A few months back, Jeff Sullivan asked me what type of baseball dork I am. A big one, is probably the answer, but Jeff was inquiring on a more specific level. He asked: hitting or pitching? I answered: defense. It’s what I was best at when I played the game. It’s what my favorite players did best growing up. It’s the area of the game, analytically speaking, which most interests me. I derive more pleasure doing deep dives on defense in cases of dissenting opinion — talking about guys like Eric Hosmer, Jose Iglesias, or Jay Bruce — probably moreso than any other type of post I write. This won’t be a super deep dive. This is more of an observation, some video, and maybe a few chuckles. With Bartolo Colon, there’s always some chuckles. We’re all Bartolo Colon dorks.

Because I’m a defense dork, I hand out my own Gold Glove Awards at the end of each year, which really are just the numbers’ Gold Glove Awards, because all the different defensive metrics in one is all I use for those posts. And so, because I do that at the end of each season for the posts, I often find myself doing it at the midway point of each season, as well, just to see. I bring this up because I just did it, and that’s why this post exists. Because here’s how the pitchers currently grade out:

Total Defensive Runs, Pitchers

1. Bartolo Colon, +3.8 runs saved
2. Zack Greinke, +3.6
3. Dallas Keuchel, +3.2
4. Tyler Chatwood, +3.0
5. Justin Verlander, +2.9

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You’ll hear some hitters say that you can’t cover both the inside and the outside parts of the plate at the same time. We heard Marcus Semien talk about the difficulty both of being able to pull for power and also take the outside pitches to the opposite field just last week. And, to some extent, the high and low fastballs require different swings that suit different players. Brandon Moss told us about his problems with high fastballs, and Brian Dozier admitted that his swing was better against the high cheese.

It stands to reason — at least for the benefit of our exploration today — that a balanced hitter would be one who could handle pitches in all four quadrants. They would produce good results against high fastballs, low fastballs, inside fastballs, and outside fastballs. Conveniently, that sounds like something we can measure.

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Three seasons ago, Matt Harvey was one of the best pitchers in all of major-league baseball. Over 26 starts, his 2.00 FIP was the best among all starters. His 2.27 ERA placed behind only Clayton Kershaw and Jose Fernandez’s marks by that measure. Despite a relative deficit of innings, Harvey’s 6.5 WAR was third among pitchers behind only Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright.

The reason for that low-ish innings total? A partially torn UCL that ended Harvey’s season in August and ultimately required Tommy John surgery. Rehab kept Harvey off the mound for the entire 2014 campaign, as well, but he came back strong in 2015, posting a 2.71 ERA (82 ERA-) and 3.05 FIP (80 FIP-), and proved instrumental in getting the New York Mets into the World Series.

The 2016 campaign has been an up-and-down one for Harvey — and will feature much more down than up going forward, as reports indicate that the right-hander will undergo surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome. For the Mets, the loss of Harvey is a threat to their postseason odds. For Harvey himself, it’s a threat to his career.

On May 20, Eno Sarris wondered, What’s Wrong with Matt Harvey? His conclusion: that maybe the slider wasn’t quite as good as it had been, by movement or location, and that a little bit of work on that pitch might right the ship. For a time after that, Harvey appeared to have gotten things in order. In five starts beginning May 30, Harvey went at least six innings in every start, striking out 25 against five walks with a 2.25 ERA and 2.08 FIP. His strikeouts were down a bit from last year in that stretch (25% to 21%), but his walks also decreased (7% to 4%).

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Let’s face it: As the Mets go, there’s no shortage of things to worry about. The team overall remains in a decent position, but now there’s concern regarding two pitchers’ elbows. Meanwhile, Matt Harvey still doesn’t quite look like himself. David Wright is probably done for the year. And the lineup just isn’t producing runs. Injuries haven’t helped, and Michael Conforto’s collapse didn’t help, but the pitchers are getting so little margin of error. Things in New York are frequently tense. They’re tense today. It feels a little like last season, before the season turned beautiful.

