HEY! WHO ELSE IS DOING WHAT ELSE, ANYWAY?
Let’s not fall victim to Acute Myopia Syndrome…the malady of Metsville.
“METS, METS, METS.”
YADA. YADA, YADA.
ENOUGH, ALREADY!
Just for a minute, please…if possible…forget the Mets!
How the heck have our NL East competitors done this spring (thru Sunday)?
Well, surprise, surprise, the Washington Nationals have outscored Atlanta, the Marlins, Phillies, and Mets.
The Nationals have had 5 hitters raking over .350. The Mets have none of those. 21 year old CF James Woods has a .509 OBP! Trey Lipscomb is hitting .400 in 50 at bats. Victor Robles, Alex Call, and Juan Yepez all above .350. Lane Thomas hitting an impressive .306/.426/.490. And Joey Meneses with 9 RBIs and 6 XBH in 17 games. Those 7 dudes may be real “meneses” this year.
For the Peach State Boys of Summer (And Fall), Ronald Acuna has no HRs in 10 games, but the Braves still hit well, with guys like Michael Harris raking. The Braves in 2024 will do 3 things well: hit, hit, and hit.
Matt Olson, though, is having a miserable spring. Forrest Wall (we could use one of those on the southern border) and Eli White have 22 hits, 14 walks, and 7 steals between them. Jar Head Kelenic, on the other hand, is 7 for 52, and wishing daily that he could hit like Mark Vientos.
Phillies? They get Whit Merrifield and naturally, he is hitting .390. Meanwhile, our batting champ Jeff McNeil is 0 for 11, leaving Mets’ fans at their Whit’s end.
Messrs. Castellanos and Schwarber are 9 for 76, though, and would both have been sent down by David Stearns, but Kody Clemens is .325/.391/.625, no doubt impressing dear old dad Roger. Messrs. Realmuto and Harper have 3 combined spring RBIs, and they’d be enjoying Syracuse soon, too, under Stearns, while keeping 5 HR Mark Vientos on the Phillies team. The world has simply gone mad.
Marlins? Do they ever hit? No. But a few do.
Arauz is hitting his typical .386, pretty normal there, and Jazz Chisholm, well, he's hitting very well as well, as well as you might well expect. Jake Burger, Tim Anderson and Jesus Sanchez demonstrated their absolute command of the strike zone by walking twice and fanning 40 times In 126 at bats. If Mark Vientos was on the Marlins, those 3 would all take a walk.
Pitching?
Well, Spencer Strider has 23 innings, an 0.79 ERA and 35 Ks. Is he getting too old to be Cy Young?
And Miami’s Ryan Weathers fanned 19 in 18 innings with a 3.00 ERA.
But team-wise, through Sunday, it shakes out this way:
Mets 3.49 ERA (best in baseball).
Marlins: 3.97
Nationals: 4.32
Atlanta: 4.46
Phillies: 4.59
I’d say the Mets can start printing playoff tickets.
Go ahead, start criticizing Tylor Megill’s 3.92 ERA…until you realize that his ERA is better than the ERA of the other 4 NL East teams. I mean, would you prefer the Giants’ Logan Webb and his 10.97 ERA, with 37 hits allowed in 21 innings? Didn’t think so.
So, quit yer yapping and start yer clapping.
The 2024 season is about to get underway.
The Nationals thru Sunday had the best record, 15-12. The Mets were oh-so close behind at 15-13, with the other 3 lug nut teams were under .500.
That’s my update, what’s yours?
(P.S. The radioactive Trevor Bauer threw 3 scoreless innings against the Yankees in a Mexico game. Aaron Boone: "I thought his stuff looked good to me. Obviously, he's got great stuff. I thought we were putting up pretty good at-bats against him. We couldn't break through.")
VIENTOS, OBJECTIVELY:
Many readers and fans in general are smacking down on Mark Vientos.
May I try you give an objective perspective? Let's look at some facts.
Through Sunday:
Vientos had 56 at bats and hit 5 HRs. The next highest 2 Mets (Alvarez and Baty) hit 3. Pete has 2.
Mark’s 5 home runs have him tied for 6th highest in the majors.
- Ronald Acuna has no HRs this spring.
Vientos has had 7 extra base hits.
- Baty just 4, in the same number of PAs.
Vientos was tied with Alvarez for the team RBI lead (nine).
- Alonso? 4 RBIs.
Vientos was .232/.259/.536, with 6 for his last 15.
- Super fan favorite Alvarez was hitting .214 with a .500 slug %.
Everybody of course wants to hug Francisco Alvarez.
Lindor? A non-blistering .151/.190/.245. Compare to Vientos.
Phillies? Castellanos and Schwarber are a rip-roaring 9 for 76, and Messrs. Harper and Realmuto have 5 RBIs combined.
- Mark, as I noted, has 9.
