There isn’t a lot to ponder for most teams when it comes to Wild Card starters. The Padres should start their best three starters. So should the Phillies, Guardians, Blue Jays, Mariners, and Padres. That leaves the Rays, Mets, and Cardinals as teams that have decisions to make, at least in my estimation. The Rays — well, let’s just say that if the Rays called up a sentient ham sandwich to start in the playoffs, we analysts would dig into Ham Sandwichson’s minor league numbers and try to figure out what they saw. There’s no predicting Tampa Bay. That just leaves the Mets and Cardinals.

New York Mets

Wait, the Mets? They have Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, backed by Chris Bassitt and Carlos Carrasco. They’ve already announced Scherzer for the first game; can’t they just run out deGrom and then Bassitt (or Carrasco) in case of a deciding game? Sure, they could. But they should — and probably will — get fancy by holding deGrom back, something I expect them to do should they win the first game of the series.

This doesn’t sound like a good plan offhand. Leave the best starter on the planet behind Bassitt, a man whose fastball can best be described as “adequate,” in a game where you could end the series with a win? That sounds too cute by half for a franchise eternally stepping on rakes. Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for the National League batting title that ended up coming down to the final day, Jeff McNeil emerged victorious, hitting .465 (20-for-43) in his last 11 games of the season (he was a late defensive replacement Wednesday, but didn’t hit) to finish at .326, one point higher than Freddie Freeman for the highest in the majors. McNeil’s final two weeks put a bow on a career year. He finished with 5.9 WAR, 16th among major league hitters and the most by any Mets primary second baseman save Edgardo Alfonzo, who set the mark with 5.9 WAR in 1999 and then bested it with 6.4 in 2000 (of course, McNeil also spent a good chunk of time in the outfield). He started the All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium, some 100 miles from his southern California home, and now his Mets are headed to his first career postseason. It’s a good year to be Jeff McNeil.

McNeil has generated his value with a set of skills very different from those of your typical modern All-Star or 5.9-WAR player. In a home run era, he’s been as far from a power hitter as an All-Star gets. He finished 2022 with nine home runs, including two in his final three games, making him just the third player in the last decade to amass as many as 5.5 WAR without clearing the fence 10 times. He hit 23 home runs in 2019, the homer-happiest season in major league history, but even with that outlier included, he’s still gone deep in just 2.3% of his big league plate appearances.

In truth, your 2022 batting champion is among the softest-hitting big leaguers in the game, ranking in the 12th percentile in average exit velocity, the eighth percentile in hard-hit percentage, and the seventh percentile in barrel percentage. Just 13 of his 477 batted balls this season registered as barrels: Read the rest of this entry »

Despite spending 175 of the season’s 182 days atop the NL East, building a 10.5-game lead by the end of May, and winning 101 games, the New York Mets lost out in the division race to a red-hot Atlanta Braves team that has played at a .696 clip since the start of June — and lost out via a tiebreaker, a 10-9 season series disadvantage. Now they’ll have to take the long route through the new postseason format, one that includes a potential matchup with the top-seeded, 110-win Dodgers if they advance beyond the Wild Card Series.

That can’t be taken for granted. Even with Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom available to start in this best-of-three series, all of which will be played at Citi Field, they can’t overlook the Padres, who can offer some top-notch starting pitching themselves and who beat the Mets in four of the six meetings between the two teams. Not that such results are predictive — and it’s worth noting that the aforementioned pair combined for one start in the six games (Scherzer in a 4-1 loss opposite Yu Darvish on July 22) — but they do illustrate the range of possibilities here. The ZiPS Playoff Odds pegged this as the biggest mismatch of the Wild Card round, narrowly edging out the Mariners-Blue Jays series, but with the Padres still having a 42.4% chance of scoring an upset.

Both deGrom and Scherzer looked all too human last weekend during the Braves’ division-s(t)ealing sweep, combining to allow five home runs and seven runs in 11.2 innings. If there’s good news, it’s that manager Buck Showalter didn’t have to send deGrom to the hill in Game 162 in hopes that the Mets would win and the Braves would lose, because that would have ruled him out of the Wild Card round had they lost. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t have any reason to suspect that Sandy Alcantara is a sadist or a misanthrope, but if he is, the next week will be quite entertaining.

