Paul Articulates – The greatest hits aren’t playing here

The Mets’ organization has put a great deal of investment into player development personnel and technology in the last few seasons to try to build a winning program.  As the Mets try to pull out of their May swoon, I wondered to myself, “Is it paying off?”  I am a patient person and am willing to live with the current team’s inability to find wins as long as there is a light at the end of this very dark tunnel.

So I checked in on the statistical performance of the system from the low minors to the majors to find that ray of hope.  It continues to elude me.

As of last night, the NY Mets stood at 22-30 in fourth place in the NL East a full 15 games behind the division leading Phillies.  Gary Cohen pointed out yesterday that this was the farthest back a Mets team has been on May 26th since the 1993 team that finished with 103 losses.  

The team has a .236 batting average through their first 52 games, and they only have three players batting over .275 – Mark Vientos, Harrison Bader, and JD Martinez.  I consider anything below that to be mediocre, and there are some pretty high profile players below that team average.  

Maybe old habits die hard, so let’s look to the development system:

The Syracuse Mets are batting .251, with only two (Ben Gamel and Jose Iglesias) hitting over .275.  Both of them are guys with MLB experience, so one would hope they could handle AAA pitching.

The Binghamton Rumble Ponies are batting .237, with only one – Wyatt Young, batting over .275.  We all knew Wyatt could hit.

The Brooklyn Cyclones are batting .207, also with only one – Joe Lorusso, batting over .275.

The St. Lucie Mets are batting .230, also with only one – 3B Jesus Baez, batting over .275.

I don’t see anything yet that resembles results.  I would be OK with a low team batting average for a minor league club if it was being pulled down by guys that just weren’t going to make it any further, but to have so few players distinguishing themselves with an average better than .275 in the minors says that the experiment is not working.

Maybe batting average is a little old school in these days of three true outcomes.  Maybe I should look at OPS.

Syracuse: .791 OPS

Binghamton: .706 OPS

Brooklyn:  .643 OPS

St. Lucie: .661 OPS

Nothing there to write about.  Syracuse seems to be a notch ahead of the rest, but besides Gamel and Iglesias, only Trayce Thomson, Luke Ritter, and Rhylan Bannon have OPS over .800.  

Maybe I am grasping at straws here, but I want to justify the struggles at the major league level by convincing myself there is something coming soon that will make it all worthwhile.  But even if there is some breakthrough pitching coming up, runs need to be scored to win ballgames.  Where are those runs going to come from?  

The Mets’ core is not performing, even with Francisco Lindor’s new glasses (remember I said two years ago that it looked like he needed glasses?), or Omar Narvaez’ first hit in Citi Field.

Hitters don’t just come from free agency.  Some have to be developed from within.  I am urgently looking for signs of life from the batter’s boxes in Syracuse, Binghamton, or Brooklyn.  There are flashes of success like JT Schwartz going 4-4 yesterday, but there is a lack of exciting season-long performances in the minors that screams, “call him up” since Mark Vientos.

It is time to take a long, inward look at how hitting development is being done in this franchise.  Success in the major leagues is not going to come without it.