Much to the relief of millions worldwide, I don’t expect to have much time to write over a 2 week period. Much to their dismay, I still will, but the timing may be a bit skewed.
Like today. Writing on Saturday morning for Tuesday. Oh well, here goes:
METS HAVE A SCHEDULE ADVANTAGE OVER THE BRATS:
I alway spell Braves wrong, sorry.
Anyway, on the concept of the Braves’ tougher remaining 35 game schedule than the Mets. It is truly tougher because of their schedule having tougher teams and 20 of the remaining 35 Brats games being on the road while the Mets have 20 of their last 35 at home. That still doesn‘t mean the Brats wont go 25-10. Mets are in quite a dogfight. Their theme song should be the Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat with a baseball bat, oh yeah.”
Jeff McNeil: .411 in August. QUICK, DIAL 411….SQUIRREL ON FIRE!!!
Against the pitching-tough NL East, Jeff gets fired up. Hitting a hard-charging .360 in nearly 200 at bats. Pay the Squirrel. Keep the Squirrel. Enjoy the Squirrel.
JETT WILLIAMS: the 1st rounder finished his FCL debut with 11 hits and 6 walks, and 7 steals, in 46 plate appearances. Solid debut for the 19 year old speedster. His 7 career steals compare to Mark Vientos’ 2 career steals.
MARK VIENTOS: his nickname might just be Moe Lasses, because molasses and Mark might tie in a foot race, but the dude has 45 homers in his last 152 games, at ages 21-22 in the high minors, after losing 2020 altogether.
In 37 July-August games, 39 RBIs, 11 HRs, and .352. In AAA. Not having him getting ABs for the Mets in 2023 would be malpractice.
PETE ALONSO: was in comparative hitter’s heaven Las Vegas for the last 60 games of his minors career in 2018. He hit .260, not .352. He was 23. Compare to Vientos.
Alonso, of course, has 25 game winning RBIs in 2022. Wow. 105 RBIs thru Friday. Wow. And we all forget he was in the traumatizing triple rollover car crash in spring trading, when he was broadsided. So, everything he’s done this year is TRIPLE WOW. Pete is simply amazin’.
BRYCE HARPER: obliterated minor league pitching in his 2 game rehab, 2 HRs, 2 doubles, and got called up. Dom Smith has hit like a solid AAA player in his exile. Nothing special. No call up.
SIMON JUAN: the Big Bonus Baby could not emulate Bryce Harper in the lowly D League. 201 at bats, .203, 2 HR. Not 2 impressive. He did, however, swipe 16 bags. When all else fails, steal. By comparison, a non-Met named Cassiani hit .375. And 7 DSL players had between 10-13 HRs.
GIVENS: man, did he look happy when the Mets rallied, after his failed relief appearance. I saw just two highlight pitches…a grounder through a hole, and the multi-RBI double on a good fastball on the outside corner. Reminder: opposing hitters are paid to hit.
EPPLER: “you didn’t get enough relief pitching, Billy. AARGH!”
But, didn’t pretty much everyone think at the trade deadline that Megill and Smith would return by the middle to the end of August? Instead, it’s Joey Lucchesi forging ahead with 2 scoreless, 1 inning relief rehab outings.
Is Smith a bad name for the Mets in 2022? A Dom question if I ever heard one. Seems to be a bad name indeed.
LGM. BEAT ON THE BRATS….
Sometimes, strugglers turn the corner with a vengeance. 1-15 former Met Paul Sewald is STINGY this year. 53 innings, 22 hits allowed. BAA of .120.
His first 2 seasons as an ex-Met? Sensational.
I guess Citifield was a hostile work environment.
Paul is Sleeping Well in Seattle.
Actually, while Paul is not Edwin velocity-wise, I think Sewald's fastball pitching style is similar to Edwin's now. He has a similar release to Edwin and throws a lot of rising fastballs, as does Edwin - and it works for Paul - think I misspeak? Then how does Sewald have 163 Ks in 117 innings as a Mariner? And just 66 hits allowed in those 117 innings?
Some think Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna give the Braves a distinct edge over the Mets with Starling Marte. But Marte has 3.5 WAR this year, Ronald McDonald Acuna just 2.2 WAR. Who exactly has the distinct edge? My NY Mets.
On catching, though, the Braves’ catchers? #1 in baseball in OPS.
THE Mets? # 30 (I.e., dead last).
Switch the Mets catchers to the Braves, and Braves catchers to the Mets, and the Mets would have a 15 game lead.
Lots of Facebook Mets experts simply say d'Arnaud was hurt too much, that it was time for a fresh start, why dwell in the past, he sucked, and such ilk that belies profusive levels of Facebook aficionado intelligence.