Certainly the Marlins right-hander has caused no end of pain or suffering, inflicting failure and frustration upon National League hitters to a level unmatched this season. Alcantara’s strikeout and walk numbers haven’t been exceptional this year. Nevertheless he’s done the most important thing a pitcher can do — prevent runs — at a conspicuously high level; his 2.32 ERA is second among qualified NL starters. Combined with the staggering volume of his work (he leads the league with 220 2/3 innings pitched in a season when no one else has broken 200 yet), Alcantara is among the favorites for NL Cy Young.

That individual hardware would obviously be the biggest prize for a pitcher who’s done great work for a fourth-place club. But with two series left in the regular season, Alcantara could — if he so chooses — have a greater impact on the remaining pennant race than any other player. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets are the current World Series favorites, with 17.7% odds of winning a championship, according to ZiPS. They have a 76.4% chance of earning a first-round bye through capturing the NL East and a starting rotation fronted by Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. In an ideal world, Scherzer and deGrom would pitch every postseason inning, with the occasional Edwin Díaz appearance sprinkled in, because that song with the trumpet is quite a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, people are frail. They’re full of oddly shaped parts that break and swell and stiffen and rupture. Starting pitchers are more susceptible than most. They’re the four-note motif at the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: They come out guns blazing and then need a nice, long break before they’re ready to think about doing it again. Read the rest of this entry »

The chase for history is on, and New York City is awash with excitement. I’m speaking, obviously, of the Mets’ pursuit of the modern era record for times hit by pitch by one team in one season. Mets hitters have been plunked 102 times this year, three shy of the record, and have 14 games left in which to overtake last year’s Reds for the all-time lead.

The full list is fun, because two things immediately become apparent. First, most of the high historical HBP totals came in the past five to seven years. And second, whenever a team shows up that isn’t from the mid-2010s or later, it’s immediately obvious which historical outlier is responsible: a Craig Biggio here, a Chase Utley there, a Jason Kendall over in the corner.

The Mets are a more well-rounded lineup, with six players being hit by 10 or more pitches this year. No. 102 came on Sunday afternoon, when Pete Alonso took a fastball off the elbow, causing a benches-clearing incident and earning warnings for both dugouts. The estimable Ron Darling, on the mic for WPIX, sensed that Alonso wasn’t angry because he thought Johan Oviedo hit him intentionally, but because it was the seventh time in that weekend’s four-game series that a Met had been hit. In fact, he said, he couldn’t remember one time this season when a Met had worn a pitch and it looked malicious.

So I went back and watched all 102 Mets HBPs, and he’s right. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the Mets flexed their muscles by taking two out of three from the Dodgers — the majors’ top team by won-loss record, run differential, and most other measures — at Citi Field. On Wednesday morning they awoke to a new reality. Not only were they tied for first place in the National League East with the Braves, but they had to place Max Scherzer on the injured list due to an oblique injury on his left side for the second time this season; later that day, they announced that Starling Marte had suffered a non-displaced fracture of his right middle finger as well. The confluence may not rate as a crisis in Queens, but playoff races have certainly turned on less.

The Braves’ claim on a share of first place marked the first time since April 11 — and just the second time all season — that the Mets did not have sole possession of the division lead. By the day’s end, however, the Mets again had the top spot to themselves thanks to 5-1 and 10-0 poundings of the Pirates in Pittsburgh, running their record to 87-51, while the Braves beat the A’s to improve to 86-51.

