Elegy for ’18 – New York Mets
(Photo: Arturo Pardavila III)
Some fanbases regard themselves as the best in baseball. Others pride themselves on their ability to hate anything, including Santa Claus. Still others are just a group of eight people cowering in the shadows of a creaky, nightmare-inducing home-run feature. But no fanbase does self-immolation like Mets fans, whose experience is one mostly of mind-numbing frustration peppered by only the occasional highlight.
That staring-into-middle-distance sadness is, of course, justified given the team’s history — and, more relevant to this post, the ups and downs and ups of 2018.
The Setup
New York’s 70-92 record in 2017, during which almost everything went wrong, was bleak enough to obscure the club’s recent success, including a World Series appearance in 2015 and return to playoffs in 2016.
As easy as it might be to forget, the 2014-16 Mets were actually a team of significant strengths, led by a group of young pitchers including Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard, and Zack Wheeler. While all five of those arms were never all present at once, the club managed to benefit from a majority of that group in 2015 and 2016 at various times. Plus Bartolo Colon. And who, besides belts, doesn’t love Bartolo Colon?
In 2017, the Mets got the typical deGrom season, but Thor only got into seven games, and the remaining trio went 10-21 with a 6.01 ERA in 245.2 combined innings. With the rotation no longer representing a significant plus, the club’s very average offense was exposed, and the team was sent spinning out of contention.
The Mets traded off a few of their veterans in 2017 but showed no indication that it was part of a larger-scale rebuild or even change in approach. In fact, they vehemently claimed the opposite. The problem is, in the winter, instead of an actual retool, they just papered over the holes with a bunch of 2015-relevant veterans.
Jay Bruce, traded to the Indians, was back on a three-year guarantee despite the team lacking an obvious way to get Bruce, Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Conforto into the lineup simultaneously without having to use one as a center fielder.
Also returning was Jose Reyes, a controversial player off the field without even having the excuse of being good on the field. To that group, the club added Adrian Gonzalez, because 36-year-old first basemen coming off 70 OPS+ seasons should absolutely be given jobs on silver platters in the spring.
Todd Frazier got the starting third-base job, the Mets bowing to the reality that David Wright was unlikely to be a starting player ever again. That represented one of the more reasonable signings.
So the Mets took the 2017 roster, slapped some old-timey paint on the sides, and hoped that with some good luck on the injury side, they could sneak back into 85- to 90-win territory and claim a playoff berth.
The Projections
The ZiPS projections were not terribly impressed with the team’s quarter-assed offseason makeover, projecting the team at 80-82 with a 17% chance at making the playoffs, just between the Phillies and Braves in the projected standings. While the Mets weren’t a young team with upside like those other two NL East clubs, the chance of the starting pitching staying healthy did give them some significantly sunny scenarios.
The Results
Everything went amazingly well… for two weeks. The team started out 11-1, sweeping the Marlins, Nationals, Phillies, and only dropping one of three to the Cardinals. The five aforementioned pitchers started games exclusively for the Mets until Jason Vargas returned from injury in late April.
Amusingly, this wasn’t even by design, with the team making Matz and Wheeler fight for a rotation spot with Vargas in the spring, and Wheeler only ended up receiving those April starts because both Vargas and Seth Lugo were injured. In late March, the team even hinted at moving Wheeler to the bullpen.
How the Mets used Wheeler reflects one of the fundamental issues of the organization. Wheeler has had an up-and-down career, but like Gonzalez, Vargas was just given a job, no questions asked, while the Mets showed casual disinterest in the player with more upside. It was similar at first base: you can be down on Dominic Smith, but the Mets just didn’t appear to be all that curious about what he could do.
As a result, a lot of the team’s high points from 2018 arrived almost accidentally. Brandon Nimmo had a .379 on-base percentage in 2017, but the Mets constructed their outfield such that Nimmo was able to get at-bats only when Conforto hurt his shoulder. In the end, an injury to Cespedes was required for Nimmo to get any regular playing time.
It took an Asdrubal Cabrera trade for the Mets to show an interest in taking a longer look at Jeff McNeil in a lost season. The abysmal Reyes, meanwhile, got an extended run at third base while Frazier was out with sore ribs. Peter Alonso hit 36 homers in 2018, and rather than let him get a taste of MLB pitching, the club decided they wanted to see if Bruce, sub-replacement as the starting right fielder in 2018, could also be a sub-replacement first baseman.
