The Dark Knight, Matt Harvey, had TJS as a Met.
So did Wheeler, Matz, DeGrom, and Syndergaard.
Even infielder TJ Rivera needed the hated procedure.
It derailed him. Matt Allan, too.
FIRST…NO APRIL FOOLS JOKE. METS WERE SHUT OUT ON MARCH 31.
3-0 loss to the St Louis Cardinals. Just 3 hits, two by Juan Soto.
Ray Savage vividly recalls that the 1908 St Louis Cardinals were shut out 33 times.
Senga pitched well, but you can’t win when the other guys shut you out.
In fact, the only Mets run last night was a Syracuse solo HR by Ronny Mauricio.
But spring training now officially ends as APRIL BASEBALL begins today.
Only FOOLS play baseball before APRIL.
Mets? 3-2, with a 2.87 ERA. Yankees? 4-1, a sub-microscopic 0.61 ERA.
And ex-Met Jake deGrom has a 5.79 ERA. Go figure. That’s March for ya.
And AAA Ryan Clifford stole a base! And fanned 10 times in 4 games. Huh!
BACK TO MY ORIGINAL ARTICLE…
The Mets used 46 pitchers (including a few position guys) last year.
That will drop by 10 pitchers in 2026, I’d think, if Mets starters don’t again implode with injuries. If not, the pitcher revolving door will be in high gear again.
In 1969 and 1986, only 15 Mets pitchers were used each season. If you transported those entire staffs in a Time Machine to 2025 to face more power-laden hitters, that number of pitchers used by those two teams likely jumps by at least 10-15 pitchers, to 25-30.
The difference?
It is the “velocity atrocity”. If everyone drives on the LIE at 100 MPH, many more accidents will occur.
In baseball, the quest for velocity is dangerous:
Simply…Lats get torn, elbows explode, shoulders disintegrate.
Pitchers routinely miss many months, and even years, recovering from such injuries. Some never make it back.
Speaking of TJS, i.e., Tommy John surgeries, many Mets pitchers in recent years have needed the procedure to be done on their elbows.
So have the pitchers of every other team.
How about THESE numbers?
Percentage of MLB pitchers who have had Tommy John surgery:
2016: 27.4%
2017: 25.9%
2018: 28.5%
2019: 30.8%
2020: 32.0%
2021: 32.0%
2022: 34.4%
2023: 35.7%
2024: 38.9%
2025: 39.1%
39%? Wow. And what an upwards trajectory that is.
Oddly, according to Roegele, the two teams with the highest number of pitchers who had Tommy John surgery had 21 such carved up pitchers over the last 10 years.
The Mets, naturally, were third worst with 19, but the Cardinals somehow only had just four. That disparity sure is curious. If the team data is accurate from this Roegele gentleman, then David Stearns ought to look into the disparity.
You know, to see if the Cardinals are doing something right that the Mets are doing wrong.
Reader Thoughts? Give me some surgically precise feedback here, please.
Of course, this is a factor:
Mets pitchers were 7th highest in walks allowed in 2025. And 3rd highest in pitches thrown, an average of just under 150 pitches per game. Cubs were the most efficient, at “just” 139 per game. 1600 more pitches over the course of the season by the Mets, as compared to the Cubbyholes.
Advice to Mets: Get closer to 139 pitches per game, and save arms.
MINORS SEASONS EXPLODING THIS WEEK
While Syracuse started their season late last week, we get what else?
THREE MORE TEAMS DOING THEIR THING starting this week:
Thursday, April 2:
St Lucie opener
Friday, April 3:
Binghamton and Brooklyn openers.
Me? I love the prospects finally getting their seasons going:
SHOW US WHAT YOU’VE GOT!
And I also love the game data. I love tracking just how Mets and prospect players are doing, the players on the Mets AND on other four Mets teams.
Almost a day cannot go by, when you have five teams playing, that somebody isn’t doing something great. So if the Mets struggle, on a given day, you have four of the teams that could give you joy.
I hope that, like last year, the four teams combined end up dozens and dozens of games above .500.
Some just focus on the team in Queens. I focus on all five teams - quintuple the pleasure. Quintuple the fun!
PLAY BALL!
NEXT…KEITH - THREE NEW THINGS I LEARNED
Hall of Famer Keith Hernandez (OK, he’s not in the Hall of Fame, but it’s not his fault. The idiots foolishly didn’t vote him in are at fault).
Keith was being interviewed by our Gary on SNY before the game last night.
I learned three new things about Keith (who is 15 days older than moi-meme):
1) He was drafted at age 17, all the way down in the 42nd round.
- So, the Mets passed on him for at least 41 rounds. Duh!
2) He nonetheless debuted in the major two months short of turning 21.
3) He struggled a bit to adjust early on, as he replaced an injured Joe Torre. He said the Cardinals fans were very supportive, and that in New York, it would’ve been entirely different. BOOS!
I THINK SO MANY IDIOT FANS OF THIS TEAM ARE GENETICALLY PREDISPOSED TO BOOING THEIR TEAM’S PLAYERS AND PUTTING NEEDLESS PRESSURE ON THEM.
WHAT STUPID FANS THIS TEAM HAS.
