Way back when I was a mere child Sergio Leone directed what was the creme de la creme of Italian made so-called spaghetti westerns entitled, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” In it Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef starred as a bounty hunter, a Mexican bandit and a fairly ruthless killer who would stop at nothing to ensure his job was done.
What does this reminiscence have to do with Mets baseball? Well, in their own way the Mets gave us their own Citifield version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The challenge for David Stearns and Steve Cohen is separating the wheat from the chaff and deciding how to capitalize on the good, minimize the bad and expunge the ugly. Let’s have a look.
I’m not going to wax poetic over people who are no longer on the team, but part of the good was the starting pitching. Part of where things got a little rickety was when that starting pitching did not dominate the opposition and it fed into the overworked bullpen sooner rather than later. To continue down this path the leadership needs to reinforce the extremely thin starting rotation as well as engaging in the seemingly annual bullpen rebuild. Kodai Senga will hopefully be healthy. David Peterson will hopefully repeat what he did this past year. After that it’s the sound of mostly crickets.
On the offensive side, you got a near MVP season out of Francisco Lindor. Brandon Nimmo stayed healthy and his power numbers were up a little but his batting average was way off. Mark Vientos practically put on a one-man-show and the hope is that he can repeat it. Who you promote from the minors that could possibly be a 2025 version is a great mystery, but the long injured Ronny Mauricio may be a candidate who can respond at the major league level with power, speed and hopefully better defense. This scenario becomes more real if they choose not to extend Pete Alonso an offer he deems worthy of his run production.
I will offer up three more names in this section — David Stearns, Carlos Mendoze and Jeremy Hefner.
Well, where do you start here? There is Jeff McNeil downhill in 2024 from where he descended in 2023. Hoping the late .270-hitting McNeil is more like the guy the club has come to know and love is a bit more of a hope than something you can pencil in as a certainty. Nowadays people talk less about his hitting than his positional versatility. When you consider the outfield is unsettled and there are a multitude of infield options in Mauricio, Luisangel Acuna and eventually Jett Williams, it may be time to sell a year too early than a year too late on the former All Star.
The same situation holds true with Starling Marte. He proved to be mostly healthy this year and his base running was as good as it ever was. Unfortunately his power was mostly gone and finishing the year with a batting average nearly 20 points off his career average makes you wonder if he was playing as an old 35. You may need to pay down his salary big time to get someone to swallow him for what would have been his final year with the Mets.
Tylor Megill always seems to end up on one of these lists. I’ll summarize it his way. He’s not as bad as he looks on his worst days but he’s also not as good as he appears when he’s manhandling the opposition. The end result for him was a tick over the 4.00 ERA mark for the season which is actually good for him given his career numbers and only slightly worse than Luis Severino’s ending ERA of 3.91. Hopefully he is the sixth starter and not in the top five.
Well, where do you begin? There’s Paul Blackburn and his injury, Dedniel Nunez and his injury, Christian Scott and his injury, Sean Reid-Foley and his injury and nearly everyone in the bullpen other than Edwin Diaz, Jose Butto and perhaps Reed Garrett.
Then there are some long gone ineffective hitters as well as some who might have looked good to see again. There are more holes in the roster than Swiss cheese but shoehorning in out-of-place hitters that can’t field or fielders than can’t hit is not the way to go. There’s a lot of ugly to be pushed out the door if it hasn’t already volunteered for free agency.
The worst part of this section was the April, May, June start to the season, but if anyone told you around high school and college graduation days that the Mets would play for the NLCS people would have outfitted you with a well protected straight jacket.
3 comments:
Nice to Havea season where there was more good than ugly.The road had many potholes, but Stearn’s Metsmobile was agile, with a shock-absorbing suspension.
The good news is that through it all we made it to the NLCS and we have Cohen and Sterns on the same page so what more could we ask for? I know a WS trophy but hopefully soon.
Here is a comment that I posted to another article yesterday that is equally applicable to this one, on the subject of increasing batting average and reducing strikeouts:
A site named Elite Diamond Performance essentially agreed with what I am saying. These are excerpts. Check out the site for more info:
One of the most important questions we use to help hitters is "what is the most common way that you get out?" Mostly, hitters get out hitting roll over ground balls or weak flyballs. However, there are times when hitters will say that strikeouts comprise most of their outs. .
Approach: The first question I ask a hitter who is striking out is: "What is your approach in the box?" It is amazing how often a hitter's approach can be the main contributing factor to an increased strikeout rate. While there can be an infinite number of things that a hitter thinks at the plate, the main reason that hitters struggle approach wise is often a lack of aggressiveness.
Lacking Aggressiveness: Whether a hitter is keeping the bat on their shoulder, or they are chasing pitches out of the zone (seems backwards but I will explain), lacking aggressiveness is often the main cause. Within lacking aggressiveness there are 3 main issues that contribute: Actively taking pitches, not having a plan or being overly passive in your thoughts.
Actively Taking: Many times hitters struggle with strikeouts they will take the first pitch or take until they have a strike. Often, hitters feel like they need to see a pitch to feel comfortable in the box or take a pitch to get a sense of how hard a pitcher throws. The problem is that this can lead to falling behind in counts. While a hitter should never be afraid to fall behind in a count, when hitters do fall behind, the success rate falls heavily into the pitcher's favor.
How to fix approach
Don't take pitches. Unless a coach gives you a take sign (which drives me crazy), a hitter should never be actively taking a pitch. After all, when you step in the box you are called a hitter!
Foot on the gas not the break. Expect a pitch and expect to do damage. Good hitters get in the box expecting the pitcher to throw the pitch they are looking for and expect to swing.
Keep thoughts positive and aggressive. This goes mostly for coaches and parents. It is hard for a player to hear negative and defensive things before stepping in the box and stay aggressive.
Post a Comment