Reese Kaplan -- When a Rainout Is Celebrated Like a Rare Victory

Well, to look at the positive side of all things horrific, with the rain out tonight the Mets managed to preserve their 56-55 winning record which is good enough to be 2.5 games out of first place where they were the standard bearers for much of this 2021 season.  The recent in-person pep talk from owner Steve Cohen didn’t inspire greater performance and it’s a toss-up on a day-to-day basis whether bad pitching or poor hitting is going to doom the team to yet another loss.

Interestingly, there have been some voices of sanity springing up during this rapid spiral to mediocrity.  Hall of Famer Mike Piazza commented that too many players try too hard to drive the ball out of the park playing with launch angles rather than focusing on sending it up the middle for a well-stroked single or double.  As a result the strikeout totals for hitters are approaching record setting numbers yet the number of runs being scored do not match.  

Similarly, there’s a whole clinical obsession on the spin rates pitchers achieve when hurling the baseball to try to keep hitters off-stride.  We all heard this new explanation for pitching success with Seth Lugo’s performance as a multi-inning reliever.  No one can dispute how well he did out of the pen compared to as a starter.  Lugo was a winning pitcher in the minors with a 29-24 record, but it was accompanied by a mediocre 4.27 career ERA over parts of seven years. 

In 2018 the Mets removed him from the rotation and he completed 49 of 54 games out of the pen with a career-best 2.66 ERA.  He paired the rotation with good strikeout numbers and excellent control.  In 2019 it was more of the same with a better record, higher strikeout totals and lower walk numbers along with a 2.70 ERA.  He’d found his niche.  

Of course, the Mets never learned to leave well enough alone and the injury bug of 2021 actually bit first a year earlier.  As a half-starter and half-reliever in 2020 the ERA ballooned to 5.15 but he did maintain the good K/BB production.  

Perhaps they learned their lesson despite the steady ambulance corps needed for starting pitching in 2021 but upon his return Lugo has appeared in 25 games, not a single one as a starter.  His ERA is a much improved 3.70 though his control is a little off.  He’s still fanning more than a hitter per inning pitched, so the potential is still there.  However, he’s now 31 and it’s a little late in his career to still be figuring out how to dominate.  

Now the Mets are going through a similar situation with the shortstop position after losing Francisco Lindor, Javy Baez, Jose Peraza and Luis Guillorme within about a three-week period.  Right now it would appear Jonathan Villar is the temporary answer to man the position but it does have you wondering about the infield alignment in 2022.  Backups at shortstop now include Brandon Drury and Jeff McNeil. Of the two of them, Drury is the crusty veteran with 6 games started at the position and 9 games overall. McNeil has zero.

Where they really need to do some experimentation is in the right field position as it would appear Michael Conforto is not going to be a good investment to extend a qualifying offer.  He’s currently crossed the Mendoza line, hitting .201 but with no power and few runs driven in.  It would appear that from a business perspective it is certainly advisable to show the $12.7 million dollar man the door, but he has been a fan favorite and there would be some PR backlash for doing so.

The question remains what would they do by not securing Conforto to a long term deal to make the team better.  They need hitting.  They need pitching.  They need defense.  They need base running speed.  They need a better manager.  They may need a better general manager.  Steve Cohen has a lot of holes to fill.