2020 ZiPS Projections: New York Mets

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Mets.

Batters

They took a winding road to get there, but the Mets’ core offensive talent is all on the 25-man, all still under 30, and generally speaking, are all free from odd playing time restrictions once due to the presence of inferior veterans at their same positions. Jake Marisnick will likely get a lot of time in center, but given that Brandon Nimmo is coming off of injury, having Marisnick on the roster is smart; he’s a capable fourth outfielder and not famous enough or well paid enough that a healthy Nimmo won’t be able to wrest away the lion’s share of the playing time.

ZiPS didn’t like what it saw in Robinson Canó’s 2019; he now projects as one of the team’s weaker players, but there isn’t an obvious replacement at the moment. Jed Lowrie is still hanging around, at least until the Mets convince someone to take his contract (which is unlikely given the plethora of 1.5 WAR middle infielders still available), but his health is still iffy and he’d have to be clearly better to take Canó’s job. I don’t believe he is. Sadly, Canó no longer projects to finish with 3000 hits, though he’s likely already wrapped up his Hall of Fame candidacy in any case.

Pitchers

A Jacob deGrom–Noah Syndergaard–Marcus Stroman top of the rotation is a top three that can compete with that of any team in the majors. I’m not sure if the Mets have truly given up their strange dream to trade Thor, but as of right now, he’s a Met and that’s where he’s being projected. The Mets have at least six major league-caliber starters with the additions of Michael Wacha and Rick Porcello. The conventional wisdom is that Steven Matz is the odd man out one or the other, but I’m not convinced that’s the case. Now, Matz may very well be traded this winter, but I’m not sure it’s a given that he’s the one sent to the bullpen if he’s still a Met in April. I know Wacha joined the team with the intention of being a starter, but he’s also coming off injuries and a $3 million salary typically isn’t enough to have much leverage over what position you actually play.

The best news here is that ZiPS is projecting bounce-back seasons for Edwin Díaz and Jeurys Familia. Diaz looked awful in 2019, but who doesn’t look awful when allowing 2.33 HR/9 and a .377 BABIP? Based on the advanced hit data, ZiPS doesn’t think Díaz ought to have fared this poorly in either stat last season. After Díaz, it’s not the flashiest bunch, but the computer thinks they’ll far exceed their miserable 0.7 WAR from 2019, which was 24th in baseball and last among the contending teams.

Prospects

One problem for the Mets is that they don’t have a lot of short-term depth in the upper minors as injury replacements. That’s partially why they’ve been a Who’s Who of washed up outfielders at Triple-A the last few years. ZiPS doesn’t think Luis Guillorme will do much to force a change at second base, and doesn’t believe Andrés Giménez’s bat is quite ready, despite a glove that projects as above-average. Ronny Mauricio is farther off, and the computer doesn’t really have much to say about him at this point, but no matter what, it’s unlikely he shoots up to the majors in 2020. Of course, I said that about Juan Soto once!

The one prospect ZiPS is excited about in the short-term is David Peterson, the big lefty sinkerballer drafted in the first round in 2017. ZiPS thinks that Peterson is already in the same tier as Wacha or Porcello, but given that the Mets are likely contenders in 2020, it would be reasonable to expect the team to go with their most established players, rather than have Peterson adjust to the majors in games that matter. Like Porcello and Stroman, Peterson’s numbers are likely to be sensitive to the Mets infield defense, which will improve by having less of J.D. Davis in it.

He’s not really a prospect, but the Mets still seem inclined to let Tim Tebow get time in the upper minors for some reason, and they haven’t slammed the door on the possibility of actually giving him some kind of playing time in the majors. zDEF thinks that Tebow has improved defensively — my system estimated him at a ludicrously awful -25 runs in left field in 2017, the worst in my database — but he’s never done enough offensively to doubt the scouts who think he doesn’t have the skillset to contribute at the major league level. At least the Mets don’t have a significant prospect above Single-A for him to block!

One pedantic note for 2020: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2020 due to injury, and players who were released in 2019. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in June to form a ska-cowpunk Luxembourgian bubblegum pop-death metal band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article.