Sometimes, I feel like a dark cloud floats over Mets hitters.
But when not playing for the Mets, no dark clouds - just sunshine.
Let's look at eleven former Mets:
Dave Kingman - .219/.453 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .245/.491. Non-Met Gap: +.26/+.038
Daniel Murphy - .288/.424 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .321/.535. Non-Met Gap: +.33/+.111
Justin Turner - .265/.370 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .304/.495. Non-Met Gap: +.39/+.125
Jeff Kent - .279/.453 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .293/.513. Non-Met Gap: +.14/+.060
Mike Piazza - .296/.542 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .321/.550. Non-Met Gap: +.25/+.008
Jason Bay - .234/.369 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .275/.512. Non-Met Gap: +.41/+.143
Mo Vaughn - .249/.438 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .298/.533. Non-Met Gap: +.49/+.095
Keith Hernandez: .297/.429 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .295/.441. Non-Met Gap: -.02/+.012
Kevin Mitchell - .275/.456 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .285/.526. Non-Met Gap: +.10/+.070
Rusty Staub - .276/.419 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .281/.435. Non-Met Gap: +.05/+.016
Lenny Dykstra - .278/.413 BA/Slug % as a Met; elsewhere, .289/.422. Non-Met Gap: +.11/+.009
11 former Mets - how'd they do as a Met, and as a non-Met?
Batting average?
Higher to significantly higher as a non-Met in 10 of 11 cases; only Mets advantage? A mere 2 points.
Slugging %?
Higher to significantly higher in all 11 cases.
I am not sure what that tells you - but it certainly indicates that a confluence of factors result in the vast majority of instances in a player hitting better as a non-Met than as a Met.
It certainly seems that being a Met is cloud inducing for that Met.
Can you come up with a list of guys who had significant ABs as a Met and as a non-Met, where they did much better as a Met?
And do you think enough attention is focused on this negative gap by ownership?
7 comments:
You did a lot of work on this post.
I hope it is read by many
Mack, it is another angle on there being something wrong with how the Mets do things.
Some are pretty close statistically, to the point of being within the "margin of error" - others are not, much more dramatically different - but overall, it is pretty bad.
Mets hitters simply, overall, hit worse as Mets - there are other guys I could cite, like Carlos Baerga and Bobby Bonilla, but I had to stop somewhere.
Mets management should care enough to figure out why. And what it might take to fix it.
One guy who hit better pre-Mets, bad as a Met, and still bad, is my favorite whipping boy of 2019, Keon Broxton. Since traded to the Orioles, he has fanned 25 times in 52 at bats.
Since his 4 for 9 start to the season, he is 13 for 92 (.141) with 45 Ks (49%).
It took Bill Buckner almost 3 full seasons to fan as much as Broxton has in 101 at bats.
It is utterly mystifying how he is still in the big leagues.
Great work Tom as always. Have you ever seen any data on who have the best hitting numbers at Citi Field, not just the Mets but league wide? It would be interesting to see the types of hitters they are. Perhaps the Mets could sign these type of hitters in the future.
Tom, great post. I just scanned the stats for Carlos Beltran and Darryl Strawberry and it looks to me like both of them hit better as a Met then in the rest of their career - just looking at their OPS....
I'm pretty sure Jose Reyes hit better as a Met than as a Blue Jay or a Rockie.
How did you pick your sample?
it would be interesting - and probably too much work! - to split this between player's ages, home grown players vs Free agents, etc etc. But I think we can all agree, the Mets are a pitcher's team!
I wonder if the opposite is true, that pitchers do better with the Mets than elsewhere?
John, I have not, but the Mets should certainly do that analysis.
I picked my sample off the top of my head. I did not pick Straw because his personal problems really intruded after his Mets days, negatively impacting his performance.
Beltran I avoided because the Mets had his middle of career prime years - and his #'s as I recall were still only slightly better as a Met.
Do Mets pitchers do better with the Mets than they do, or would do, elsehwere? Don't ask Jake - for your own safety - I don't want him to punch you and hurt his hand. I have an article involving Jake tomorrow.
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