For more than a decade — longer than Sandy Alderson has been general manager – the Mets’ handling of injuries has led to raised eyebrows, shaken heads, and an endless series of punchlines. Think back to the handling of Ryan Church‘s 2008 concussion, the battles over Carlos Beltran‘s 2010 knee surgery, the “angry bullpen session” that effectively ended Johan Santana’s career in 2013, and last year’s Noah Syndergaard mess, in which the pitcher suffered a season-wrecking strained latissimus dorsi days after refusing to climb into an MRI tube. Any Mets fan can offer you a multitude of additional instances, including a number of stretches where the team played shorthanded while trying to avoid placing a player on the disabled list.

All of that was supposed to change after last season, when the Mets dismissed trainer Ray Ramirez and set about hiring a high-performance director “to oversee players’ health and institute policies throughout the minor league levels.” On January 23, the team announced the hiring of Jim Cavallini with the title of director of performance and sports science; earlier, they promoted assistant trainer Brian Chicklo to replace Ramirez.

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Matt Harvey’s first appearance of the spring quickly became a punchline. Back on February 8, the New York Daily News‘ Peter Botte tweeted a photo of the 28-year-old righty throwing a bullpen alongside Jacob deGrom and looking particularly paunchy thanks to the way the wind blew his t-shirt. Even this scribe couldn’t resist throwing a jab to the midsection. To be fair, Harvey hardly looks like the second coming of Bartolo Colon, and four weeks later, with the Grapefruit League season underway, he at least appears to be a hurler who can help the Mets rather than harm them.

Granted, that sense is based upon all of two early spring outings against sub-.500 teams whose offenses project to rank among the majors’ bottom-third (namely the Braves and Tigers) when at full strength. Thus far, those offenses have been patchworks of established major leaguers and career minor leaguers, with the odd prospect thrown in — all still looking to regain their timing because, you know, it’s March (or actually February 28 in the case of the Braves outing).

Facing the Tigers on Monday at Port St. Lucie, Harvey threw 48 pitches over three scoreless innings, allowing two hits, a sharp double by Derek Norris, and an infield dribbler by Jose Iglesias. He walked Miguel Cabrera in the first inning after getting squeezed on a borderline 96 mph fastball with the count at 1-2. That was his fastest pitch of the day, but he followed it with three straight balls. He struck out one, 28-year-old right fielder Jason Krizan, who’s spent the past three years bouncing between Double- and Triple-A.

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Position: New York Mets Intern, Analytics

Location: New York

Description:
The New York Mets are seeking an intern to work with the club’s Research and Development team. The employee will analyze baseball data and use their findings to support different areas within Baseball Operations. These may include player development, amateur and international scouting, and Major League advance scouting.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct research in the field of baseball analytics and communicate insights with Baseball Operations department.
• Research, develop, and test predictive models to support Baseball Operations decision-making (i.e., player evaluation, roster construction, player development, in-game strategy).
• Assist development team in creating new analyses and tools and integrating with existing Baseball Operations web application.
• Write scripts for the purposes of data collection, automation, and report generation.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree (applicant may be a current upperclassman pursuing degree) or equivalent experience in Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, Operations Research, or similar quantitative field.
• Strong experience querying and managing data with SQL.
• Demonstrated experience using statistical tools and packages in R or Python.
• Strong understanding of baseball specific datasets (i.e., Trackman, Statcast, PITCHf/x) and knowledge of current baseball research. Please provide a sample of your work.
• Preference for candidates who have demonstrated experience building web applications in Python, Java, PHP, Javascript, etc. Please provide a link to the application and/or codebase (Github) if possible.

To Apply:
Interested applicants should apply through this link by March 18, 2018.

The Mets are giving Jason Vargas a two-year contract worth $16 million. The Orioles are giving Andrew Cashner a two-year contract worth $16 million. The Blue Jays are giving Jaime Garcia a one-year contract worth $10 million, and what’s funny about that is Garcia is probably better than Vargas and Cashner, but, reasonable people may disagree. Clearly, reasonable people do disagree. And, I don’t know, maybe Garcia badly wanted to play for Toronto. Everyone operates under different circumstances, and of the three pitchers, only Vargas was a 2017 All-Star.

Vargas, I guess, was an All-Star in the classic sense, in that he was literally on the All-Star roster. But Vargas isn’t an All-Star in any other sense. He doesn’t have a track record of being an All-Star performer, and very few people would recognize him were he just walking down the street. The Mets aren’t signing Vargas because they think they can put him between Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom. They know what he is. Everyone knows what he is. Vargas himself would understand he belongs at the back of a big-league rotation. That’s his talent level, and it always has been.

That’s not a criticism. The league needs back-of-the-rotation starters. The Mets in particular need reliable back-of-the-rotation starters, given their health problems, although it’s curious that Vargas is considered so safe even though he recently had Tommy John surgery on his elbow. All forms of pitching are dangerous. But anyway, Vargas is being installed to be a provider of half-decent innings. Let us now recall the season he had.

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The Mets signed Todd Frazier yesterday, for two years and $17 million. One interpretation is that this is evidence of how the current free-agent market has cratered. Frazier, over the past three years, has been worth 10 WAR, and he just posted by far his best-ever walk rate. Another interpretation is that this is evidence of how badly Frazier wanted to remain in New York. He’s already got enough money to live on, and this way he’s still close to home, with a starting job on a potentially competitive team. You might say the Mets are kind of caught in the middle, but that’s not as bad a position as it sounds. Teams in the middle can over-achieve. The Mets are in the right place to invest.

