Tom Brennan: Will JD Martinez Save The Mets? And So Much More.

Once Upon a Time, Yoenis Cespedes Rode to the Mets' Rescue in 2015

Hopefully, it won't be too late when JD Martinez arrives at Citifield to rescue the Mets' season, after their brutally brutal early start to 2024.

Will he?  I frankly don't know, bro'.

JD should bring the ingredient that is so needful right now to this team: offense. And isn't that somehow almost always the case with the Mets - a severe "Vitamin O" deficiency?  

When your team plays in a pitchers' park and you never EFFECTIVELY fix that...

You know I have been a repeated proponent of shorter Citi fences in these columns.

So, anyway, I was wondering when JD Martinez will finally get here to give the Mets' offense some desperately needed CPR, and how CitiField might impact JD offensively.  It turns out that JD is a good hitter for CitiField, at least in theory, based on its far more favorable specific dimensions for JD Martinez than Giants Oracle Park is (the Giants apparently were his other serious suitor).

I came across a great article by Mike Petriello on MLB.com:

Here's why J.D. Martinez is a surprisingly good fit at Citi Field

 https://www.mlb.com/news/j-d-martinez-good-fit-for-mets-citi-field?partnerId=zh-20240130-1152966-MLB-1-A&qid=100000024&utm_id=zh-20240130-1152966-MLB-1-A&bt_ee=ipLeXeMAXxidmnusZSBZQ1q%2FXNRH%2FAi8i4leY9QUgyWMijtbtSvk06%2FVR2LW%2FGNj&bt_ts=1706639176124 

...about JD's wise choice (park-wise) being the Mets over the Giants.  Here are excerpts of his article with my Brennan comments in red:

JD was concerned that if he went to Oracle Park and ended up 2024 with a .260 average and 20 homers, he could be viewed as old and washed up, and find himself out of baseball. 

Mike wrote: He’s not wrong about San Francisco, which rates 24th for right-handed hitters in park factors from 2021-23, and third from the bottom if we’re just looking at 2023 alone.  The problem is, Citi Field is just as tough, if not tougher; over the last three seasons, Citi Field is tied with Seattle’s T-Mobile Park for the least friendly place for right-handers to hit.

BRENNAN COMMENT: 

That is what I have tried in my numerous columns to communicate.  At CitiField, you've moved in your fences a few times.  BUT IT STILL STATISTICALLY IS A HORRIBLE HITTERS' PARK.  SO, WHY WEREN'T THE FENCES MOVED IN ANOTHER 5-7 FEET TO MAKE IT HITTER-NEUTRAL, instead of bottom two? 

Mike continued: "Citi Field really isn’t a great hitters park, not for most right-handed batters. But Martinez, clearly, is not most right-handed batters – and going to Queens might just fit his particular style of hitting much better than it seemed on the surface.  Martinez hit 34 homers last year. If he played every game in Oracle Park, Statcast tracking suggests he would have only hit 24, his fewest of any park. (adjusted for the various effects of altitude, temperature and environment...(and) the different heights and distances of fences around baseball’s inconsistent ballparks....

If Martinez had played every game in Queens, he would have hit 39 homers, which would have been the fifth-most of any park for him. It’s like that almost every year, too. Martinez has six seasons since this kind of tracking became available...and every year, he’d have done better in New York than San Francisco.

• 2016 // 22 actual // 24 NY // 19 SF
• 2017 // 46 actual // 47 NY // 32 SF
• 2018 // 46 actual // 44 NY // 34 SF
• 2019 // 36 actual // 38 NY // 28 SF
• 2021 // 31 actual // 33 NY // 24 SF
• 2023 // 34 actual // 39 NY // 24 SF

Since 2016: His 238 total homers would have been 251 in New York, and just 187 in San Francisco (etc.). ...it’s easy to see how this works for Martinez, when you first compare the fences of Oracle Park to Citi Field, with the excess space in San Francisco marked in pink. Triples Alley is 415 feet away from home, with a wall 20 feet high. The same point in Citi Field is about 380 feet, with a wall 8 feet high.

BRENNAN COMMENT: 

Please remember that Oracle Park's 415 feet to right center is exactly the same as CitiField's original dimensions.  Left field was brutal, too, and King Kong would have found some of the original fences too high to scale. It is what destroyed a very similar hitter to Martinez, David Wright, when he got to play in the original Citifield (and then the slightly shortened first-move-in version) for multiple seasons.  And partly destroyed Jason Bay, too.

"Martinez isn’t “most” hitters.  Over the last five years, 49 right-handed hitters have launched a hard-hit ball 300-plus feet away at least 250 times, which is to say, the kind of batted ball that might become an extra-base hit, or even a home run...Nolan Arenado has hit the lowest rate of those balls to center or right field, just 40% of them. You’ll also be unsurprised to know that Martinez is just about near the top of the list of those who go that way the most often.

