“Those guys are SO overpaid!”
“How could he not come through there, again? He’s paid SO much!”
Sometimes, though, you get more than just high salaries.
You get RESULTS.
INTERESTING 2025 STATS AND THOUGHTS
Highly paid Mets hitters were PUT TO WORK in 2025.
The entire Mets team in 2025 had 6,178 plate appearances.
Four Mets (Lindor, Pete, Soto, Nimmo) had an astonishing 2,808 of them.
That is 45.5% of all Mets plate appearances, all from those 4 guys.
405 runs, 417 RBIs and 137 HRs from those 4.
Average 34 HRs, 101 runs, and 104 RBIs for each.
How many years in Mets team history did the Mets not have a single guy get close to 34 HRs, 101 runs scored, or 104 RBIs? PLENTY.
Frank Thomas cracked 34 HRs in 1962, but it took 13 more seasons for Kingman to rocket 37 in 1975.
The Mets waited until 1975 to get over 100 RBIs, Rusty drove in 105, and it took until 1986 for a Met (Gary Carter) to reach 105 again.
Tommy Agee was the first Met to crack 100 runs scored in 1970, with 107. The next guy to reach as high as 101 runs was Darryl Strawberry in 1988.
Those 4 hitters AVERAGED those lofty numbers.
They were well paid, but punched the clock viciously, donned their hard hats, work boots, and welding gloves, and went to work.
And produced.
It wasn’t those 4 producers that crashed 2025.
The pitching was what killed the Mets. Think these “killer” names:
Montas, Manaea, Megill, Peterson, Canning, Senga, and some relievers having elbows detonate.
Assassins who killed a season.
IF the team’s pitching over the last 90+ games was as good as that of the first 70 games? With THESE FOUR hitters? 100 wins, no doubt.
Case closed.
SEMIEN POINT FROM MICHAEL BARON POST:
“Marcus Semien spoke about simplifying his approach and not tinkering as much starting on May 30. He then went 4-for-4 that day and went on to hit .270/.338/.464 with 15 doubles, 12 home runs and 44 RBI over his final 71 games.”
- Hopeful info as we gaze towards 2026.
GEORGE ALTMAN PASSES AWAY AT AGE 92
Altman played nine seasons in the major leagues with the Chicago Cubs (1959-62, 1965-67), St. Louis Cardinals (1963) and one with the New York Mets (1964). He hit .230 that one Mets season.
RIP, George.
He played NPB ball overseas before reaching the bigs, and also several years in Japan. At all levels, he played 19 years, got up 8,529 times, hit 359 HRs, and drove in 1,298, while hitting .289.
At age 28 in 1961 with the Cubs, he hit .303 in 137 games, with 67 XBHs and 96 RBIs. The following year, in 1962, he hit .318 in 147 games. In today’s baseball, if he turned free agent with those big back to back season numbers, he'd probably have gotten a very big contract for a very long time, courtesy of Scott Boras.
MAY 100% OF OUR READERS HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING.
May you all swing hot drumsticks and mash the bejeebers out of some potatoes.
Above all, give thanks.
23 comments:
The Mers "core" was nice last season but we're doomed with shoddy D and poor starters
The D is being addressed starting with Semien
The rotation will soon have a new SP1
And the only Mets core that will be left is in the apple of Cohen's Thanksgiving fruit bowl
Gobble gobble
*Mets
That is a core truth. Happy Thanksgiving, gents.
I remember very little of George Altman as a Met, but I do recall good memories of him.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and Thankful for the writers that keep the start of our day interesting.
Simien is a comedian, huh? So at age 35, he remade his approach? Ok. Hope he can be simply productive for three more years!
Sucks that Cease signed with Toronto. He had the best stuff on the market as far as I’m concerned.
