MACK - My Wednesday Observations. - Minor League Coaches, Sept. Schedule, Jonah Tong, WAR, Umps

 

Morning Thoughts 

Question…

Who had the WORST OPS in baseball, in August?

Answer at the end of this…

Manny Gomez (@MannyGo3) wrote this past Sunday, just after the latest blow-up by Kodai Senga on the mound, about his stats this season BEFORE his hammy injury versus the stats AFTER it:

          Kodai Senga pre- and post-hamstring injury:

          Pre: 13 GS, 12 ER, 73 2/3 (1.47 ERA), 70 K, 4 HR

          Post: 9 GS, 26 ER, 39 2/3 (5.90 ERA), 39 K, 8 HR

The first question that came to my feeble brain is why hasn't anyone in the Mets organization figured out there might be a problem here?

And what did Senga have to say after this last poor outing:

          "There are some parts of my body that aren't moving the way I want it to.   At the same time, I'm out there and I'm competing. It's a fine line and it's tough for me, because I'm out there but I'm not able to perform."

You got to be shittin’ me. Even he knows he should be shut down.

What you definitely have is a pattern that needs to be addressed.

Why not place him on the long-term IL and call up someone like Brandon Sproat? 

You can then put Sproat on the 40-man. 

Easy peasy.

This ain't rocket science. Nor should you try to come up with new definitions of insanity. Sean Manaea joins Senga as two failed starters this season and I just don't understand why both of these remain in the rotation.

David Peterson is another fish to fry, but, for sure, Sproat and Tylor Megill should replace them before they start again.

Senga has an option left. Manaea can become a long man. That again, give him one inning for the rest of the season.

Also, you can't keep asking a team to score double figures every game. That just isn't fair.

David… Steven… you’re running out of time here…

 

Answer:

Pete Crow-

Armstrong 

0.452-OPS

Ernest Dove         @ernestdove

Random important note on Mets farm system

Not enough credit being given to the minor league coaching staff, hitting & pitching coaches when discussing the success of Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong & overall the new #1 ranked farm system.

The amount of work pitchers have put in while MANY of them have altered grips/pitches/arsenals as well as the Mets minor league bats altering swing/approach with guidance & never ending in-season tweaks at the watchful eyes of staff are having an impact.

Mack – this is so true. I remember the influence Frank Viola had on a young pitcher that arrived at Savannah with little fanfare. He molded the brash, long haired kid into the pitcher he is today… Jake deGrom.

  

Toughest road in September –

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6587549/2025/09/01/mlb-contenders-postseason-strength-schedule/

New York Mets

Record: 73-64

Playoff odds: 93.1 percent

Strength of schedule: .499

Early September schedule

Tigers       Sept. 1-3      3x      Road      .577

Reds         Sept. 5-7      3x      Road      .500

Phillies     Sept. 8-11    4x      Road      .581

Rangers    Sept. 12-14  3x     Home     .511

Key series: Sept. 5-7 at Reds

The Mets appeared to have found their footing last week, sweeping the Phillies. But losing three of four to the Marlins over the weekend was an awful way to set up for this next stretch — a 10-game trip to Detroit, Cincinnati and Philadelphia. 

The Mets currently hold a four-game lead over the Reds for the third NL wild-card spot. The Reds won their only other meeting this season, taking two of three in July. The Mets hope to handle business this time, then round out the road swing with another strong showing against the Phillies. 

 

Payton Tolle or Jonah Tong: Which top prospect had the more impressive MLB debut?

https://fansided.com/mlb/peyton-tolle-or-jonah-tong-which-top-prospect-had-the-more-impressive-mlb-debut

Jonah Tong was lights-out against the Marlins

Tong was plenty dominant, although he went about it differently than Tolle. The righty, whose Vulcan changeup has already made him a TikTok legend, basically uses the exact same extreme overhand windup and release as former Giants superstar Tim Lincecum.

Whereas Tolle has a power element to his game, Tong pitches to contact. He will pick up his share of strikeouts, but Miami put 17 balls in play on 97 pitches — a 17 percent rate. Tong generated half as many whiffs on more pitches than Tolle. He was in the strike zone less often. Both pitchers were nearly identical in terms of average exit velocity (86.3 MPH for Tong, compared to 85.4 MPH for Tolle), although Tolle never allowed a single hit above 100 MPH on the exit velo radar gun. Tong's max for the evening was a 111.1 MPH missile.

Tong did not stretch into the sixth inning. He gave up twice as many hits as Tolle, but also avoided walks and did not compound errors. If we want to nitpick, he gave up one run in five innings, whereas Tolle didn't get got until the sixth frame. Even so, Tong's ability to pitch out of jams and mitigate damage was extremely impressive.

It's only one game — and again, we can't say much definitively based on a single game — but Tong feels like an important part of the Mets' pitching staff moving forward. Whether he's starting in the postseason or picking up high-leverage bullpen spots in October, only time will tell.

Thomas Nestico          @TJStats

I have no issues weighing WAR heavily when deciding who to vote for awards. After all, WAR tries to capture the value of a player from their ACTUAL results. I don’t solely use WAR because I do believe context is important (like WPA and RE24)

WAR, in all forms, captures and estimates the value of a player better than any person could. It is consistent, unbiased, and systematic

Echoing Tom Tango (@tangotiger): “WAR: it may not be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. It just needs to be better than the next best thing. Which is?

Tom Tango                          @tangotiger

There are MANY ways to calculate WAR, not just one. If you say "WAR says this" then you don’t understand WAR enough to criticize it (but enough to be on cable news)

WAR simply forces a systematic, unbiased, consistent approach

 

Are MLB umpires getting worse?

https://www.theblaze.com/fearless/mlb-umpires-worse-or-better

Using numbers from a recent Umpire Scorecards post, overall accuracy for umpires in 2025 is 93%. While this may seem low, it's a combination of called-ball accuracy averages (97%) and called-strike accuracy averages (88%).

Scoring the average accuracy rating of an umpire throughout the course of the season and weighing that against what is expected of them, we see that fewer umpires are dipping below the expected performance levels year over year.

In 2022, 35 umpires had an average accuracy rating below what was expected of them. In 2023, that number was 27, and in 2024, it was 21. In 2025, that number dropped to just 16.

Looking back through these years, not only are poor averages less abundant, but the MLB even seems to be getting less lenient about giving inaccurate umpires the go-ahead to call games.

CLICK ON LINK FOR THE REST OF THE STORY