Veteran Joey Gallo is “tearing it up”, with his 4 for 39 with the Cubs.
Jeff McNeil? 0 for 11. Hitless squirrel.
Starling Marte? 7 for 42, 1 double, 4 RBIs.
Nimmo? 10 for 40, 3 doubles, no homers.
Read the above over again, slowly. Let it sink in. Then:
Please….consider Mark’s spring accomplishments objectively.
Mark’s hit a whole lot better than many stars. Agreed?
He strikes out too much? So do 50% of major leaguers.
He walks too little? Well, most hitters, unlike Mark, homer too little.
He is only sent down (IMO) because they signed JD Martinez to a small fraction of what JDM would have cost the Mets a month ago.
Otherwise:
1) Mark Vientos would have been the full time DH.
2) Mark would have put up big power numbers this year.
Why then did the Mets send him down now? Here’s why…
While JDM is doing his compressed late spring training thru April 8, what if Mark got off HOT with the Mets and then they decided to send Mark down because JDM had arrived? Very painful and awkward.
What if JDM hits so-so in his minors stint, and Mark was tearing it up, and then they had to demote Mark?
So they did it now.
IMO, Mark got screwed. Plain and simple.
“Mark” my words. Vientos will be doing major amounts of major league damage in the future. You know what they say about payback.
Oh...and Mark Vientos did not play Sunday - or Monday - or he might have 7 or 8 homers by now.
On Monday, all of the remaining players managed 2 hits in a 3-0 loss.
Classic Mets dead-ball-dread-ball-era offense on full display.
The Mets are first in MLB batting average - whoops, I flipped the schedule by mistake - they are LAST with .225.
And, without his 5 HRs, they'd be 25th in that category as a team.
And runs scored per game? Only the Twins and Marlins are worse, and not by much.
Yep, send down one of the few guys on the roster who was hitting. Makes total sense to me now.
"Am I being clear?" "CRYSTAL."
16 comments:
I would like to think that statistics don't matter in the pre-season, as everyone is working on things and have not refined their form. Unfortunately those team results look alot like they always do. Phils and Braves hitting, Mets not. At least the pitching has been good.
Mark Vientos has been good, too but not enough to get a break from the Mets. I think he ends up elsewhere and provides another Justin Turner lesson to the Mets evaluators.
Vientos deserved to be sent down. In fact, it was Vientos’ performance that made the Mets sign Martinez. He has a .259 OBP! Hope he can improve and come back up. I deserve to be given some chances too!
It appears that the Mets offense is offended this spring. And here I am thinking that even blind squirrels can find a knock.
Paul, you may be right - or he will be our next weeping Wilmer.
Gus, walks are way overrated - just ask Barry Bonds (whoops, wrong guy to ask).
87 wins. Put it in the books!
As I've been saying since the JDM rumors began, the only player who would have to go is Mark.
I'm glad they did the sensible thing and sent him to 'Cuse, where he can play every day, including in the field. The alternative, to me, would be keeping him with the ML club getting splinters on the bench.Does anyone think that would benefit him more?
One side effect of his going upstate is that he'll be playing with (and learning from) JDM for the 1st 10 or so games. The two know each other well, and the combo of this "mentoring" and the regular playing time will help him be more successful in the long run.
JDM said in an interview a few days ago that when he was 26 and trying for an Astros job, he was not merely optioned at the end of ST; he was RELEASED.
He was 2 years older then than Mark is now, and that experience doesn't seem to have hurt his development.
Mark will be fine.
Bill, good take. If guys like Voit and choy, do not perform, I want to see them let go. Such a jam at AA and AAA that they do not need older veterans who are not performing clogging the system.
Martin, I think 87 is a reasonable #. Everyone needs to stay healthy. Injuries blew every Mets February win prediction in 2023.
Gus, not to be argumentative, but almost every high HR guy this spring in MLB had very low walk totals: https://www.mlb.com/stats/home-runs
Tom, great piece. Keep up the good work.
Luke Voit has been released according to MLB.com.
Thanks, Ray. I am big into “fairness” in baseball. I’m sure there are several MLB teams he’d get 500 at bats with this year.
Firstly I want to express thanks to everyone associated with this site. It's the second thing I look at every morning (after Wordle). I'm total!y in agreement with Tom's observations. It's too bad Affordable options don't exist to allow a wake up ,call for, Lindor, McNeill, Marte etal. Our starting players except for Pete seem dreadfully incapable so far. Hopefully this will change as the games count.
Tom, I am not one of those that feels a walk is as good as a hit. But, when you refuse to take your walks, you are probably striking out or at least helping the pitcher more than you should.
Charlie, the key Mets hitters have to switch from Athe, Struggling to the pitchers struggling.
Gus, mostly true. But DJ Stewart only has one run scored (his HR) and 2 RBIs (his homer)
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