Tom Brennan - Upgrade Lagging Segments, Win More Games

 

Eliminate flaws, win trophies

BREAKING NEWS BEFORE MY ARTICLE…EDWIN DIAZ HURT!

Per NY Post:

 The Mets’ worst World Baseball Classic fears may have been realized Wednesday night.

Edwin Diaz, the team’s All-Star closer, was removed from the field in Miami in a wheelchair after he was injured during Team Puerto Rico’s postgame celebration following a 5-2 victory over the Dominican Republic.

Diaz had just recorded the final out of the game and was crowded by teammates who began hugging him near the pitcher’s mound. 

Diaz emerged from the celebration unable to put weight on his right knee and was helped to a wheelchair.

Diaz’s younger brother Alexis, also a reliever for Team Puerto Rico, was in tears as Edwin was helped from the field. 

Edwin Diaz recorded the final three strikeouts of the game, sending Puerto Rico to Saturday’s quarterfinals against Mexico.

DAMNED SICKENING.

Yes, it is 2023. 

Yes, the Mets won 101 games in 2022.

So...why not just leave it there rather than retrospectively over-analyze it?

Just look ahead, right?  Good, good, good, good vibrations.

Simple. 

Analyze a bit, and find out what really malfunctioned in a 101 win season.

You don't (if possible) want 2023 to have the same negative drag factor(s) that in 2022 may have kept the Mets' 101 wins from being 110 wins.

That is, the poor hitting of all the players who weren't regular hitters.

Which were all hitters with under 200 PAs, except for Daniel Vogelbach, who only finished under 200 PAs because he wasn't with the Mets long enough to accumulate that many PAs.

All the rest did this - pardon the small print:

2022 James McCann, asking the Almighty, “Where Have My Hits Gone?”

So that group of 2022 under-performers hit a combined .182, with an OBP not much over .200, and a slug % of .289.  Pretty darned awful.

Considering that those 17 hitters got nearly 15% of all Mets' plate appearances in 2022, a Mets goal for 2023 would be to have a bottom 15% of plate appearance dudes that hopefully hit a combined .220 or better.

Not too much to ask, right?

While here in this list of lumber slackers, I am all for reclamation projects, but Darin Ruf will turn 37 this summer. 

How many hitters who are still in baseball at that age are performing at a high level?  Few.  How many in steep decline?  Many.  

So, I am not sure why a guy who, in his Mets' debut in 2022 got up 74 times and miserably had just 10 hits, 3 doubles, and 5 walks should be taken seriously as an opening day roster candidate.

A far more accomplished career hitter, old Robbie Cano, was 2022-bad, with 43 PAs, while getting on base just 10 times, with 1 lonely extra base hit.  Why should we have any confidence in an old Ruf bounce back?  Because you'd have to just about double his Mets' 2022 production for Ruf to be useful. When he is a year older.

Maybe the Mets would be better served, getting back to the bottom 15% hitters, if the team in general churned through fewer players.  The Mets' revolving door allowed 61 players (hitters and pitchers) in 2022, while the Astros used just 45.  

Fewer guys on the roster, a Rastafarian once told me, and they are roster experts, seem to have not hurt the Astros.

INJURY AVOIDANCE MADE SIMPLE:

I was wide-eyed in early 2022’s season when Megill stepped in for Achy Breaky Jakey and was firing high 90s heat and succeeding. Then, Tylor’s arm jettisoned, came entirely off and landed on the ground. Well, almost.

This spring, Max suggested to Megill to throttle down, to avoid injury and increase endurance, and Megill is successfully doing that. May he throw beaucoups Mets innings in 2023, successfully.