A prospect list loaded with information:
https://www.justbaseball.com/prospects/new-york-mets-top-15-prospects/
The Cease sign does two things
1. Strengthen the desire for a future Senga trade
2. End the 2026 season before it started. WS: game one: LAD at TOR
That was a remarkable stat about the core four. It was quite an eye opener - the season could have been memorable if the pitching had pulled its weight.
The pitching excelled until that errant toss from Pete to Senga 69 games in. The last 93 were an epic, injury-filled, pitching collapse.
Gus, that top 15 (plus 5 more) was very interesting. Happy Turkey.
Thank you Tom, Happy Thanksgiving… it was you that I was thinking of when I saw it. LOL, I immediately looked to see where they had Morabito. Here’s the rub: if a player puts in muscle to hit for more power, they become slower. If he doesn’t hit for more power, he’s a fourth outfielder.
I loved the good news on Clifford and was really surprised at Ewing’s, Wenniger’s and Sproat’s rankings.
Bad throws happen during games. Players are supposed to be sufficiently stretched out, but the meltdown by Peteraon, Manaea, and the bullpen additions had nothing to do with anything Senga related.
Happy Turkey Day all
Gus,
The Just baseball top 15 looked great. Thanks for sharing that site with us. I read several Mets articles from there that were equally informative.
@TexasGus..., Adding muscle is neither the only nor the most efficient way to increase either power or acceleration. And, as you, note, it can be counterproductive in a number of ways. The best way to increase power is through SSC (Short stretch cycle) training that works on the tendons and not the muscles. Common example among knowledgeable bio mechanists is 'standing jump'. You can increase your leg muscles as much as you want but it won't help you jump higher, The most efficient jumpers increase tendon stretch which increases capacity of lower body to handle upper body weight more easily thus increasing capacity to 'lift' higher and faster. It's a truth that applies in absolutely every sport and for virtually all athletic motions.
One thing that I find ironic is the changing view about hitting instructors. The common view until recently was that the only thing they can be useful for is helping hitters develop a plan for their at bats. And to be honest, some of the most ridiculous ideas that hitting instructors came up with secured totally unwarranted traction, e.g letting go of the lead arm upon making contact with the ball, which became a rage and the developer of it securing the title of 'guru'. Don't see much of that anymore -- at least not intentionally. The fact is that the job has never been more important or difficult. I say difficult because there is so much data that can be collected that has a bearing on performance. The problem of the data is not the familiar one of distinguishing noise from general information. The problem is two fold. Data requires an interpretation to be helpful; and any plausible interpretation must also be adjusted to the particulars of each hitter. My fear (well founded from the analogous history of data collection about the golf swing) is that in the early stages of its use the data will be used incorrectly because it won't be nested in a general understanding of the biomechanics (which is itself an area of science that is not reducible to one correct understanding of it), and even with a proper understanding of the data in its relationship to biomechanics, it has to be adjusted to each particular person. And that is really only the beginning. Because the data by itself even embedded in a plausible biomechanical theory is too conceptual to be useful. It will just fill everyone's head with too many thoughts to be impelemented successfully. All of this needs ultimately to be translated into a methodology for skills learning. Now I happen to favor a certain kind of learning approach called CLA that I can discuss at another time if people are interested. And of course different people learn in different ways, so a good coach will have to know different approaches and have an arsenal of drills that can reach players who likely learn differently. IMHO, the hitting coach and coaching philosophy is more important now than it ever has been; and it is also my view (and I believe one likely to be implemented by Mets' leadership) that this kind of instruction should begin right when someone enters the farm system and carried on throughout the system, reinforced at each level, etc. And I strongly believe that at the Major league level, the historical view, e.g. that the player is ready to succeed at this level, is mistaken. Learning not only continues at the major league level, it accelerates; and it can because the player should be most prepared by that point to accelerate his progress because he has developed the requisite skills to a level of understanding that has set the highest floor of performance and a grasp of the overall approach. Now the fact is that this, in principle, will be true of the pitchers he faces as well, and so it will always be a battle that one should not expect the hitter to win more often than he loses. In equilibrium, great pitching will beat great hitting more than 2/3 of the time. But we aren't anywhere near an equilibrium yet, and the Mets can gain an edge for some period of time both at the plate, and with proper coaching, on the mound.