Curious myself, however, as I often am and Facebook experts are not, I googled "why did LAD release d'Arnaud?" and found and read a very interesting article on the subject (below), which I recommend. See who thought he'd still be very good. See what LAD coaches did to try to help him - and help him they did, in the very little time he spent with them. Consider which franchise did not help him during his very long time with them - yes, the Mets.
"Why Did d'Arnaud Get Released by LAD?"
For the Mets, this was (to me) another sign of a very dysfunctional Wilpon franchise that Steve Cohen is looking to fix on the fly.
Two quick and easy fixes which the Mets failed to identify for Sewald and d'Arnaud - imagine those two, performing as they now are, on this 2022 Mets team?
They'd be unstoppable.
FCL QUESTION:
Why does the Florida Complex League stop playing ball a week before the end of August? Are they afraid of overtaxing young arms? Our FCL Mets lost their one playoff game but finished 33-22, in case you were wondering.
The DSL I get, in terms of it stopping early. Kids probably need to get ready for the school year.
19 comments:
Great post
Enjoy your whatever you are doing this next two weeks.
Hope you can find some time to chime in
Well, the first part of our plans went POOF a bit so I am not where I thought I'd be 3 days ago. So as there is time to chime, chime I shall.
Mack, in it's a weird, weird world category - a guy just got canned by the FBI for shielding the Biden lap top back in 2020. His name? Tim Tebow. I have no idea if he is related in any way to our Tim Tebow. Weird.
Mack, the amazing thing about Sewald and d'Arnaud is that it is easy for people to say, "I understand, time to move on."
But in both cases, the solution was amazingly simple - tweak Sewald's approach (instant success) and tweak d'Arnaud's hitting style (Dodgers did that in his few days with them) and let d'Arnaud work off the rust and turn into one of baseball's top 3 hitting catchers.
They game him only one or two rehab games after missing a year and a half and called him up! Imagine if they did that with deGrom ("OK, Jake, nice 2 inning outing in A ball, now get up here and pitch!). Not letting d'Arnaud have some real rehab time was incredibly stupid and short-sighted, and most likely had to do with the Wilpons looking to save a few bucks. There simply was no rush to dump him. They could have done that 2 weeks later if he seemed like damaged goods. I am SO GLAD those stupid owners are gone.
In part, Sewald's 1-15 Mets record was due to them NEVER scoring for Paul when he pitched. Koosman was 11-35 with the Mets over a 2 year period due to his 6.50 ERA - oh, I'm sorry, it was 3.50. 11-35, 3.50 ERA. If hitters don't hit, as Scherzer just found out....
And he was turned in by a guy named Sal Magley
Go figure
It can be hard finding old articles on this site, but when d'Arnaud was released, my comment was this: "Hopefully, d'Arnaud ends up where he belongs - in Syracuse - plays a lot, stays healthy, and resurfaces when he is in high gear."
I wish that is exactly what they did. Or, better yet, didn't release him but instead left him in the minors. For the record, his rehab assignment was 2 games long: 2 for 7 and a walk in St Lucie. Incredibly dumb.
d'Arnaud has had 1,112 at bats post-Mets 79 HRs, 251 RBIs.
Divide by 2 to give a typical full season perspective, 556 at bats, 40 HRs, 125 RBIs. Johnny Bench stuff.
Yep, glad the Wilpons couldn't wait to cut their cash outflow.
Funny on Sal Magley. Surprised he wasn't turned in by Tim Tebow.
Not to sound critical but, you like so many , get hung up on who used to be Mets
I never look back
Maybe Nido just needs a tweak….
Yeah, he needs a tweak alright...
Let LAD give Nido a tweak and he'll suddenly have a .275 OBP.
Mack, I only look back when huge mistakes are made, only to say, never again, please. Kelenic could have become a superstar, but that was a deal with value on both sides. The Sewald and d'Arnaud debacles were "Crimes Against Mets Fans."
They didn't call them the Coupons for nothin'
The "used to be Mets" include hitting coaches of the past. I am glad they are gone. Eric Chavez has done great things with this year's team. He could have fixed those players we gave up, but wasn't here then. Now if only he could fix our catchers' hitting!
Maybe a tweak for Givens or Escobar?
While there at it maybe tweak McCann to.
Tom, the Rays’ interest in d’Arneau was facilitated by their batting coach who was d’Arneau’s minor-league batting coach in the Blue Jays system. He saw that d’Arneau had developed a hitting flaw that he worked with d’Arneau to fix. Naturally, d’Arneau was so appreciative that he signed a free agent contract with the Braves.
Gus, nice. If the Rays guy could see it…
Actually, the linked article talks about the tweak. Which begs the question, why couldn’t the Met figure out what tweak was needed?
I think TDA was 2 for 23 as a Met pre-release, but he only had a few Ks, which should have alerted them that it was rust, not loss of ability. They just wanted to save $$.
McCann is an interesting question. He hit well for CWS in 2019 and 2020. Is there a tweak to be found or did he just get old?
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