But there’s good news, too, in that — even if the Mets showed a bit of an old-school veteran obsession — they did play quite well over the second half of the season, going 38-30 (a 91-win pace!), largely by virtue of the core talent whom the Mets ought to be prioritizing. Conforto, McNeil, and Nimmo were the three Mets hitters with an OPS over .850.
On the pitching side of the equation, deGrom better be the first starting pitcher with just 10 wins to claim the Cy Young Award, with a 1.70 ERA and 8.8 WAR to go with 269 strikeouts in 217 innings. Wheeler actually had a lower ERA than deGrom after the All-Star break at 1.68 versus deGrom’s 1.73.
What Comes Next?
The good news for the Mets is that the team has a lot of core talent, but the question — as always — is if they can truly identify it and build around it. They arguably don’t even need to add another starting pitcher this offseason.
The Mets are a large-market team, but because of their ownership situation, they’re frequently run like a middle-market club that can’t afford to invest in players who will make an actual difference. The Mets are the type of club that strongly resists cutting bait on a Jay Bruce or a Jason Vargas, even when that’s the best move for the organization long-term. It’s a team that should be in the Manny Machado market this winter, but almost certainly will not be.
It’s also a team, similar to the Orioles in recent years, that doesn’t really know where they’re going other than not wanting to rebuild. Alderson’s health concerns left a gaping chasm in the organization, leaving the team with a three-headed front office of Omar Minaya, J.P. Ricciardi, and John Ricco — and ownership that is anything but hands-off.
Jeff Wilpon blamed the lack of spending on Alderson publicly while Tim Britton of The Athletic reported that Alderson wasn’t even allowed to hire more full-timers for the analytics department.
The Mets have talent, but they need a real plan and a GM/president/whatever with real authority to execute a plan. Neither the talent or the revenues are deep enough that the Mets can squeeze by easily with their current slapdash approach.
Way-Too-Early Projection – Jacob deGrom
Let’s just bask in all this deGrommy goodness.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 13 | 7 | 2.71 | 30 | 30 | 196.0 | 160 | 59 | 18 | 45 | 232 | 146 | 5.2 |
| 2020 | 12 | 6 | 2.81 | 28 | 28 | 182.3 | 152 | 57 | 17 | 43 | 213 | 140 | 4.6 |
That’s not quite a repeat, but those projections put deGrom in the top handful in the league. If the Mets aren’t going to build a team around that kind of performance, plus that Noah Syndergaard guy, you kind of want to see them trade deGrom to a team that will get one of the best pitching seasons in team history more than 10 wins.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
If they can shore up the bullpen, and if they move past Frazier & Bruce, they should win between 85 and 92 games next year.
They need a good bench
Both Frazier and Bruce are on the 2019 squad and heavy contributors, book that. The Wilpons have very very very rarely seen the good in admitting to a sunk cost.
This is one of the many infuriating things about being a Mets fan.
Tell me, other than the Yankees, which team admits sunk costs?
The Dodgers and Red Sox have in the past (Carl Crawford, Allen Craig, Rusny Castillo). I don’t even mean by cutting these players. The Mets tend to give playing time to players who don’t deserve to be playing because they are paid more than alternatives.
Regardless, I feel like you’re trying to bait me into admitting that this is a problem for every team and stop ragging on the Mets. The Mets play in one of the biggest markets in the world and need to act like it.
I’m an impossibly huge fan of the Mets and their approach to roster construction while ostensibly in contention can be infuriating.
The Padres have done a lot of really stupid things. But one thing they’ve done well is acknowledge mistakes, eat the cost, and move on. Thus they paid $18M not to have James Shields or Matt Kemp on the roster this year.
Wait, what exactly is wrong with Frazier? It seems to me that fielding a league-average-ish hitter like him at every position ought to be the goal — the problem, on the position-player side, was and will probably continue to be the abysmal hitters they play behind him. The Mets’ offense died this year not because they didn’t have stars, but because they played too many scrubs — because they didn’t have enough depth of league-average hitters to play when guys like Frazier got hurt, so they wasted game after game kicking the tires on aging waiver-wire veterans, playing Reyes out of nostalgia, etc. Bottoming out at average-ish production at more positions, for more AB, is exactly what they should want.
