THE METS PICKED THEMSELVES UP A #63 IN FREDDY P
Queens Side Story theme song about its fans:
“When you’re a Met, you’re a Met all the way,
from your first Bo Bichette to your last Alzolay.”
Mets fans are extremely loyal, and extremely loyal people can tend to overrate their players. But, sometimes, they can underrate them.
An MLB.com article by Jeffry Lutz spells out more objectively(?) which players on each team are in the MLB Top 100.
Here’s what he wrote about the players on your favorite team, the Mets:
Mets (4):
Juan Soto (6), Francisco Lindor (11), Bo Bichette (48), Freddy Peralta (63)
New York added a fourth member to this list on Wednesday night after acquiring righty Freddy Peralta from the Brewers. Peralta gives the Mets a steady presence at the top of the rotation, leading the NL with 17 wins in 2025 and accumulating 10 bWAR over the past three seasons
The Mets lost two of last year’s top 100 after trading Brandon Nimmo to the Rangers and losing slugger Pete Alonso to the Orioles in free agency. But they picked one up in Bichette, who will help make up for the loss of Alonso and be part of a revamped infield along with Lindor and fellow offseason pickups Marcus Semien (acquired for Nimmo) and free agent Jorge Polanco.
Regardless of Alonso’s middle-of-the-order presence, once Soto arrived in free agency last offseason, the Mets’ offense began, and will continue, to revolve around him. A slow start in 2025 kept the spotlight away from Soto for a while, but when you looked up in say, June, he was still having a typical Juan Soto season. It ended with an MLB-best 127 walks as Soto led the NL with a .396 on-base percentage. He also, somehow, had an NL-tying 38 stolen bases despite never before stealing more than 12. Oh, and there were the career-high 43 homers.
So, there you have it.
Who is Juan Soto behind?
Ohtani is #1, Judge is #2, Bobby Witt is #3, Raleigh is #4.
Makes sense. So far, so good.
Jose Ramirez is #5? Ahead of Soto?
That’s a no-no. Soto is better.
If I could only pick one of the two, I’d pick the guy whose name rhymes with photo.
Other players of interest in the top 100?
Alonso (33), Crow (40), deGrom (50), and Edwin (83).
No, Nimmo is not in the top 100 any longer.
His favorite disco song, though, remains DO THE HUSTLE.
Who is barking at Soto’s heels?
Paul Skenes at #7. Loud barks.
Aggressive A’s slugger Brent Rooker is #91. His more tentative MLB counterpart, Mark Vientos, is nowhere near the top 100.
Hmmm…
Lastly:
The Dodgers have EIGHT players in the top 100. SIX in the top 50.
OK, you can SHUDDER now. I just did.
“JOHNNY CARSON” BENGE
BENGE READY??
“How could Johnny Carson Benge be ready when he only hit .178 and 103 plate appearances in AAA?”
“C’mon!!! He ain’t ready!”
That seems to be a reasonable question, and perhaps a reasonable conclusion….until one takes a deeper dive.
In his first 15 AAA plate appearances, Carson got on base six times. That’s a .400 OBP.
In the last of those games, he got hit by a pitch and was out from August 16 through August 27. He had a hit in each of his first two games back. But something was wrong.
Including those first two games back, he went on a five for 29 swoon.
Then it got worse he followed that five for 29 with an 0 for 24 plunge. WATCH OUT BELOW!
Carson and then write the ship by getting on base eight out of his last 25 times over the last 6 games to conclude the season.
I therefore firmly believe that that hit by pitch was nasty and that he didn’t recover from it to 100% for a while.
Another guy that happened to was double-quarter-pounder-with-cheese Pete Alonso back in 2023.
Pete got badly nailed by a boring-in mighty fast fastball in the wrist/hand area. The cognoscenti thought he’d be out 3-4 weeks. He shocked everyone as he missed just 11 days, rushing back if for no other reason than Pete viscerally hates sitting on the bench EVER. He should not have been so RUSSIAN, as it turned out.
Like Carson, he badly spiraled post-return, going 12 for 88 in his next bunch of games.
So, I am only focusing on the last 6 Benge AAA games. Those healthy games tell me he is further along that his AAA slash line in August and September would indicate.
Remember, stats need to be drilled down on to get a clear picture.
.
The young hitters were not at all impressive yesterday. Two hits. But it was only day one.
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteI am with you on Benge. I see him having a good spring and making the team and starting in RF.
DJ, I hope so, but Tauchman is no slouch. He could reasonably delay Benge by a few months, unless Benge seizes the ring. Pete Alonso in 2019 did that. So many thought he’d be sent down for a month to delay his service time by a year. He blasted his way thru spring training and was there for the entire season.
DeleteOne interesting game point yesterday. With 2 outs in the 9th, batter Kevin Parada challenged strike two. The ball hit barely in the strike zone, so the strike call was not changed.
ReplyDeleteThe announcers were noting that there was one challenge left, and that at the end of a game, you would expect them to always use a challenge on a called third strike.
Pronto, Kevin took a low and away breaking pitch for strike three. It looked borderline at best. And he did NOT challenge it. That was a real puzzler. Anyone see that and have thoughts on it?
The kid took a chance and blew it, then the umpire gambled that he wouldn’t challenge again, plus ‘who the heck is this scrub in the first game of the year challenging me?’, so he rung him up.