As for Scherzer, with a chance to notch his 200th career win, the 38-year-old righty left Saturday’s start against the Nationals after just five innings, 67 pitches, and one run allowed. Following the final out of the inning — during which he got an assist on a routine groundout by Ildemaro Vargas — Scherzer motioned to pitching coach Jeremy Hefner to follow him into the dugout tunnel, then gave way to reliever Tommy Hunter to start the sixth. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — It’s not as though Jacob deGrom hadn’t faced strong offenses in his first five starts upon returning from four months on the shelf due to a stress reaction in his right scapula. He’d twice gone up against the Braves, who rank second in the National League in scoring and who remain hot on the Mets’ tail in the NL East, as well as the Phillies, who rank fifth in scoring. On Wednesday night, in a playoff-like atmosphere at Citi Field, deGrom passed his toughest test since returning, holding the Dodgers — who lead the majors in scoring (5.36 runs per game) and wRC+ (121) — to just one run on three hits in a 2-1 victory completed in just two hours and 19 minutes.

deGrom struck out nine while matching his season high of 25 swings and misses. He’s been so dominant in his limited 2022 action that it rated as noteworthy that he surrendered a walk and a homer in the same game; he had allowed just two of each against the 103 batters he’d faced thus far (1.9%), that while striking out 46 (44.7%). More on his insane numbers further below.

deGrom got the walk out of the way almost immediately, issuing a five-pitch pass to Trea Turner, the Dodgers’ second hitter, in the top of the first inning. He didn’t get to another three-ball count until his seventh and final inning, and didn’t allow a hit until Justin Turner singled past a diving Francisco Lindor with one out in the fifth. That one ultimately didn’t do any damage, but a hanging slider to Mookie Betts to lead off the sixth inning was another matter. Betts drilled it 415 feet to left-center for his 32nd homer of the season and his fifth in his past five starts. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Mets signed Adam Ottavino to a one-year, $4 million deal this past offseason, you could imagine how the move might work out for them – or not. To an optimist, Ottavino seemed like a low-risk gamble with prominent upside. To a pessimist, he seemed more like an aging pitcher in decline, especially after a mediocre stint in Boston. But you’d be lying if you said you predicted Ottavino would put up the second-lowest ERA (2.13) and FIP (3.07) of his career at age 36. You could describe the Mets as having caught lightning in a bottle, but that would be an affront to the effort Ottavino has put into sharpening his game, a feat not many players his age manage.

Let’s start with what hasn’t changed. Ottavino’s signature pitch, a flying saucer of a slider that abducts the souls of hitters, is still moving like it used to. There haven’t been any improvements made to it, because stuff-wise, it’s a near-perfect pitch, with Ottavino having pushed the envelope years ago. His two fastballs – a four-seamer and sinker – also haven’t regressed in terms of movement, and though the velocities on both are down, Ottavino’s success has never really been tied with how hard he throws. What matters is that he’s maintained enough velocity: At 94.9 mph, Ottavino’s four-seam fastball is a smidge above league average. In sum, his late-career turnaround hasn’t been because of an uptick in raw stuff. The major ingredients for an outstanding Ottavino outing remain the same.

How about pitch mix? I’m afraid you won’t find a satisfying answer here, either. Compared to last season, Ottavino is throwing his sinker more, and his slider and four-seamer less, but none of those alterations have been dramatic. They certainly could be contributing to Ottavino’s resurgence, but they don’t seem like the sole reason. This season, Ottavino has reintroduced his changeup, presumably to give him a backup plan against left-handed hitters. But given a usage rate of 7%, it’s not as if he’s been relying on the slow ball. And regardless, lefties are faring well against Ottavino, just like they always have. It would make for an appealing narrative, but in truth, the changeup hasn’t been much of a difference-maker. Read the rest of this entry »

As the Mets have battled to maintain their spot atop the National League East, Francisco Lindor has led the way. After inaugurating his time in New York with a career-worst season with the bat last year, the 28-year-old shortstop has kicked off the start of his 10-year, $341 million contract with a campaign worthy of a spot in MVP discussions.

Lindor had the chance to play the hero on Tuesday night in the Bronx. For as well as Frankie Montas and Clarke Schmidt pitched in the Subway Series finale, the game could have easily swung the other direction at the end. Trailing 4-2 and down to their final out, the Mets loaded the bases against Schmidt, who had already completed three strong innings of relief. Up came Lindor, who over his previous eight games had collected 13 hits (a 263-hit pace!) but on this night had merely walked twice (on a total of 15 pitches) in four plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »