Series Preview: New York Mets at St. Louis Cardinals

     The Mets will head to Busch Stadium to take on the Cardinals in a four-game set. The Cardinals are currently 16-12 but have only played one series against a team above .500 so far, losing 2 of 3 to the first-place Milwaukee Brewers. They have a solid 7-6 record in St. Louis and are coming into the series red hot, winning 8 of their last 10, but also well-rested after an off day on Sunday. Their last series came in Pittsburgh when they swept the lowly Pirates and outscored them 22-8 over three games. The Mets are coming off of an odd win in Philadelphia, capturing the series after barely holding on to win 8-7 in the final game. With that win, the Mets are back at .500 and sit in first place in the NL East.

    The Cardinals offense so far this season has been just about the same as it's been for the last few seasons: mediocre. Entering Monday, they rank 23rd in OBP (.302), T-11th in SLG (.397), 15th in OPS (.699), 17th in wOBA (.304), and 18th in wRC+ (94, 6 points below league average). They've managed to scrape across 4.78 runs per game, though, the 8th-highest mark in the majors. 

    Their offense had been bolstered by the performance of catcher Yadier Molina Molina, one of the most well-respected veterans in baseball, who was hitting .323/.366/.631 before being placed on the 10-day IL with a foot injury. He will likely return in time for the series opener on Monday. He already has 0.9 WAR in only 19 games, almost twice as much as the 0.5 he had in 42 games in 2020. If Molina isn't 100% by tomorrow, Andrew Knizner would get the nod behind the dish. Knizner's had a .263/.333/.316 line this year, which you'll take from a backup catcher. When he has started this season, the Cardinals have a 2.60 team ERA.

    First baseman Paul Goldschmidt has established himself as one of the best first basemen in the business but has gotten off to a slow start out of the gate. From 2018-20, Goldy raked, hitting .279/.375/.499 with a .371 wOBA, 133 wRC+, and 12.8 BB%. He was traded from the Diamondbacks to the Cardinals before the 2019 season and had a good-not-great year, but bounced back nicely in 2020 with a 146 wRC+, his highest since 2015. He had a .387 wOBA with an even higher xwOBA of .396. So far this year he's hit a measly .234/.281/.364 with only a 6.4 BB%. From 2015-20, Goldschmidt had a 14.4 BB%, the 13th-highest among all qualified hitters, so there is reason to believe he'll start to walk a bit more. His slugging numbers are likely to go up as well; from 2015-20 he was 9th in HR and 19th in SLG%. Even this year, he's in the upper fifth in average exit velocity and hard-hit rate. Even if he is struggling right now, Goldschmidt is never someone to count out.

    Up the middle, the Cardinals have Paul Dejong at shortstop and Tommy Edman likely manning second. Dejong is a Met-killer like few others, owning a career 1.200 OPS against them across 20 games and 89 plate appearances. He's hit 9 homers and 10 doubles while driving in 15 runs, with two of those home runs and RBIs coming against Jacob deGrom, who's scheduled to start Tuesday's game. Overall, he's 4-11 off deGrom and has never faced Marcus Stroman or Taijuan Walker, the other two known Mets starters for the upcoming series. Tommy Edman, a utility fielder, only has 174 MLB games under his belt but has impressed on both sides of the ball, posting a .779 OPS and 4.7 WAR. He's been tasked with filling the hole left behind by Kolten Wong and has done an admirable job so far, leading baseball in Outs Above Average and hitting to the tune of a 112 wRC+.

    At third base is the big acquisition of the offseason for the Cardinals, Nolan Arenado. Arenado doesn't need much of an introduction, especially defensively. He has never played a full season without winning a Gold Glove award and from 2015-19 he made every All-Star game while finishing 8th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 6th in MVP voting, respectively. Over that span, he averaged 40 HR, 124 RBIs, and a .937 OPS per year. Last season was a step back for Arenado, who was on a 162-game pace of 28 HR, 88 RBIs, and 78 runs and hit just .253/.303/.434 in 48 games. The Rockies shipped his contract to the Cardinals, who are hoping for a bounceback year. So far, he's certainly been better, upping his wRC+ from 79 to 116 and his wOBA from .308 to .339 while putting up 0.8 WAR, 0.1 less than he had all of last year.

    The Cardinals' outfield has been relatively weak the last few seasons. They currently have Harrison Bader in CF, Tyler O'Neill in LF, and Dylan Carlson in RF. Bader has certainly been strong with his glove and acceptable offensively. Across his 351 career games played, Bader has hit .234/.322/.400 with a 95 wRC+ and 6.6 WAR. This season, he only has 13 PAs after a trip to the IL and has hit .182/.308/.455. 

    O'Neill has never had the chance to prove himself as an everyday player, but with the offseason trade of Dexter Fowler, he has been getting much more playing time. He had a productive but truncated debut season and has since struggled to regain that form at the plate. So far this year he's been getting on base poorly despite his .270 batting average, posting a .292 OBP and 1.5 BB% compared to a 33.8 K%. O'Neill's slugged .500, though, balancing out to above-average offensive production overall.