The Alderson regime seemed to sorta be trying to assemble a depth-based strategy on the Dodger model but never quite made it there; the Wilpon regime of course is to pick a few favorite old guys who used to be good and not even notice that they suck at age 36.
33, not Adrian Beltre
I’m sure he’ll have a nice 3 week stretch, but by year end, it won’t be playoff worthy.
Milwaukee went after Moustakas for a reason. He’s a better player right now.
Roger, while I agree with most of your points, I must say that Frazier sucked offensively. Not only for his terrible batting average, but his approach. When Bruce came back from injury, we saw him going the other way, on purpose! I remember a few Frazier moments of using the whole field, like the good ol’ days before he won the homerun hitting contest and now swings like he is trying to reach the moon, but mostly terrible at bats of swinging hard and not getting much. He is basically a #8 hitter and that’s a shame because he can be much better.
My point is precisely not that Frazier is a star or my favorite player or whatever — but rather that if the amount that he sucked were the worst that a position player sucked on the team, the team would’ve done a lot better. Sure, in some sense he “sucks” (and had a down year), but the guys behind him who sucked about 200% as much as he sucked were what killed the season.
The story for the Mets (on the field) going forward is the same as it has been every year since Alderson was brought in: can they build a good bullpen? They did so once, in 2015, and they went to the WS. 2016 was basically the same pen and they won the 1st WC. Seems like the starting pitching can be relied upon to be good next year, even if Vargas still gets innings. The depth behind the top 5 is thin, but most teams are too so it should be good enough barring a deGrom or Thor injury. Without a good bullpen they don’t stand a chance.
I think the offense will be untouched, perhaps a 4th OF will be brought in (who am I kidding they are definitely giving Austin Jackson way too much money and playing time) and they might sign a catcher, but if they don’t spend all their money on the bullpen then nothing else matters.
Mets had a better bullpen in 2014 than 2015 yet they finished under 500 in 2014 good try though
Mets had the same era in 2014 as 2015 yet they finished under 500 in 2014. Meaning Cespedes is by far the only real player on the team
Oh god, you’ve come over to ruin the commenting section on fangraphs too… You won’t fit in here, most people who read this site are educated.
The 2014 Mets started the year with Jose Valverde and Kyle Farnsworth in their bullpen. It may have ended up being good but it relied far too much on guys like Josh Edgin, and Vic Black. Just because their numbers looked good doesn’t mean that it was a good bullpen. The only holdovers to 2016 were Familia, Torres, and Goeddel.
The point is that Alderson never could quite build a consistently good bullpen and this year’s was a complete disaster. They gave a shot to many of the pieces they got back in 2017 when they sold off their pieces (and infamously did not eat any money to get better players) and none of them were good enough to be given a guaranteed spot next year. This is a failure.
This is a good summary from Dan: A team that has done a great job of acquiring young talent, but is so terribly run in other aspects that the young talent can’t even get on the field half the time, while having no depth to cover gaping holes when the young talent does fail or gets hurt.
I think the issue is that they view the young talent as the depth. In the recent rare Jeff Wilpon interview, he made a comment that “Nimmo did a good job when Cespedes got hurt.” This to me implies that he still doesn’t see Nimmo as a star on this team, and shows that he knows very little about the skill of the young players in the organization.
The blind veteran bias in this organization has always been baffling.
At least they didn’t trade Nimmo for Andrew McCutchen before the season. Likely Alderson drvien, but still, they knew enough not to make that mistake.
Yup. It’s an excellent recap. Spot on.
Sandy Alderson saddled the next GM with Bruce, Vargas, and Swarzak. Bruce isn’t a bad player but his continued presence impedes the growth of Dom Smith and Peter Alonso as there is no available corner OF position for Bruce.
That’s hardly “saddled.” Bruce can be moderately productive and the other 2 (and Frazier) are in last contract years not making a lot. None of these players should prevent the team from trying to improve the roster.
Any team that wins 78 games is going to have a 38-30 stretch or a 27-20 stretch that’s not talent. Cabrera the first 2 months played just as well as McNeil . When games didn’t count they started to play a little better
What’s your point AJ Watkins?
The 8 games over in the 2nd half was actually all in September. And you can’t really put a lot of stock in September results with 40 man rosters and some teams playing out the string.
