Still Work to Be Done with the Mets

While much has been accomplished this season to improve the Mets' roster, there still remains work to do.

Over their first 52 games, the New York Mets gave us many reasons to believe that they've come a long way towards the goal of being a legitimate contender. Then they traveled west to Los Angeles. While apparently dealing with the pervasive smell of "rat urine" in the visitor facilities, they've also spent a couple of games learning that they still have some distance to go if they hope to compete with the best teams this fall.

Happy Trails, Robinson Cano

Steve Cohen's Mets are making "baseball decisions" these days, proving that the Wilpon era is mercifully behind us.

I have to admit that I didn't see this coming. Before Sunday night's game, I thought a demotion to Syracuse for Dominic Smith was the most likely scenario. However, it's mighty tough to demote a guy after a 4 for 4. After Dom's big night, I thought it would be Travis Jankowski receiving the pink slip. Jankowski may be a useful player, but he's the last guy off the bench for the 2022 Mets. It sure would have cost the Mets a lot less to release Jankowski. Instead, Steve Cohen instructed Billy Eppler to "make the baseball decision." With those powerful words, Robinson Canó's Mets career came to an inglorious conclusion, and I found myself falling in love all over again.

So Far So Good

The Mets' opening series in Washington went as well as we could hope for, but now a real test begins.

The 2022 season got off to a much better start for the New York Mets than 2021 did. If you remember, the Mets were supposed to begin last season with a series against the Nationals, but the entire series was postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the Nats. MLB did their infamous "abundance of caution" thing by canceling all the games, and the Mets wound up sitting around for an extra 4 days before beginning their campaign. I always believed that the delay played a part in the Mets' slow start last year, although I would hardly hang all last year's woes on that one thing.

Early Thoughts from Spring Training

The Mets will have some tough decisions to make this spring, particularly in the outfield and who will be the bullpen lefty.

As the New York Mets continue to prepare for the season, Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer have both given fans reasons to feel good about the top of the team's rotation. On Monday, Max Scherzer debuted first, pitching against the Marlins in their ballpark. Scherzer clearly had been doing the work during the protracted lockout. He went 5 innings against Miami, throwing 72 pitches. Scherzer wants to be prepared to throw 100 pitches when the regular season gets underway in a couple of weeks. The Mets hitters gave Max the "deGrom treatment," failing to score a run for him. Scherzer took the loss despite allowing only a solitary run.

How Much Is Enough?

The Mets did so much to improve this off-season. Is it terribly greedy to wish they had done just a little more?

We're just over two weeks away from the New York Mets' season opener in Washington on April 7. With only 3 exhibition games under their belts, the Mets really don't have much time to prepare for games that count. The offense hasn't looked very good in the early going, beyond a flurry of home runs in the first game.

A Very Early Look at Mets Position Players

When last I posted here, I took an early look at the Mets pitching*. This included the additions of Chris Bassitt and Adam Ottavino, but still pending the almost certain addition of at least one late-inning caliber lefty. Today we'll move on to the position players, whose ranks have been substantially overhauled this off-season. Eduardo Escobar will be picking up most of the 3B ABs this year, while Starling Marte and Mark Canha will be joining lone holdover Brandon Nimmo in the outfield. Barring a last-minute change of course, Michael Conforto will not be returning after seven mostly solid seasons in New York.

Big Changes Ahead After Another Disappointing Season

As I write this post, the New York Mets are in the process of dropping the final game of the season. It's a fitting end for the disappointing club to go out on a losing streak with their offense once again shut down. In fairness, the Mets have found their way to some victories this week — long, long past the time when those wins would have been of any real consequence, of course. I always miss baseball when the season comes to an end. It's the only sport that I still follow with more than passing interest. The close of the regular season also marks the end of whatever tattered shreds of summer remain. Even as the earth continues to get hotter, I still miss the long days and bright sunshine of summer throughout the New England winter.

The Conforto Conundrum

The New York Mets have been showing signs recently that they were bouncing back from their early-season offensive struggles. Unfortunately, those travails returned with a vengeance yesterday. The Mets managed to scratch out only one single, solitary run against the Atlanta Braves over 14 innings of their doubleheader. As disappointing as that was, it's also rather miraculous that they were able to cash in that lone run for a split of the doubleheader. But that's the kind of season it's been for the Mets as they have battled continuous adversity to hang onto their tenuous lead in the NL East.

Another Hill to Climb

The New York Mets finally added a desperately needed credible starting pitcher to the mix, picking up veteran Rich Hill in a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays. Understandably, this isn't the type of transaction that's going to electrify the fan base. Still, it was a solid deal for a decent veteran starter that didn't tap into the Mets' limited pool of top-tier prospect talent. As we discussed Wednesday, the Mets lack a deep pool of prospects who would be attractive to potential trade partners.

Pete Alonso Has Fun Playing Baseball

The All-Star Game and all of the related festivities have come to an end. I didn't watch a second of it live, but I did find the Home Run Derby on YouTube and scanned some of Pete Alonso's highlights the next day. It wasn't that I was psyched to see him win the thing. I believe the Home Run Derby is fairly boring to watch on tv, even if one of "your guys" manages to come out on top. Most of the majesty of watching the best-hit balls sail far out of the park is lost with the way television has to cover it. The only way to really experience that is to attend in person.

Time for the Bats to Show Up

No, not that bat

The New York Mets are inching closer to having their Opening Day lineup back. Jeff McNeil will be back today while Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto are doing minor league rehabs. Oh, and Albert Almora has also returned, though it's hard to imagine his bat contributing very much to the cause. It would be nice to make some sort of declaration that the days of scratching for runs against mediocre pitchers are over. Maybe that will happen eventually, but these guys coming back weren't hitting all that well before they left. I'm sure they'll have some rust to shake off, too.

