Are we sleeping on this year's New York Mets?
At this time last year, the Mets were the darlings of a historically stagnant offseason. The top two players on the free-agent market -- Bryce Harper and Manny Machado -- had yet to sign. The trade that sent star catcher J.T. Realmuto to the Phillies had yet to come together. The Mets aside, the closest thing to a blockbuster move we'd seen was the deal that sent Paul Goldschmidt to the Cardinals.
In that context, the Mets' offseason was positively frenzied. They hired a new general manager in former agent Brodie Van Wagenen. Van Wagenen swung a deal with the Mariners, sending Jarred Kelenic, Gerson Bautista, Jay Bruce, Justin Dunn and Anthony Swarzak to Seattle for a couple of proven veterans in Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz. Cano was the leading hitter of the decade (by hits) and Diaz had just won the Mariano Rivera Award as the American League's top reliever. The Mets later filled out the roster with other name veterans such as reliever Jeurys Familia, Rajai Davis and Wilson Ramos. They traded for more useful vets in catcher Kevin Plawecki and outfielder J.D. Davis. Later, they capped their roster makeover by signing infielder Jed Lowrie.
Coming off two consecutive losing seasons, the Van Wagenen-led offseason splurge created a lot of positive waves among Mets critics. In an industry replete with stagnation, here were the Mets ... actually doing something. A run at an National League East crown seemed in the offing, despite the depth and toughness of the division. The betting markets had the Mets around 16-1 to win it all, the same odds as the Braves and Nationals, who all trailed the Phillies' 10-1 indicator of undue optimism.
In the end, it was all about right. The Mets were better. They went 86-76, an improvement from 77-85 in 2018. They missed the postseason but hung in the NL wild-card race into the final week. They featured one of the season's great stories in Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso's record-breaking 53-homer campaign.
Yet it was a rocky season in Queens, one born of trajectory. New York not only failed to capitalize early on its heightened expectations, it more or less belly-flopped out of the gate, even after a hot opening week. The Mets bottomed out on July 12, the first game after the All-Star break, losing 8-4 to the wretched Marlins and falling to 11 games under .500. Their record ranked 14th of the 15 NL clubs, better only than those Marlins.
With the trade deadline approaching, a fire sale seemed likely, with front-line starters Zack Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard leading the rumor mill. Say what you will about arbitrary endpoints, but from that moment forward, only the Dodgers won more often or put up a better run differential in the NL. New York went 46-25 after reaching its nadir, led by a 3.48 staff ERA following the break to rank fourth in the majors during that span.
While the Mets more or less ended up where they should have based on preseason expectations, the way things unfolded was not exactly according to script. Cano hit .256 during the worst season of his career. Lowrie and Yoenis Cespedes combined to go 0-for-7 on the season, all by Lowrie. Syndergaard made 32 starts but lacked his former dominance. Diaz's ERA ballooned to 5.59 and for a while it seemed as if you could almost pencil him in to cough up a multirun homer during every outing. If not for Alonso, Jeff McNeil, the second-half emergence of Amed Rosario and the continued dominance of two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom, the fire sale might well have taken place.
But it didn't. The Mets turned things around fast enough to keep Wheeler and others around, though that might have been more a product of the offers Van Wagenen received than anything. The Mets went for it -- laudably -- and came up short.
This winter saw Van Wagenen again come out aggressively, with the Mets addressing Wheeler's departure in free agency and adding some rotation depth. Innings eater Rick Porcello and oft-injured veteran Michael Wacha were added to the mix. To address New York's defensive hole in center field, Jake Marisnick was acquired from the infamous Houston Astros. The bullpen was bolstered by the buy-low signing of ex-Yankees fireballer Dellin Betances.
And that's been about it. Since Betances signed the day before Christmas, New York has just gradually filled out its list of nonroster spring training invites, with former Giants and Red Sox utility guy Eduardo Nunez being the most recognizable of those names. Wheeler is gone, as is 2019 third baseman Todd Frazier. But mostly this offseason has been about gearing up for another run with largely the same roster.
The approach hasn't stirred much reaction, good or bad, outside of New York. The Yankees generated much more buzz with their successful recruitment of free-agent ace Gerrit Cole and are being looked at as the leading World Series contender that they are. The Mets ... it's been a buzzless winter. A snoozeful one. Which brings us back to our opening question: Are we collectively sleeping on the Mets?
As has been the case for the past seven or eight years, much depends on the Mets' rotation. DeGrom seems like a sure thing, but can Syndergaard become another sub-3.00 starter? Can Steven Matz and Marcus Stroman stay consistent? Will Porcello benefit from plying his trade in pitcher-friendly Citi Field?