The Frazier acquisition does get in the way of Wilmer Flores‘ playing time. Flores has been a fairly good hitter lately, and he’s still just 26. Perhaps this is only a lateral move, then, but really, Flores can still play; now he’s been turned into quality depth. He’s a better hitter than Jose Reyes, and he can help out at first should Adrian Gonzalez or Dominic Smith under-perform. The Mets now are better and deeper, and, compared to Flores, Frazier’s the superior defender.

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As ESPN’s Christina Kahrl noted last week on Twitter, perhaps it is spending that is the new market inefficiency.

After all, who anticipated that Brewers would be responsible for the greatest free-agent deal to date? And tonight, another team in something of a no-man’s land has made its second splash of the New Year, perhaps sensing opportunity.

The Mets entered Monday forecast to finish 80-82. They’ve passed the offseason firmly entrenched in that space between the Haves and Have Nots, a space fewer teams seem interested in inhabiting. But with the addition of Todd Frazier, they appear to have paid relatively little for a player who can help at third or first base, positions at which Asdrubal Cabrera and Dominic Smith, respectively, sat atop the club’s depth chart entering the day.

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The Mets reportedly continue to look for infield help this winter with a view to improving their team for the 2018 campaign. According to Ken Rosenthal, three of the targets for New York are free agents — specifically, Todd Frazier, Eduardo Nunez, and Neil Walker. Pirates infielder Josh Harrison is a fourth. The cost of acquiring any of the first three is pretty straightforward: about $30-40 million, according to our crowdsourced estimates. As for Harrison, the issue of “cost” is more complicated.

According to Rosenthal, the Pirates want Brandon Nimmo in return for their versatile infielder. Superficially, that seems to make sense for the Mets. Nimmo is probably a fifth outfielder after Michael Conforto gets healthy. As for Harrison, he’d probably start. That’s a good trade-off for New York, right?

In one way, yes. But then there’s also that agonizing question every club is compelled to face when pondering the trade of a young player: what could he become? What’s his upside?

One way of answering that question with regard to Nimmo, specifically, is to focus on his process and look at other players who have a similar one. Nimmo is a player with a good eye, a nearly even batted-ball mix, and a certain degree of power. Also, his outfield defense looks decent. Let’s get exact about those facets of his game and look at other players with similar games.

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Here’s your daily reminder that a lot of free agents remain available. A lot!

There are probably a number of reasons behind the slowly developing market, and we’ve documented a number of them here at FanGraphs dot com.

Teams have devalued free agency more and more. Players are trending younger. The average age of a position player was 28.3 years last season, compared to 29.1 in 2007. As I noted in a piece for The Athletic over the weekend, pitchers and position players aged 30 and older accounted for 41.8% of WAR production from 2001 to -03 but just 30.6% over the most recent three seasons (2015 to -17). While Craig Edwards noted yesterday that hitters in their early 30s are generally still pretty good, hundreds of age-30 seasons — almost always free-agent seasons — have disappeared.

Teams have perhaps also learned to wait on free agents, driving prices down. The data supports that hypothesis: February free-agent signings have increased for three straight years and are likely to far exceed last year’s mark of 65 signings, the most in a decade.

Moreover, large-market teams are trying to stay under the tax threshold and reset their tax status, while more and more clubs are following Astros- and Cubs-like rebuilds and tearing rosters down NBA-style while collecting premium picks and clearing payroll space in the process.

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Hey, something happened!

Outfielder Jay Bruce has signed with the New York Mets, and FanGraphs readers nailed the terms, having collectively produced a median projection of three years and $39 million. [Give yourself a pat on the back!] Six of Dave’s top-20 free agents have now signed.

Notably, the ballots for those crowdsourced predictions were submitted before it was clear just how slowly the free-agent market would unfold. Since contracts signed after Jan. 1 tend to compare less favorably to the crowd’s projections, this contract should be considered a win for the Bruce camp, especially with the supply of sluggers available.

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The New York Mets’ 2017 season was a disappointment. Coming off two playoff appearances, New York dropped to fourth in the National League East, losing 92 games and securing the sixth pick in next year’s draft.

To their credit, the team didn’t tolerate the status quo for long, moving Jay Bruce, Lucas Duda, Curtis Granderson, Addison Reed, and Neil Walker in various deals. Add to that the departure of Jose Reyes via free agency and gone are five of the eight starters — plus the closer — from Opening Day of 2017.

Despite those subtractions, the Mets still have the makings of a potential contender. As presently constructed, they’d probably have a shot at a Wild Card spot. They’re closer than one might think to the Washington Nationals, as well. They’ll actually have to make some moves and invest in the team to make those jumps, however.

Part of the reason the Mets still have a decent chance of success in 2018 is because they retained their three best players. Yoenis Cespedes managed only a half-season’s worth of games but recorded a 131 wRC+ and was on a three-win pace in the games he did manage to play. A full season of Cespedes would represent an instant improvement. Michael Conforto, meanwhile, also lost time to injury, a torn capsule in his left shoulder ultimately ending his breakout season. If he’s able to return within the first month of the season, say, he can anchor the middle of the Mets lineup. At catcher, Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki make for a solid duo. Asdrubal Cabrera is back, providing competent production for a low price.

The departures last season also made room for two of the Mets’ best prospects in Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith. Steamer and ZiPS differ on the present talent of these two players, the latter forecasting average or better production, the former calling for something less than that. Add in Juan Lagares’s return to center field as a starter, plus useful contributions from Brandon Nimmo and Wilmer Flores, and the Mets have a roughly average group of position players.

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