Major League Ballplayers Wanted, Enquire Within

While it was gratifying watching the New York Mets win last night, it felt more like a temporary reprieve than the start of something big. Bad news about Noah Syndergaard and J.D. Davis offset some of the thrill of victory. Also, for a very well-pitched game by Jacob deGrom, Miguel Castro, Trevor May, and Edwin Díaz, it didn't feel as if it was safely in the books until about five minutes after the last out was recorded. And this was against a Colorado Rockies team that had only managed two measly road victories coming into the series. The Rockies are in the discussion for the "worst team in baseball" honors, but they're still hard to beat when you're fielding a team of Triple-A ballplayers.

That Winning Feeling

The New York Mets won a rubber game against a Division opponent today. They accomplished this by getting enough offense, more than adequate pitching, and surprisingly good defense. It also didn't hurt that the Washington Nationals are currently playing without their best player, Juan Soto, and the Mets missed Nats ace Max Scherzer in the series. Still, a series win is a series win, especially sweet when you're a fan waiting for your club to play at their full potential.

Play Ball!

The Mets finished their spring training schedule today in a rather fitting manner for games that don't count, their game against the Cardinals ending in a 3-3 tie. The next time they play will be Thursday night in Washington to open the season. That game will be telecast only on ESPN, which is a real shame. I know that quite a few Mets games are likely to wind up on national tv. I'm not going to whine about each and every one of them. However, it really is regretful that the ESPN circus is taking Opening Day away from Mets fans. I guess I should be grateful that Alex Rodriguez will be in the broadcast booth and not the owner's box.

Some *Fearless* Predictions for the Season

Hey, this prediction
business is tough!

When I began writing yesterday's post, my intent was that it would be my season preview piece. After all, this is the time of year, with Opening Day approaching this week, when these pieces are supposed to be written. While you can never predict what injuries might crop up, you usually have a pretty good idea of how most of the players on your team are going to perform. This year really is different, however. There are a lot of variables in play, including some limited data for key performers. It led me to write a season preview that was relatively light in actual prediction. It also makes this New York Mets club a little more fascinating as we approach Thursday's season opener.

Marcus Stroman Was Impressive in His Spring Debut

I'm not one to make too much of spring training appearances for pitchers. Often in spring games, pitchers are working on getting ready for the season rather than concentrating strictly on getting outs. For instance, if he's working on sharpening his slider, he's going to throw it a lot, even if the hitters are looking for it. Early on in the spring, batters are still searching for their timing, which may allow a hurler to get away with pitches that will be sent into deep orbit once the season starts. As tempting as it is, when I am watching spring games, I try to get more general impressions of players' performances and stay away from reading too much into stat lines.

Defense is Mostly Work and Commitment

When I started watching Major League Baseball in the late 60s - early 70s, defense was valued over offense. At least on competitive teams, you were only likely to see teams trying to hide bad defenders at first base and in left field. The reason was fairly simple. It was an era dominated by pitching. If bad defense cost you runs, it was more difficult to get them back when your team came to bat. Particularly in the key up-the-middle positions of catcher, second base, shortstop, and third base, elite defenders with almost comically low offensive stats were tolerated in a lineup. It wasn't uncommon to have another automatic out or even two hitting in front of a pitcher.

No Free Pass for Luis Rojas This Time Around

Tim Britton had a good profile of Mets manager Luis Rojas up on The Athletic earlier this week. All in all, Rojas endured a strange year in his first season on the job. It started with Carlos Beltran resigning as manager three weeks before spring training started, thanks to the Astros sign stealing scandal. That spring training came to a screeching halt, but not before it was revealed that his second-best pitcher Noah Syndergaard needed Tommy John surgery. Then, after we all sat around for a few months, waiting to see if there would be a baseball season in 2020, everything ramped up way too quickly for the weird 60-game season that followed. Before that season even began, his now second-best pitcher Marcus Stroman opted out of the season. The abbreviated slate of games was barely underway when his star player, Yoenis Céspedes, also opted out in a manner that was equally poorly handled by the player and the club. To put a cherry on top of it all, Rojas was given a roster, particularly the pitching staff, which proved woefully inadequate, and Brodie Van Wagenen did a poor job of juggling the useful pieces the Mets did possess.

Analyze This

Just in case you thought there was one correct way to successfully integrate analytics into running a baseball team, that's apparently not the case. A couple of days ago, I was reading a terrific piece in The Athletic by Brittany Ghiroli and Eno Sarris about how teams were using the position of quality control or quality assurance coach to maximize their use of data:

Welcome to the Dynasty

Who needs George Springer?
I'm Albert Freaking Almora!

Now that the Mets have added Albert Almora Jr, I think that most of us can agree that the future dynasty is complete. Okay, so maybe that was a bit of an overstatement but, at least to me, it was a decent signing. He was once a #6 overall pick in the amateur draft. It doesn't seem likely that he'll ever play up to that level, but if he could bounce back to the level he was at from 2016-2018, he could be a decent bench player for the Mets. There's a little more upside there than with Guillermo Heredia, who's my leading candidate to be replaced on the 40-man, despite the preponderance of pitching on the roster. As I mentioned yesterday, 26 of the 40 spots are currently occupied by hurlers. Barring trades, some of these pitchers are likely to go before opening day, but right now it seems like Heredia is superfluous, although they might want to keep him around into spring training for some OF depth.