The addition of Betances, who missed most of the 2019 season because of injuries to his shoulder and then his Achilles tendon, was a bit of a gamble. The Mets gave him $10.5 million, a handsome salary for a noncloser but one well worth the risk if he can return to peak form. It's a one-year deal, so the risk is limited. Betances could potentially team with Diaz, Familia, Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman to form a rejuvenated bullpen. Given the vagaries of bullpens, the raw material here is interesting. It would certainly help if Diaz stops hanging sliders in the middle of the plate.
But here's the thing about these Mets: It's possible the pitching staff won't have to carry them this time around. The Mets actually have a potentially elite offense.
OK, a good bit of that notion is based on my own projections, which love the Mets' lineup. There aren't a lot of analytics-based projections publicly available right now, but of two prominent ones, the Davenport Translations agree with my assessment, while the Steamer-based projections are more guarded. Those aforementioned betting markets have the Mets' over-under for wins at 86.5, just ahead of the Phillies but five games behind Atlanta and four behind Washington in their own division.
Let's dig into that haughty lineup projection position by position to see what turns up.
First base: After adjusting for ballparks, Alonso had a .928 OPS with 52 homers as a rookie. I've got him projected at a .918 neutral OPS in 2020, which seems reasonable. I'd peg that as a safe projection.
Second base: Cano had a .725 neutral OPS in 2019, the worst result of his career by nearly 50 points. In the three seasons prior to that, he was at .851. I've got him pegged for .785, which would be a big jump but still the second-worst figure of his career. However, Cano will be 37 this season, so improvement is far from a given. It's possible he's about ready to fall off a cliff. If he does, the Mets might need more from Lowrie than they want to count on given his lost 2019.
Shortstop: Rosario's raw OPS jumped from .713 to .804 from the first half to the second half last season at the same time his defense improved to the point where talk of him being forced to change positions died down. That was a driving factor in the Mets' in-season improvement and is a source of optimism going forward for the once-touted prospect. His neutral OPS last season was .746 overall; I've got him pegged for .762 in 2020.
Third base: Right now, it looks like throwback contact hitter McNeil is going to get the bulk of the playing time at the hot corner. Last season, Frazier was the regular, with Davis and McNeil both getting into 31 games at the position. Frazier had a .765 neutral OPS in 2019, while McNeil was at .907. I've got him at .847 in 2020.
Catcher: Ramos was at .759 in 2019. I've got him at .797 in 2020. Ramos had an .817 neutral OPS from 2016 to 2018. My system sees a regression, which is statistically reasonable. But he's a catcher and he'll be 32, so it's no given.
Left field: Davis was a bit of a revelation for the Mets last season after getting lost in the shuffle of a deep and talented Houston organization. His park-neutral slash line was .302/.363/.514 in his first Mets season for an .877 OPS. I've got him at .832 in what will be his age-27 season.
Center field: Marisnick is a glove-first player who hits lefties well enough to be used in a semi-platoon role. Assuming Cespedes doesn't suddenly get healthy and bust back into All-Star form, one of the bigger keys to the Mets' 2020 hopes will be for projected regular center fielder Brandon Nimmo to bounce back from a poor, injury-riddled 2019 season. One season after breaking out with a .909 neutral OPS in 2018, he slumped to a .775 mark last season. I've got him projected for .821 in 2020, which might be a little optimistic, insofar as an algorithm can be optimistic. But like Davis, this will be Nimmo's age-27 season.
Right field: Michael Conforto looked poised to become an MVP-ish candidate in 2017, when he put up a .939 raw OPS. He slumped to .797 in 2018, then was back up to .856 in 2019. During his five seasons, his OPS figures have been .841, .725, .939, .797 and .856. It's a roller-coaster trajectory. His park-neutral OPS last year was .841. I've got him at .880 in 2020, which will be his age-27 season.
So what you have is a lot of hitters who have put up big numbers in recent seasons, some of which have been somewhat overlooked because of the impact of Citi Field. What the projections -- some of them, anyway -- see is a group with a lot of established track records at the right ages to hit the upper end of their career arcs. Then you have Alonso, who, while topping last year is a long shot, is only 25. Rosario is only 24. Only Cano and, possibly, Ramos are on the down side.
The Mets certainly need Cano to hold as steady as you can expect for a middle-of-the-field player at 37. And they need to hope their pitching staff can rack up enough strikeouts to offset what looks like a brutal team defense. Yet there are enough quality hitters who are capable of putting up career seasons in 2020 that the Mets might well emerge as an elite-hitting team. They weren't far from it last season, finishing seventh in OPS+ across the majors. Looking at the lineup, there are no wild projections and simply no holes at any spot. At least with the bat.