    Dylan Carlson was the team's top prospect and 13th in baseball overall (according to MLB.com) entering this season. He's an athletic switch-hitter who came up in center but is more likely to stick in LF. Carlson had a bitter first taste of the majors in 2020 but managed a .278 batting average over his final 12 games and went 3-9 in the postseason. He's put up solid numbers this year, hitting .265/.348/.469 with 0.5 WAR in 28 games. Dylan is still only 22 years old and he looks poised to have a solid tenure in St. Louis.

    Adam Wainright is scheduled to pitch the opener. Wainright is one of the older veterans in the league and is probably remembered by Mets fans for infamously closing out game 7 of the 2006 NLCS at Shea Stadium. 

    As for the Mets, it isn't currently known who they'll be starting tonight. Many of the Mets' best starters were leaned on in their most recent series against the Phillies, and Edwin Diaz won't be available for the opening game after he left last night with a lower-back injury. Sean-Reid Foley hasn't pitched since the Mets were in Chicago but is likely to make a multi-inning appearance tonight. In his only outing of the season, he threw 3 perfect innings and struck out 4 Cubs hitters. Thomas Szapucki remains a part of the Mets' taxi squad and could be an option tonight.

    If the bullpen does get leaned on heavily in the opener, at least they can sit back for game two as Jacob deGrom goes to work. deGrom has statistically been one of the top pitchers in baseball this season once again. The only other NL starting pitcher in his realm at the moment is Corbin Burnes. 

    Southpaw Kwan Hyun-Kim will be up against deGrom in game 2. Kim is in his second year of MLB ball after playing overseas. Last season, he had a sparkling 1.61 ERA but underlying metrics that screamed regression, likely due to his minuscule 5.54 K/9. This season, Hyun-Kim has almost doubled his K/9 and shrunk his walks rate to 1.7% en route to a 3.29 ERA. He has still been getting lucky. Hyun-Kim has allowed a barreled ball (which are the most ideal hits for batters) in 11.9% of his at-bats, the 5th-worst figure of any pitcher who has had at least 40 batted balls against them. The Mets wwill look to exploit his weaknesses and continue their hot offensive stretch.

    The Mets will send Marcus Stroman to start game 3. Stroman has always been more of a finesse pitcher, garnering groundballs rather than strikeouts and altering the pauses in his delivery to mess with opposing hitters' timing. In 29 innings, Stroman has held an impressive 1.86 ERA, but like Kwan Hyun-Kim he has given up a good amount of hard contact (although not nearly as much as Kim). Stroman had his worst start of the season against the Nationals, allowing 4 earned runs on 8 hits and 2 walks in 4 innings of work. He was able to right the ship against the Phillies, allowing 2 runs (but no earned runs) in 5 innings while racking up 8 strikeouts. 

    Stroman's opposer will be John Gant, who had primarily been a solid reliever throughout his career but was forced into a starting role due to injuries in St. Louis's rotation. Gant has a 2.16 ERA in 25 innings this season but his underlying metrics show that he is due for regression. Most glaring is his 16.5 BB%, especially when compared to his 18.3 K%. Gant had always walked plenty of batters but did a good job of limiting barreled balls; this year his barrel rate has shot up to 7.1%, over twice as high as it was in 2020 and 2019. 

    In game 4, Taijuan Walker will face Cardinals ace Jack Flaherty. Walker has been solid for the Mets but has gotten lucky. He has been walking hitters at a high rate and the strikeouts have certainly cooled off a bit. I was able to attend his start against the Nationals in person and can tell you that despite his 7 shutout innings, Taijuan was allowing a lot of hard-hit balls. If he were pitching on the 2019 or 2020 Mets, his ERA could easily be a lot higher, but Walker has gotten a lot of help from his defensemen and the shift. His advanced stats predict an ERA closer to 5.00 instead of his current 3.00 mark. Hopefully, he can turn it around or at least keep his luck going against a streaking Cardinals team.     

    Flaherty has been one of the Cardinals' most reliable starters since he came up with the team in 2017. He looked like a star in the making during his dominant 2019 season when he put up a 2.75 ERA and 0.97 WHIP with 231 strikeouts 196.1 innings. He had an ugly 2020 with a 4.91 ERA in 40.1 innings, but his struggles are likely due to the shortened season. Flaherty had also missed time with an injury, throwing his season more out of wack than many others. In 2021 his WHIP is a still-impressive 1.02 but Flaherty's regressed across the board from his earlier seasons. His strikeouts have regressed towards the mean and Jack is no longer able to get nearly as much soft contact as he used to. The result is a pitcher with the peripherals of an average starter, but he is still only about 75 innings removed from a 4th-place Cy Young finish.

    The Cardinals may be a streaking team, but the Mets have turned on their jets recently, too. Fired up by a heated game against the Phillies and a ficitonal staff member named "Donnie", the Mets scored 13 runs in the final two games of their series win against the Cardinals, marking the first time this season that they scored 5 runs or more in consecutive games. Still, the Mets are without Brandon Nimmo and JD Davis who have been two of their best bats during the young season. They'll also be riding a depleted bullpen in game 1 against a well-rested and red-hot Cardinals team. The Mets are certainly capable of a series win or sweep, but the realist in me predicts a 2-2 tie in St. Louis.