I remember watching the Knicks during the Patrick Ewing era. They were almost unbeatable in Madison Square Garden. The fans generated a sonic wall of Support, simply incredible, and were deemed the team’s sixth man. The Mets would probably win a half dozen more games if their fans would layoff the booing, and cheer/roar them on.
To boo Bo Bichette as early as in game 3 with his new Mets team is…
Categorically insane.
A MONEY QUESTION
If the Mets owed Sean Manaea just $1 million, and not $50 million, would they simply release him or attempt to send him down to AAA?
Your brief thoughts are required.
17 comments:
Manaea would be gone if they owed him just $1M. I suspect he will be gone by Memorial Day.
Maybe. He could hit 90 by then.
Of course our idiot manager pulls him after an inning and a third.
Interesting to note that Pete had his first homer last night - against deGrom!
I missed the first two innings of last night's game. Tuned in for the third inning, and at that point Senga looked like a batting practice pitcher. Everything he threw was being hit very hard, including the outs. Not sure what was going on, but he made adjustments to survive for six innings.
It always looks worse when your team simply stops scoring. I will take those #s from Senga every start.
Antsy fella, that Mendoza.
Nimmo off to a good start, too. Maybe they cheered each other up. Hurry up, AJ!
Very uncharacteristic Nimmo these days. Last 4 games, 10–19, and NO Wolks. This was the guy that did nothing but walk when he was with the Mets a few years ago. He seems to be doing what I keep suggesting Vientos and Clifford should do, to no avail to this point.
Being much more aggressive. And Nimmo is rolling after a strong spring training. He just turned 33, BTW.
I don't know if Manaea would be gone. Garcia isn't gone, nor is Lovelady, and they have both done more damage to the Mets than Manaea has -- and at relatively low cost. At 1m, Manaea could be viewed as a bargain by comparison :-).
It is almost certain that Lovelady will be gone when Minter returns. Still that leaves a couple of holes in the BP. Maybe Kimbrel replaces Garcia, but Kimbrel has shown a relatively steep decline over the past few years, so that may not yield the kind of improvement the team needs. And Manaea? But there is no obvious or immediate replacement. I
Last night ZZZZZZZZ very boring game and I'm ready for all this make contact and hitting with RISP to start. What a waste of good pitching and I really hope DS is right. I know very small sample size but our history with RISP sucks just saying and Bo being just 2 for 24 is so Mets.
I agree. But if there was an obvious replacement, I think they’d look to trade him. Lambert and Ross, while righties both, were real, early season hopefuls. Not now. But Minter and Scott should tighten matters up on the staff quite soon.
Lovelady? Already up to 76 pitches out of the pen on the season. Hope his arm is made of rubber.
Bo needs to relax. He did hit .225 in 2024. Let’s hope this isn’t going to repeat. He hit .306 in 2023 and .311 last year, so that .225 is drastically lower. I will take those.280.
Obviously they are thinking of Lovelady as a disposable asset: who will be gone soon. But then why did they bring him into pitch in so many high leverage situations. This is what I don't understand. He fails the eye test as does Garcia. I agree with Tom that the most obvious immediate replacements are Minter and Scott in the bullpen. Starting pitching looks promising so far, but we all know that the rotation will see some comings and goings if only because of injuries. I wish I knew what to think about the line-up right now. I hope JD helps Vientos' approach. I don't think that we can count on pitchers making mistakes to Alvarez that he can mash. His mechanics remain a problem, but his approach seems to have improved. if he doesn't swing at the hard sliders down and outside the zone, that will have the benefit of forcing pitchers to throw him more strikes, which should help him. We shall see: right now, Bichette, Polanco and Semien are not producing offensively and their baseball cards say they will to varying degrees. Robert has provided good at bats, a positive attitude and plays hard. Hope he can keep it up.
Christian Scott?
I think Tom is thinking that Scott can be a high leverage guy as he works his way back. My thinking is somewhat different. I don't know what role Scott will ultimately have, but I don't think that it is desirable to have Myers, Manaea and Scott as long relievers/spot starters. I do think that they are short high leverage pitchers, which they seem to run through pretty quickly under Mendoza. They did pitch Myers for a short stint as well as a bit longer one. so if Scott is ready for bullpen usage without first going to Syracuse, I imagine that Myers would move to a Brazobon kind of role of 1-2 innings which along with Minter, Weaver, Raley and Williams would really strengthen the back end of the bullpen. Scott could be the righty long man and spot starter, or maybe he and Manaea can piggy back one another, until they learn more about what they can get from Manaea. I just think they use their relievers so often, they can't afford to have weak links like Lovelady and Garcia. I am more inclined to think that they need to replace them with the best arms they have available and then figure out how to use them as needed. So, for example, if Williams can't close on a particular day due to usage, I would think that Scott might be a plausible candidate to do so as much as Weaver would be. Or Myers could. How is it that we had to see both Garcia and Lovelady in such crucial situations. No instance in which they were used was truly mop up duty.
I do hope that Mendoza stops using boat loads of relievers. Their overuse and subsequent injuries went a long way toward screwing up 2025. There’s only so many pitchers they can effectively tap into. I don’t want to see borderline bums pitching. They need to get these starters to go deeper by not throwing as many balls. Challenge guys more. Cut pen innings by 20% as compared to 2025.
Post a Comment