Reese Kaplan -- It's Not All Good and It's Not All Bad

Right now people are growing frustrated with a on-again/off-again offense the Mets are providing.  Considering the difficulty they've had keeping pitchers healthy and the erratic performances being delivered by various people asked to start games the importance of offense becomes doubly important.

Now it's very easy to sit back and say, "Score more runs" or "Take walks and stop swinging at bad pitches" or "Remember to take the extra base" or "Steal bases!"  Saying something is not, of course, nearly as easy as doing it.  

From the positive folks who are Mets fans (there are a few out there...), you will hear the common refrain that it's still only April and you can't make rash decisions about wholesale lineup changes based on just about four weeks of lackluster run production.  They will say that you need to be patient, proven hitters will come around and the team knows what it's doing (sorry, I couldn't keep a straight face writing the end of that sentence!)

Then the wholly negative group of fans, perhaps a small majority of them, feel that the front office is asleep at wheel, nothing is being done to address the ongoing "Noffense" problem, and the team is destined to return to the second division.  Never mind pointing out that pitchers like Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are returning soon, that Omar Narvaez is due back before the All Star break and that the temporary reinforcements are just that -- short term necessary substitutes but not written in ink for the remainder of the season.  

Finally there's the reasonable group of fans (yes, there are some of them, too) who understand the Rome wasn't built in a day and that a slump in pitching, offense and base running is also a temporary thing.  When the unavailable players are fully healthy there will be a roster much closer to what they had in mind when the 2023 season began.  For now you roll with the punches and to some extent tread water until the real pitching rotation and real starting lineup are what Buck Showalter puts on his lineup card.

Many of the positive group steadfastly believe that whomever is doing well in the minors will replicate that success in the majors.  The negative group moans about how the club trades away anyone with talent for mediocre and over-the-hill veterans.  The reasonable group knows that a .346 hitter in the minors isn't necessarily a .346 hitter in the majors, but perhaps would prove to be a better option than one who is struggling at the Mendoza line.  The same holds true for pitching. 

That number wasn't just a random one put up there to illustrate a point.  What if I told you that the Syracuse Mets have a player with 7 HRs, hitting .346 and leading the team in RBIs but hasn't yet sniffed the majors in 2023.  You know of him based upon a September call-up last year -- Mark Vientos.  Even though third base has two occupants already and first base has one Polar Bear sized one, there is still the matter of production from the DH.

Then there's another Syracuse Met who this week was notified he was going to start playing the new position of second base, Ronny Mauricio.  This 22 year old is following closely behind Vientos with a .330 average, 6 HRs and 16 RBIs.  The thinking here is that preparing him to play a new position makes sense both for his future in Queens and as a prospective trade prospect.  It's conceivable that the former shortstop could come up to man second base while Jeff McNeil takes over for Mark Canha in left field.  

The prospective pitching solutions in Syracuse don't look all that promising, but hopefully in addition to Verlander and Scherzer the team will receive a rehabilitated Carlos Carrasco before too long.  It then means that the group that includes David Peterson, Tylor Megill, Joey Lucchesi and Jose Butto can fight it out to see who is taking over more-or-less permanently for Jose Quintana.  Whomever returns to Syracuse will be staying ready in the event of more starting pitching mishaps.  

Right now between the historically productive hitters, the pressed-into-action rookies, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th string starting pitchers and the few solid hitters wreaking havoc in the International League it would seem that the Mets are in better shape than the nay sayers would have you believe but are not yet ready to dominate the Eastern Division until health and promotions take place.