Highest center/oppo rate, right-handed hitters, 2019-23

• 84.8% // DJ LeMahieu
• 76.1% // J.D. Martinez
• 75.8% // Trey Mancini
• 75.8% // Nick Castellanos
• 75.7% // Tommy Pham
• 75.1% // Bo Bichette

Of hard-hit balls hit at least 300 feet, min. 250

"It’s no accident, either. It’s been this way for years. Way back in 2015, FanGraphs called Martinez a “Right-Handed Lefty Power Hitter,” noting his propensity for going the opposite way. In 2018, the Boston Globe pointed out that “there are other players who hit opposite-field homers ... but no one does it with the frequency, and on the types of pitches, that Martinez does.”"

BRENNAN COMMENT: 

Again, it sounds like Martinez is a slower clone of David Wright hitter-wise. It also shows that hitters, like Martinez, avoid clubs whose parks will damage their stats.  CitiField has damaged Pete Alonso - just look at his much better "away" numbers that home numbers. I will reiterate that if Pete had not been hit on the wrist last year in early June, which messed up 5 weeks, 

AND if he played in Philadelphia, he would have hit SIXTY HOMERS last year and be totally adored by fans and on his way to Cooperstown if all his seasons were in Philly.  Maybe his depressed CitiField stats will be an excuse for teams to offer Pete $50 million less than they would have otherwise in his long term deal to come.

Remember my ultimate home v. away stat...in crushingly cavernous Forbes Field in 1966, Donn Clendenon hit just 3 HRs in 1966. In normal parks elsewhere that year, he hit 25 HRs.

Still, Citi Field really isn’t a great place to hit. (And Martinez hasn’t hit great there, for the record, with a .196/.229/.348 career line, although no one should put much stock into 48 scattered plate appearances... 

BRENNAN COMMENT: 

My one caveat is CitiField seems to negatively impact most hitters based on something other than dimensions...mass psychosis?  I'm not a psychiatrist.  But some raise the point that visiting players hit well enough in CitiField. I reply that when you don't have to play 81 games there, you are not mentally impacted like Mets' players are.

"But for Martinez, declining to play in a poor hitter’s park to go to another poor hitter’s park makes a whole lot more sense than it seems. Most hitters can’t conquer Citi Field. Martinez isn’t most hitters. He’s been proving that for more than a decade now."

BRENNAN COMMENT: 

Mike Petriello shows in this last statement that I am not alone in my views. 

"Most hitters can't conquer CitiField."  That's a fact.

Perhaps JD will.  But that would have been more of a real certainty if the fences all around were 5-7 feet shorter.  And that applies to all current and future hitters.  

Steve Cohen really wants Juan Soto after this season? 

Well, Soto is having a ball right now, and he has not played his first home game in the lefty-loving Yankees bandbox yet - he may not want to leave to go to Queens unless the Citi fences are shortened.  Say, by, oh, I dunno, 5-7 feet.  If Soto won't come, what other top tier free agent hitter won't come either because they prefer a hitter-friendly or hitter-neutral park to play in?

YOUR THOUGHTS?

A FEW MORE THINGS:

Mets sign veteran righty Julio Teheran.  I guess that means Joey Lucchesi isn’t in the Mets’ plans…at least until they need him to go 4-0, 2.89 in 47 innings like he did in 2023. Teheran, meanwhile, is4-9 since the beginning of 2020. Good choice.

The Mets and Houston joined the NL at the same time, in April 1962. The Mets have had 2 no-hitters. Houston? 17, including one earlier this week by a 30 year old named Ronel. 105 pitches nailed it down, giving him his 3rd career win. 

One more…Clint Eastwood once walked up to someone and glared at him. Clint snarled, “Well, do you feel unlucky…punk? Well, do ya?” 

I replied, “yes, Mr. Eastwood, you see…I’m a Mets fan.”

He put his .357 Magnum in his holster and gave me a consoling hug. I broke down in sobs. I felt better, somehow lighter. 

Clint and I are still friends today, but only with one condition…I don’t talk with him about the Mets.  Ever.  I don’t feel THAT lucky.

JUST LIKE OUR GUYS?

Baltimore’s AAA team trailed 7-3 after 3 innings tonight. Hopeless, right? Nope.

They rallied and won by a mere 15 runs, 26-11. 

Their two super prospects, Holliday and Kjerstad, were 9 for 13 with 2 walks, and 12 RBIs and 9 runs scored. Another super prospect, Mayo, went 5 for 7. Just like a Mets farm team….for a week, maybe. Former 2023 Met Danny Mendick went the final 2 innings against the Junior Os, allowing 6 runs and 2 HRs.

Syracuse? Rained out for the second straight day, like their Queens counterparts.

METS-TIGERS DOUBLEHEADER TODAY! 

BRING YOUR KIDDIES! BRING YOUR WIFE! BRING YOUR PARKAS, SWEATERS TOO. 48 DEGREES: COLD IS SO GOOD FOR YOU.