I can’t say anything about Steven Matz. I can’t say anything about Noah Syndergaard. I can’t say much about the various injuries, or about Conforto’s chances of getting it going. I don’t know where the Mets are going to go, and their struggles have helped open the door for the Marlins. What I can say is this: Offensively speaking, the Mets have been impossibly unclutch. It shouldn’t continue like this. Of course, what’s done is done.

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Michael Conforto was supposed to be one of the Mets’ top run producers this year. After storming through the minors last year, the 2014 draftee wound up being a crucial part of his team’s run to the World Series last year. The year 2016 hasn’t been as kind to him, however, which prompted the Mets to send him back to the minor leagues. In his place, they called up another young outfielder: Brandon Nimmo.

If you feel you’ve been hearing about Nimmo for a while, it’s probably because you have. The Mets drafted Nimmo in the first round out of high school way back in 2011: a time long, long ago, when Mike Trout was still in the minors and Matt Kemp was in the midst of an eight-win season. Although he’s been around awhile, Nimmo turned just 23 in March, making him younger than Conforto.

Based on his early performances in the Mets’ system, Nimmo looked like something of a bust. He hit just .259/.382/.374 over roughly 300 games the low minors from 2011 to -13, and then proceeded to hit a miserable .202/.306/.238 in the Arizona Fall League. Most concerning of all, he was striking out in over one-fourth of his trips to the plate.

But once the calendar turned to 2014, Nimmo began living up to his first-round draft pedigree. He broke out in a big way when he slashed .322/.448/.458 in his half-season in High-A. He came back to earth a bit following a promotion to Double-A, but still managed to put up solid numbers across the board, all while keeping his strikeout rate under 20%.

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On Saturday, the New York Mets announced that the team was demoting struggling outfielder Michael Conforto, optioning him to Triple-A Las Vegas. On one hand, the Mets’ decision to send Conforto to the minors wasn’t particularly surprising, as the second-year player had been in the midst of a deep slump, hitting just .148/.217/.303 since May 1.

On the other hand, however, the timing of Conforto’s demotion was potentially a bit controversial in a different respect. As ESPN’s Keith Law noted on Saturday:

Conforto just had a cortisone shot for cartilage damage in his wrist. He may have a grievance over this option. https://t.co/cvxOrpHVWC

— keithlaw (@keithlaw) June 25, 2016

Indeed, Conforto reportedly was given a cortisone shot on Tuesday, June 14 to treat strained cartilage in his ailing left wrist.

This is potentially significant because Article XIX(C)(1) of Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement forbids teams from sending injured major-league players to the minor leagues. As the provision clearly states, “Players who are injured and not able to play may not be assigned to a Minor League club.” Instead, the CBA requires clubs to place injured major-league players on the major-league disabled list.

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Five weeks before the trade deadline, contenders are starting to ramp up discussions on moves that would bolster their rosters for the stretch run, but this year, there’s a wrinkle. For teams looking to add an offensive upgrade, there’s also a free agent to consider: Cuban superstar Yulieski Gourriel. The infielder was the country’s best hitter before he and his brother left the country in pursuit of Major league jobs, and MLB recently cleared him to sign on and get his career underway. Instead of giving up talent from their farm system, a team could simply spend money to add Gourriel, and the ability to upgrade with budget room only has to appeal to a number of clubs.

But, of course, the question will be how much money the 32 year old Gourriel is going to cost. Every team would take him if the price was low enough, but because of the high incentives for large-revenue teams to spend on international free agents, Cuban players have increasingly been getting significant guarantees. And, unfortunately for Gourriel, the last batch of players to cash in after leaving the island have been a miserable failure.

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Heading into the season, the Mets plan to repeat as National League champions seemed pretty obvious; they were going to beat their opponents with elite starting pitching and an above average offense, hoping those strengths would outweigh their defensive deficiencies and a just-okay bullpen. It was a solid enough plan, and based on their depth chart on Opening Day, we gave them a 51% chance to win the division and a 78% chance to make the postseason. And mostly, those things have played out as expected. The rotation has been fantastic, ranking second best in baseball to this point. The bullpen has been fine, with occasional lapses. The defense has been bad.

