The power segment of the Mets’ line up (Lindor, Pete, Francisco, Nimmo)?
Let’s recap.
How did those dynamic 4 Mets stars do, home vs. road?
A pretty important question, one might say.
Lindor Home: 15 HRs, 38 RBI, .225.
Lindor Road: 16 HR, 60 RBI, .281.
- Huge Difference. Better on thr road, by a lot.
Alonso Home: 22 HR, 64 RBI, .206.
Alonso Road: 24 HR, 54 RBI, .230
- Closer than in years past but still, except for RBIs; superior on the road.
Alvarez Home: .204, 9 HR, 29 RBI,
Alvarez Road: .217, 16 HR, 34 RBI.
- His 2 HR, 6 RBI Saturday game at home closed the gap somewhat.
- Still significantly better on the road.
Nimmo Home: .251, 13 HR, 29 RBI.
Nimmo Road: .294, 11 HR, 39 RBI.
- Much better on the road.
But your stars should be hitting better at home, right? Home, sweet home.
Home field advantage and all.
Overall, though?
Statistically significantly better on the “hostile” road for the 4 stars.
- About 35 to 40 points lower in the aggregate home v. road average for 4 stars.
- A lot less home RBIs, too.
59 HRs, 160 RBIs in Queens.
67 HRs, 187 RBIs in other cities.
Big difference.
Gee, I wonder why?
Head scratcher, for sure. Inexplicable. Has to be a sheer anomaly, right?
Wait, wasn’t it pretty much the same thing in 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, etc.
I think the answer is YES.
How do offensive stars of other teams hit, though, when they are in the friendly fair environs of their own home parks? I’d guess “better”.
Home field ADVANTAGE. Not disadvantage.
Should Stearns look at that huge disparity to determine what may be multiple reasons for causation?
Why the Phillies scored 40 more runs at home, while the Mets scored 17 fewer.
Why Bryce Harper, for instance, went deep 16 times at home vs. 5 at home.
I sure would want to look into that negative, repetitive deficit if I were him.
You know what some say. A few more wins, here and there, go a long way.
I’ll bet you would want David to pry open that lid and try to diagnose why the Mets engines sputter at home, too.
Mark Canha was loving life in Milwaukee after his trade - and hitting much better. Maybe the grass really IS greener in Milwaukee.
Something is rotting in Queens.
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Funny thing that the Arizona fall opener was a low scoring affair. Parada didn’t hit, our two pitchers each didn’t allow a run, and Montez de Oca got the save. I had to do a double take; this MontesdeOca first name Christian seems unrelated to big bad Bryce. I knew it could not have been Bryce, since he is only likely not even halfway through hisTommy John purgatory.
I agree with you that Citifield is hurting our hitters, but to use Bryce Harper as a comparison isn't a good comp. He plays his home games on a little league field.
Senga started 16 games at home and had an ERA of 2.42 versus 13 games on the road with an ERA of 3.68. Wheeler in Philly had 15 starts with an ERA of 4.13 versus 17 on the road with an ERA of 3.16. Senga had two starts against Philly. At home seven shutout innings. In Philly,4 runs, two earned over 5.1 innings. The Mets faced Wheeler twice. Both in Philly. Mets scored 10 runs; 8 earned. Should the same analysis be applied to pitching as to hitting?
To expand on Steve’s comment, Megill is much better at Citifield than he is on the road. Tom, please let it go…
Frankly I agree here
I would much rather build my team around pitching, something David Stearns is famous for doing.
I expect he will love the size of the home court.
Steve, pitching is a factor…except if your big hitters are happy at home, hitting better, and you win as many or more games there despite higher pitcher ERAs, no one will care.
But if these 4 guys hit only as well at home as they do on the road, which would be a lot better, fans would be less critical of them. You should, however, hit somewhat better at home. If you took how they hit on the road, and at home it was slightly better, all 4 would go from “we’ve got some good hitters here” to “wow”.
Canha went to Milwaukee and said he felt lighter, in part because the right balance is there.
I think it is foolish for Stearns to not examine this issue.
Meanwhile, take it to the bank, Pete is leaving. Why not instead play your home games in a “little league park” and greatly enhance your chances of making the Hall of Fame, which as of right now are fairly slim and damaged by his drastically worse career hitting at Citifield? 22 fewer homers, 40 fewer RBIs, 30 points lower average. Just a slight home field hitting advantage would mean his career home stats would be 30 HRs, 60 RBIs, and 35 points higher. He’s got to be thinking that. The park, and not winning, will kill his HOF chances.
Mack, it is all about winning. A smaller park could = more wins. Jake deGrom was godly those 2 years and went 20-17. I better a smaller field would have made him 30-17.
The Braves won with first overall hitting and 15th in ERA. If a smaller park leads to more wins and higher run differential, great.
Personally, I think it will.
2023 was a depressing roller coaster year. May Pete was somewhat depressed and it showed in his low average. So it is not just shorter fences. Stearns needs to find out why they don’t win more at home, and over the longer run, home vs. road wins have not been strong.
KC was 10th with 390 home scores, vs. just 286 runs in road games. Why? No idea, but while they were +=104 runs, the Mets were minus 17.
Somebody needs to take a deep dive, and not just assume it is optimal as is, in terms of winning.
Anyway, I am anxiously hoping for the Bionic Boys…Bryce, Matt Allan, and other surgical marvels, to return with a flourish in 2025 in Queens. If they break again, I hear there are some excellent repair shops in Queens.
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There's an important stat missing, Tom. Although you mentioned a few individuals, I'd like to know the total ERA of our staff in the home/road categories.
Also, in the stats you quoted for our hitters, it seems that the difference in BA and RBI was greater on the road, but oddly the difference in HR was not quite as wide.
I'd expect that the bigger field would result in more 1Bs and 2Bs finding gaps, thus raising the BAs, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
All I want is what this NY Post article today says the Yanks will do:
“When the Yankees play in The Bronx again, there could be significant changes, especially following owner Hal Steinbrenner’s statements to the Associated Press last month indicating there would be a “deep dive” into how the team is run, coupled with Aaron Judge’s stark assessment of the organization as the season wound down in Kansas City, when the team’s captain said, “I think there’s some stuff that happened this year that opened some people’s eyes,” while also noting that the way the organization looks at analytics may need improvement.
They were strong statements from two of the most important people in the organization, and both Steinbrenner and Judge will be among the group — along with general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone — that is expected to meet in Tampa to try to find out just what went wrong.”
How did top 6 pitchers do,home vs road?
That is for Stearns to look at.
And...did we even have "top 6" pitchers? Didn't seem so.
Pitching can be weird...Peterson and Megill were brutal in the first 100 games, much better in the last few months. Did home v. away have any impact on them? One of the many questions a guy like Stearns should be asking.
As I read this, I was asking myself (without any answers) "Why is the Batting Average so much lower at home?"
I kinda get the home runs, but BA? How bout stolen bases? First to third on singles? Scoring from first on doubles? Hitting with runners in scoring positions?
And yes, my other parallel question was what the ballpark did to the pitching. Thank you Steve above for some introductory analysis on this.
I think the ballpark is here to stay. They need to build their team to use it to its characteristic. More speed - more average - better situational hitting - and certainly strong pitching. This is in David Stearns wheelhouse.
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