guy.
26 comments:
Vogie in 26 Mets games in .284/.418/.541. A lineup with 9 Vogies against any right hand pitcher? The Mets would never lose.
He is, though, an incredibly low .134 hitter in 304 career plate appearances vs lefties. Needless to say, when a lefty starts, Daniel is sitting.
I think Jeff's chances went out the door with that mini-slump he had, coupled with what Goldy has done this season.
That's funny.
I just wrote a song: Hotel Mar-A-Lago
Next year's balanced schedule can put Tom's theory to the test.
Very nice on Hotel Mar A Lago - such a lovely place.
I asked Trump how he controls vermin. He said he sets traps, but never uses RAID.
Bill, I cannot wait for the 2023 schedule. McNeil will still face the batting title-preventing Citifield.
Alonso too: 12 HRs in Citi, 18 away. Citi is a HR title snuffer.
.318 - not bad for they guy who has spent most of the year in the 8 position in the batting order.
Hmmm,how do the pitchers’ splits look?
If the team is built on pitching and defense, makes sense to keep the dimensions.
Ray, I look at how much better Yankee hitters hit, and how much more the Yankees win than the Mets over time, in their home park, I think a 5 feet move in would help Mets' hitters a lot and hurt their pitchers a lot less.
Did I previously mention how I wished we played Detroit or Kansas City instead of the Yankees this week? Oh, yeah, I did.
Sorry, Tom, I can't agree on this one.
IMO, what helps the hitters hurts the pitchers and vice versa. Moving the fences in helps the HR hitters fir both sudes.
As for McNeil, at his best he's a spray hitter. Moving fences in shortens the field, allowing the OFers to play shallower, where they can turn his liners into outs.
Bill, we will have to agree to disagree on this one. I just hope Cohen's analysts are carefully looking at this. They might find the best solution is not the status quo.
The team offense this year is built around contact, rather than power.If they want to reverse that, then moving the fences in would make sense.
Moving in the fences makes ordinary hitters extraordinary. Alonso is fine. WhT that does is allow marginal pitchers to be more effective, and with the rate of pitcher injuries, the chances of marginal pitchers being in an important spot increases. Move the fences back!
Look at Petco and how it makes pitchers look, and the good hitters are still good hitters because they use the whole field.
I have a Solomon suggestion: motorized fences. Move them in on odd days, back on even days - everyone will be happy. Sometimes a hitter's park, sometimes a pitcher's park. Wheee!
Tom, I think Bill Veeck wrote about moving the height of the fence up and down, as I recall. I think he tried it, too, but it got band when he tried it between the top and bottom of an inning. it's been about 60 years, since I read the book; don't remember if this was in the minors or the majors, sometimes the memory gets a bit fuzzy.
was going to say if you have motorized fences, forget every other day, move 'em in for the bottom half of innings, back for top half.
I do find myself agreeing with Bill M and Gus above rather than Tom. I don't understand the batting average issue at home. I get it if it is not a home-run park, but why would that be an issue with BA? I think it has more to do with Paul's statement about McNeil hitting low in the order withoug a lot of protection. Wonder where he would be if he consistenly hit in the #2 hole?
Jon, a lowered fence would have allowed Eddie Gaedel(?) to reach over the fence and take away HRs. As long as it was lowered to 2 feet. Interesting, never knew that about Veeck
Bill, Jeff in the second spot is where he really belongs - I just think the team presses a bit more at home when long balls die, so even if McNeil isn't the one hitting HRs, less offense for the team = more pressing
Tom: I googled the fence moving, and got the following quote from https://www.overtimeheroics.net/2021/02/01/mlb-history-bill-veeck/
Adjustable Fences
When Veeck was a minor league owner, he came up with a unique idea to give his team a real “home field” advantage. On his field in Milwaukee, he installed a machine that allowed him to raise the fences when the visitors were batting and lower the fences when the home team was batting. The league changed the rules the following day.
That wasn’t Bill Veeck’s only foray into the realm of adjustable fences. As the owner of the Indians, Veeck would move the fences in or out by as much as 15 feet between home series, depending on the visiting team. The American League made a rule banning this adjustment after the season ended.
Veeck and I have a lot in common LOL - were both connivers.
So, some feel that moving in the fences would leave our pitchers de-fence-less. I get it. I still think deep fences for the Mets are a barrior to winning.
In the early days of the Astrodome, the Astros manipulated the air conditioning. When the visitors batted, the OF units would blow the air toward the IF. When the Astros batted, they shut off.
So the sign-stealing wasn't their first cheating scandal. Very subtle but it was discovered and ended
I donno Tom, the Mets have the second best home record in the NL, yup behind the Dodgers who have the best record for pretty much whatever split you can come up with. They are winning more than 2 out of every 3 games at home (40-19). You can make arguments that hitters would hit more home runs if they moved the fences in, but deep fences being a barrier to winning seems a stretch.
I'd like to see a home-team/away-team spray chart on the number of hits that would be homers at Citi if the fences were all moved in a uniform 5' or 8'. Pretty sure something like that exists someplace.
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