But one part of the formula hasn’t really gone according to plan yet; that productive offense hasn’t really come to fruition. To this point, the offense has been a little bit below average, ranking right in the middle of the pack in wRC+ while costing themselves some runs with relatively poor baserunning. And on top of that, the team has distributed their hits in a highly inefficient way, so despite an expected 4.2 runs per game based on their BaseRuns inputs, they are only scoring 3.7 runs per game, third-worst in the majors.

Certainly, health has been part of the problem. First, Travis d’Arnaud went on the DL at the end of April. Then in May, it was Wilmer Flores and and Lucas Duda. June brought David Wright’s DL stint, and more recently, news that he’ll require back surgery that may sideline him for the rest of the season. The infield has ended up as a patchwork group, and with Michael Conforto and Alejandro de Aza not hitting as well as expected, the outfield hasn’t been able to carry the load. And so now, the team is openly talking about making more additions, and not waiting until the trade deadline to do so.

“I think we might need to do something before,” Wilpon said Monday at the Harlem RBI fundraiser in Manhattan. “The deadline is still four, six weeks away. We’ve got to start playing better baseball now.”

Thankfully for the Mets, identifying a potential spot to upgrade is pretty easy. They’re not going to add an outfielder, most likely, given that group is already crowded, and Conforto and de Aza can both be expected to improve in the second half. Neil Walker has been good at second base, and Asdrubal Cabrera is a good enough player at shortstop to not require a replacement. So, the team is left with just the corner infield spots or behind the plate if they want to upgrade the offense.

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Dillon Gee isn’t a Met anymore. Nor is he a starter (at least not as his primary role). The 30-year-old right-hander is working out of the bullpen in his first season with the Royals. No longer needed in New York, he inked a free-agent deal with Kansas City over the winter.

Gee was a solid, albeit unremarkable, starter for the Mets from 2011 to -14. Then the deGroms, Harveys and Syndergaards burst onto the scene (the ageless Bartolo, too). That made it time to move on, and Gee is now a long reliever making spot starts for a new team. He’s adapting well. In 12 appearances for the defending World Series champs, he has a 3.98 ERA and a career-best 8.2 K/9.

Gee talked about his transition earlier in the season.

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Gee on transitioning to the Royals and a relief role: “I’m probably a better pitcher now than I was in my earlier years. This is just the role I have now. I kind of got phased out in New York. They obviously had some young studs coming up, and I lost my spot there. I had a few opportunities to remain a starter with other teams, but I chose to come here and contribute out of the bullpen for a winning team.

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There’s a funny thing about this line of work. We have access to information, so much information, an increasing amount of information, and it allows us to break down almost every single aspect of player performance. Want to know how a pitcher’s fastball has moved? Easy. Want to know where a batter hits groundballs against sliders? No problem. Interested in where outfielders are positioned with a lefty spray hitter at the plate? That’s becoming possible. So much is possible. An incredible amount is possible. Yet we still don’t know anything about what’s most important. If a player is locked in, he stands a chance. If he’s preoccupied, because, say, he got in an argument, or he thinks he left the oven on, he’s probably going to struggle, for no visible reason. You’re worse at what you do when you’re distracted, or when you’re frustrated. There aren’t any numbers for that.

Michael Conforto is in a slump. It’s a bad one, too, and Conforto feels it, and it happens to be taking place when the Mets are somewhat desperate for offense. That doesn’t help the stress, and maybe stress is the real problem. In baseball terms, he could be pressing. There’s no way for us to analyze that. What we can say for sure: In April, Conforto was the second-most productive hitter in the game. Granted, he was behind only Aledmys Diaz, so, April is weird. But since then, the wRC+ has dropped to 42. He’s struck out almost a third of the time. He’s chasing. The Mets don’t think it’s anything mechanical, and they’re prepared to let Conforto play out of this. I assume, at some point, he will. That doesn’t help the slump today. Conforto still feels the weight of his responsibility.

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