It's an older team. It's not a very athletic team. But it's a good team, and as spring training approaches, there seems to be as much reason for optimism about New York as there was in late January of 2019, when we all pronounced the Mets winners of the offseason. This time, the actual season could be when the Amazings once again capture our attention.
Three little things
1. Ever since Jim Bouton died last year, I've had "Ball Four" lying out on the table in my office, where I keep books I'm going to read. I read "Ball Four," but it was a long time ago, and I wanted to take a fresh look. When it didn't seem like I was going to work it in, last week I decided to listen to the audio version. It turned out to be narrated by Bouton himself and includes every addendum to the original book that he wrote -- four of them altogether -- which flesh out Bouton's life and take you on a profound emotional roller coaster.
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When I originally read "Ball Four" it was way before I'd encountered sabermetrics at all, much less specific areas such as leverage index. However, reading/listening to Bouton's complaints about being used in unimportant spots while he was with the Seattle Pilots, that's what I kept thinking: Joe Schultz was using Bouton strictly in low-leverage spots.
That's something we can now measure, so I looked it up. And indeed, Bouton was about as low as low leverage gets when he was with Seattle. His average leverage index in 1969, before he was traded to the Astros, was an incredible .431 -- less than half that of any other qualifying Pilots reliever. It was also lower than any average leverage index I can recall encountering for pitchers who made more than bit appearances. According to Baseball-Reference.com, the only qualifying reliever last season with a lower average leverage index than .431 was Miami's Wei-Yin Chen at .390.
Bouton had an aLI of 1.393 after he was dealt to Houston, second highest on the Astros' staff. Houston was a fringe contender that season, so he was working in some key innings. So while Bouton came across as a bit whiny when he wrote about his Pilots usage in his in-the-moment, diary style, he had good reason to be annoyed.
2. Last week, free-agent shortstop Addison Russell turned 26. He's only a few seasons removed from being an elite-rated prospect, one who became a regular for the Chicago Cubs at 21 and was the starting shortstop on the 2016 champions. His OPS progression during his career: .696, .738, .722, .657, .699. While his defensive metrics have generally been good, Russell just hasn't developed at the plate during an era when production is expected from the shortstop position more than ever before.
Of course, if not for his indefensible behavior off the field, some team would have taken a flier on Russell before now. And I'd guess someone will float him a nonroster invite at some point in the coming weeks. It's hard to say what Russell's market would look like if not for his suspension for violating MLB's domestic violence policy. But from a baseball standpoint, his stalled development seems to have made concerns about the public-relations hit that would come from signing him almost beside the point.
3. We're getting into an esoteric area, but after finishing "Ball Four," I finally read Robert Coover's "The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.," about a guy who took the concept of fantasy baseball to an insane level. A prominent fictional player in the story is named Brock Rutherford, a historically great pitcher in the UBA whose son, Damon, is a catalyst in the story. Of course, the son is fictional as well -- fictional within the universe of the story, that is, so in reality he's doubly fictional.
Every time I read the name "Brock Rutherford" in the novel, the name "Blake Rutherford" popped into my head. The latter isn't fictional at all -- he's a pretty good outfield prospect for the Chicago White Sox, a living, breathing human being whom I will surely encounter in a few weeks while Chicago trains in Camelback Ranch, Arizona. When I see the poor lad, I will invariably think of the name "Brock Rutherford" and, I'm sure, I will feel compelled to ask him if he's ever read the Coover novel. It's a solid way to prevent relationship-building in the clubhouse.
Anyway, I tend to get hung up on ballplayers with literary names. Not fictional players -- like Roy Hobbs or Pedro Cerrano or Crash Davis -- but ballplayers who happen to have names similar or identical to literary figures or authors. (Remember Brett Butler?) Luckily, it's not a common thing. But there are two current examples.
One is reliever Jacob Barnes, whom his teammates tend to call Jake. At least they did when he was in Milwaukee. Barnes has entered a bit of a journeyman phase in his career, as happens to many relief pitchers. That name -- Jake Barnes -- is of course the name of the protagonist of Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises." I have never asked Barnes if he has read the novel, given the affliction of that particular character.
Another one I'm fascinated by: Socrates Brito. He's a former Arizona Diamondbacks outfield prospect who over the winter received a spring invite to Pirates camp. I've never crossed paths with Socrates, though I've always been enamored of the Socratic method. What does this player know about the philosopher? That's what I'm dying to know. I suspect what you might be thinking: Socrates was a person, not a literary character. But if that's what you're thinking, you haven't read your Plato.
In any event, thanks for listening.