Tom Brennan: Mets’ Never Quite Overcoming Injury Saga and Other Woes; Field Dimensions

I’m Thinking This Saga Has Played Out Before in Metsville

 We all know the saga - Mets fans get a version of this nearly every season.

We get into spring training, all excited, and immediately a key pitcher, the ace, in point of fact, gets hurt. 

Two guys (a pitcher and hitter) have already had unexpected early off season injuries that will eat up anywhere from a half to all of their 2024 seasons.  Off to another of those foreboding season starts, I see.

We hope it won’t be too long into the season when the key player recovers and returns. 

Except the key player will eventually return much later than initially thought, which is pretty predictable, and the season is in severe jeopardy by the time he is expected to finally return.

A week before the season starts, you sign the coveted veteran slugger, yeah, THAT ONE, who is showered with accolades. You hope he will be ready on opening day. 

Instead, he gets sore and misses the first 4 weeks. The team was 13-11 when they activate him, and they naturally go 6-11 in his first 17 games with the club.

A starter stepping in for the key injured hurler gets immediately hurt. At first it sounds almost day to day. He then naturally misses 6 weeks.

A key reliever starts brilliantly, and you think, I wondered if he would regress if they re-signed him, but my fears are completely allayed - until naturally he hurts his arm a little later in the first month of the season - at first, you think”I hope it’s just a few games”, but naturally he will miss the whole season. 

This increases the need for a high minors lefty, but the one most likely one to be tabbed, who pitched really well in the minors in 2023, suddenly needs TJS. Naturally.

The exciting young catcher you hoped would help the offense is safe on an idiotic throw to first base by the pitcher.You smile. It seems theMets got a break. No, they got a tear instead.

The catcher, you see, turns first base, slips and injures his hand, and he misses two months. His replacements? There are probably 50 minor league catchers in the minors in other organizations that could play better. 

Before spring training, you figured that by mid May, you’d be starting to think it might be nice to consider when to call up your top 2 hitting prospects. Man, were you excited about that duo last year. 

However, due to injuries and slow starts, they have played briefly but poorly, and missed most of the season’s games and still are not due to resume playing for a few weeks. Hopefully in early June, but who can ever really be sure.

Your # 3 and # 4 hitters are paid a combined $55 million, and you hope they will shoulder the Mets and carry them when others perhaps start slowly. You especially think that way because your clean up hitter will be a free agent after the season, so you expect he’ll be super motivated and produce like a monster. 

But they themselves need someone to bail them out - they are hitting just a combined .215 a quarter of the way into the season. You realize you are not surprised, even though logic tells you that you should be.

The best reliever in the entire world in 2022 is the only player to sustain a truly serious injury during the March 2023 WBC tournament. Of course, it was a bizarre injury. He returns fully recovered, but seemingly less lethal, than in 2022.

You sign the 2022 MLB batting champ to a 5 year, $50 million extension. Figure you got yourself a bargain.  In his next 196 games, though, he hits .262 with just 89 runs scored and 62 RBIs. It was a bargain, all right - for him.

The two most seasoned veteran starters naturally don’t get hurt and healthy, they combine to go 1-7, 6.30 in the season’s first quarter. One of these two cornerstone starters has been credited with just 10 wins in 31 decisions since Labor Day 2019. You know, pre-COVID. Yeah, that far back.

Your 3rd baseman starts out like his poor performance in 2023 was just a rookie adjustment period. By mid-May, he is, naturally, hitting the same Ashe was in mid-May in 2023.

You call up a phenom who has 2 terrific starts in his MLB debut. Naturally, he is 0-1 after those two starts. He’s a Met.

Lastly, just to make you feel the team really isn’t snake bit, a marginal pen pitcher turns out to have perhaps the best early 2024 of any reliever in the majors. Your optimistic friend says, “You see, you’re making too much of things, Tom, this is a sign everything from here on out in 2024 will go incredibly well. Ya Gotta Believe, Tommy Boy.”

Maybe this time, they’ll finally be right. 

After all, in 1969 the Mets had won one fewer game over their first 41 games, AND LOOK WHAT THEY DID!!

I wonder what next year’s saga will be?  Being who I am, I like to think ahead. At this point, I turn my head and say “Honey, is that the Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again on the radio? Could you turn that up, please?”

JOEY WAS OK FOR A WHILE, VIENTOS DID FINE

But when the Mets score 5 these days, they give up 10. Joey allowed 1 run over the first 4, but had a rough 5th on a crappy weather day (do the Mets have any other kind?) 

Vientos doubled, singled, drove in a run, and important for his critics to note, did not make an error, although he was late covering the bag in the 5th.  Gotta get there.

The spiral is now 7-15 in their last 22. When will it end?  Will it end?

LET ME GLOAT ABOUT THAT FELLA SPROAT:

5 scoreless and 6 Ks in his AA debut. I see no reason he shouldn’t pitch for the Mets later this year. I don’t care if it is his first pro year.

Morabito, meanwhile, was .399 in St Lucie, now .391 in Brooklyn. Queens in September? Think outside the box, people.

Simon Juan is the real Simon Juan this year. Two doubles and his 2nd HR today in the FCL. BREAKING OUT. .419!

Jonah Tong is battling the control a bit, facing better hitters in the SAL.  But his season's ERA is still 0.86 and 51 Ks in 31 IP this year?  Terrific.

To Gary Seagren And Bill Metsiac (my underline for emphasis):

Fence depths apparently do matter.  A guy named Carl Maier, whom I do not know, posted on Facebook this excerpt of an interview he had with Hank Aaron 50+ years ago. He said he "attended a Pirates-Braves game at Forbes Field as an 18 year old Career Academy of Broadcasting student":

Carl: 

Hank, you said that you’re going to hit 714. What kind of seasons do you think you’ll have to do that?

Hank: 

"Well, I don’t think I ever said I was going to hit 714. I have a chance to do that if I have two fairly good seasons. I said that it is in my reach if I had a good season...

...and the reason I said this is because of the ballpark I’m hitting in...

If I was hitting in a ballpark like San Francisco, LA and some of the larger ballparks, I said that the chance of me perhaps getting close to Babe Ruth’s record would be nil,…

but right now if I can have two fairly good seasons, I have an excellent chance of getting there."

By the way, Hank hit 38 in 1970, followed up by a career high 47 in 1971, while playing in just 139 games.

YA SEE...DIMENSIONS DO MATTER!

THEY MATTERED TO HANK AARON!