I've been a Mets fan since the Dodgers left Brooklyn, so I have no choice but to remain optimistic.
Last point: I think the main point that RVH makes consistently grows out of his area of expertise and it is one I fully agree with: in effect, it is this, all the data, all the new knowledge, will count for very little if the overall system (in this case, the baseball organization) is not well organized and efficiently run, which is to say that it identifies appropriate goals, creates executable plans and efficiently executes them. And it is here, at this organizational level that I think the Mets have a genuine comparative advantage at this moment in their history. And they could not have gotten to this point without first flushing out the vestiges of previous regimes. They are only now approaching a position of a genuinely new beginning.
Jules, very good points.
Remember when right after the World Series I wrote a comment about the Blue Jays giving their manager an extension the day after he lost the World Series, and how odd that was. But more odd was that the manager didn’t want his base runners taking a lead off the bases even though they could? I felt that seemed as if there was a higher purpose than winning the World Series and today is he shoe drops. In The Athletic:
“ “Of course it’s a concern,” Steinbrenner said. “The (Dodgers) have tremendous resources, and they’ve gotten the job done. That’s the big thing. They’ve played to their potential when they needed to. They have overcome a lot of injuries this year. Again, they got healthy at the right time. I don’t know what next year is going to bring. But of course it’s always a concern any time I feel that one team is pulling away from the other 29, (or) selfishly, pulling away from me.”
I may add that Steinbrenner doesn’t mention that the Dodgers would have lost if the Blue Jays or their closer just did what they should.
I meant 'letting go with trail hand' not lead hand. I was unfair to Charlie Lau who advocated this since he actually advocated a number of ideas that made great sense, if not always in exactly the way he phrased them. Re: some of these he was way ahead of his time: e.g lead big toe turned in upon shifting to front side; (notice Soto has this). What he really should have said (is that in loading on the trail side and then swinging after shifting pressure into the lead side) you actually want some degree of internal rotation of the respective leg driving it into the ground because that rotation into the ground does two things: in the loading stage it insures that you are loading into your leg, not on it or around it; and secondly internally rotating into the ground creates a force that drives rotation and this latter point applies to both loading and then swinging. And in swinging it creates the right kind of rotation, not just simply opening up or what ends up looking like, pulling off the ball. on the way back you load into the trail leg which involves a movement that may seem like resistance, but it is in fact an internal rotation into the ground that creates what is misleadingly referred to an 'equal and opposite' reaction (in fact in modern physics this is just one event happening at the same time -- the former does not cause or create the latter) that creates what we identify as trail pelvic or hip joint rotation; and the same happens in the forward part of the swing; you hit into the lead leg that is internally rotating into the ground which gives the sensation of the leg resisting the forward action (Lau referred to this as hitting into a strong front leg and loading into a strong trail leg). And Lau also advocating keeping the hands back as the hitter shifted pressure forward to start the forward swing. This shows he was onto the idea of sequencing: lateral first, rotation or torque second, and extension of the front side last: or pelvis first, then chest, then shoulders, arms, hands, bat (all recruiting and then transferring energy from the ground up). So I was definitely unfair to him in my comments; he really was a guru, even if the thing he is most associated with -- letting go of the trail arm -- is foolish.
Brings to mind Syndergaard’s 2016 winter where he gained a lot of muscle but didn’t throw and so when he finally did start throwing full bore, he tore a lat muscle early on and was out for the year.
Jules, thank you for the breakdown of what goes into a swing but when you combine the difficulty of recognizing a pitch, the location and add to it thw swing mechanics, I believe the minors at least would be overwhelming. Maybe it would be better to recognize pitches first?
Gus, it was often brought up with Syndergaard, “might his training leads injury?” The answer was yes, and the duration was a doozy.
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