DeleteI agree with Tom that Benge might not be ready on day 1 of the 2026 season. However, he has proven the ability to master each level of the minors quickly, and once he figures it out he will be a force. If he breaks camp with the big league club, Mendoza will have to ensure that he does not feel great pressure to star on day one.
ReplyDeleteEwing got some positive feedback after yesterday’s game, good to see.
ReplyDeleteEveryone looks at Alonso and says, “how stupid to not sign him”. But, Alonso wanted five years, not one year. Think he will be top 100 next year at this time? In two years? Unfortunately, that’s the reality: he won’t be.
ReplyDeleteCrow at 40 is hysterical. The guy hit .188 against lefties and totally ranked in the second half. A nice player, maybe platooned but I see a bit of over hyped here with the bat. The glove is probably real, then put Luis Robert Jr. on the same level.
ReplyDeleteWhere has Mack been all week? No comments all week and preplanned posts.
ReplyDeleteTom, join Substack and follow this guy called The Baseball Nerd. He is good. From today:
ReplyDelete“ On December 10, 1971, the New York Mets traded a pitcher they had given up on to a California team that saw something they didn’t. The pitcher’s name was Nolan Ryan. He was 24 years old. He had told his wife Ruth that if the Mets didn’t trade him before spring training, he was going to quit baseball entirely.
The Mets took him at his word.
What happened next is one of the most one-sided transactions in the history of American professional sports. Not because the Mets made a stupid decision in December 1971. They didn’t. Because they had failed Ryan so completely in the five years before it that they couldn’t see what they already had…
… The Angels, meanwhile, had a player the Mets wanted. Jim Fregosi was 29 years old, a six-time All-Star shortstop who had averaged 157 games per season from 1963 to 1970. He had averaged 13 home runs and 61 RBIs per year over that stretch while hitting .271. He was everything the Mets needed at third base. Manager Gil Hodges had already decided Ryan was the price worth paying. ‘You always hate to give up on an arm like Ryan’s,’ Hodges said after the trade. ‘He could put things together overnight, but he hasn’t done it for us and the Angels wanted him. I would not hesitate making a trade for somebody who might help us right now, and Fregosi is such a guy.’
A Hell of a Prospect Who Hadn’t Done It
ReplyDeleteMets general manager Bob Scheffing was blunter. ‘I really can’t say I quit on him,’ he said. ‘But we’ve had him three full years and, although he’s a hell of a prospect, he hasn’t done it for us. How long can you wait? I can’t rate him in the same category with Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman or Gary Gentry.’
He wasn’t wrong about Ryan’s struggles. In 1971, Ryan went 10-14 with a 3.97 ERA. He issued 116 walks against 137 strikeouts. His ERA for the first half of the season was 2.24. His ERA for the second half was 7.74. That steepening collapse, from the first half to the second half, was the steepest by any starting pitcher in baseball history as of 2021.
The Mets’ pitching coach Rube Walker had a simple philosophy for working with Ryan. ‘We tell him to throw as hard as he can for as long as he can.’ That was the entire instruction. No refinement. No development. Just throw until something breaks. Coaching has changed over the years.
Ryan also had a practical problem in New York that had nothing to do with talent. The Mets already had Seaver, Koosman, and Gentry. Teams used three-man rotations in the playoffs, and those three had started all eight of New York’s postseason games during the 1969 championship run. Where would Ryan have fit in even if he had put it together? Scheffing had a point.
The Angels GM Harry Dalton, in his first month on the job after leaving Baltimore, saw it differently. ‘We picked up one of baseball’s best arms in Ryan,’ he said. ‘We know of his control problems, but he had the best arm in the National League and, at 24, he is just coming into his own.’
329 Strikeouts. Immediate All-Star. Zero Surprise.
Ryan arrived in Anaheim and did something the Mets had never fully allowed him to do: he started every fifth day. For the first time in his career, he had a regular rotation spot and no military reserve obligations pulling him back to Houston. He had spent years commuting from New York to his reserve duty, sometimes missing starts. That was over.
In 1972, his first season as an Angel, Ryan went 19-16 with a 2.28 ERA. He led the major leagues with 329 strikeouts, nearly a third more than the American League runner-up. He threw nine shutouts, also leading the majors. He set a still-standing record by allowing only 5.26 hits per nine innings.
He was named an All-Star for the first time in his career.
The following year, 1973, Ryan struck out 383 batters, breaking Sandy Koufax’s single-season record of 382. He also threw two no-hitters that season. On July 15 against the Detroit Tigers, he struck out 17 batters in the no-hitter. Tigers first baseman Norm Cash came to the plate with two outs in the ninth, having already struck out twice, carrying a table leg instead of a bat. Plate umpire Ron Luciano told him to get a regulation bat. Cash shrugged and said: ‘Why? I won’t hit him anyway.’”
——————————
It goes on. Promises to make you sick if you’re a Mets fan, so I’ll leave that out. It’s Ryan’s stats in Anaheim.
Gus, I saw something about Ryan when he got to California. A coach stood down from the mound and just off to the left as Ryan practiced his delivery. It focused him forward. More strikes, more consistency, instant greatness. Like you noted, the Mets did nothing to coach him. How stupid.
ReplyDeleteIf I read the Baseball Nerd, I’d probably blow my Substack.
ReplyDeleteRim shot
Delete