So it is kinda hard to glom onto the ‘late season surge’ for hope. There is a good core here tho. But we’ve had that before and haven’t been able to support it properly. It’s really all about bringing in a solid baseball op head and giving him authority to operate. Not holding breath.
I looked at their schedule in Sept, and really, other than winning 2 of 3 from LA, and maybe you can argue winning 2 of 3 from Philly on Sept 7-9 (while they were still somewhat in the race), Dooduh is right, the rest of their schedule in Sept was against teams playing out the string (except Boston, who they lost 2 of 3 to). Atlanta had already sewed up the division when they played in late Sept (Mets won 2 of 3 from their old nemesis)
“But no fanbase does self-immolation like Mets fans, who’s experience is one mostly of mind-numbing frustration peppered by only the occasional highlight.”
I had something to say, then looked at my own handle…
I had something to say too, but it was about “who’s.”
Oh god, we all missed that!
Syndergard degrom wheeler and matz all pitched better this year than 2015 yet the team couldn’t even win 79 games. Cespedes is by far the only real player on the team
“Cespedes is by far the only real player on the team”
What does this even mean?
He means that all the other players on the team are fictional, like Mets great Sidd Finch.
It was amazin’ that the Mets did not sign Hanley Ramirez and try to play him at shortstop.
I suspect Juan Lagares is already penciled in as the starting center fielder.
Lagares is far from the Mets’ biggest problem. He’s an asset if healthy.
He is an asset when healthy. He has not been healthy in 3 years and next year he is 30. At this point he’s a nice to have but you have to assume he won’t be able to play and move on. That’s part of the Mets problem: they are very resistant to move on, and when they do move on they tend to do it the dumbest ways possible.
On the plus side, they finally cut bait on Matt Harvey, who of course started pitching better.
It is a very frustrating franchise. There always seems to be some 1962 in them. On the plus side, there always seems to be some 1969 in them as well.
No, there’s a lot of 1974-1976 in them. A team with a recent World Series in their rear view mirror, a collection of good players that got them there, but a lot of other meh players plus other weird “behind the scenes stuff” (like the whole Seaver debacle) and bad management (Rusty Staub for Mickey Lolich, anyone?) that drag them down
Don’t kid yourself they are giving 5 Mil to Austin Jackson and regular playing time
The Mets have appeared in three NLCS and two World Series in the past 20 years. Sure doesn’t *feel* like a true statement
The Mets are the ultimate example of boom or bust. Mostly the latter but the highs have been exhilarating until the inevitable crashes. They have also been to four NLCS series (99, 00, 06 and 15).
It is pretty much a franchise feature. The 1969 team came out of nowhere after years of really bad baseball. The 1973 team was a fluke that was not much different than the also-rans before and after. Until you get to the mid-80s the team was usually mediocre to bad with the occasional spike of good. When they finally got good in the 80s, they still managed to keep up the pattern by finishing 2nd most of the time. There’s simply no run of seasons where the Mets are just really good and make the playoffs every year.
I would say that a large chunk of the league can say they haven’t had a run of seasons where they are really good and make the playoffs every year.
That is true. But they play in NYC— should be better.
The Yankees play in NYC and steal the METS mojo the second it’s found most seasons.
“While all five of those arms were never all present at once”
Not true! They made five consecutive starts in April, for the first time ever, to much ultimately irrelevant hullabaloo.
in context…author was talking about 14-16. not this year.
Ah, you’re right. I’m sorry I jumped the gun there.
But you’ll always have improper contractions instead of possessives!
The reason for optimism is the core. deGrom, Syndergaard, and Wheeler should all be signed to extensions. I’d also sign Conforto and Nimmo to extensions in the style of the Rays and Indians (buy out arb years plus 1-3 years with options at team-friendly terms). I’d prefer to have a veteran 2B and use McNeil as a super-utility, a poor man’s Ben Zobrist. Get him 5 starts a week at 2B, 1B, 3B, LF, and RF. I like Flores there, at least I did before he came down with arthritis at age 26. Maybe re-sign Asdrubal? Having McNeil as a super-sub makes a deeper team. 1B should be Dom Smith for the first 6-8 weeks until Alonso is ready unless Dom shows up hitting. If both guys look good, consider trading one. If neither, maybe Bruce or McNeil. Neither is ideal but as plan C, what can you do?
Rebuilding the bullpen: from what I’ve seen, the best relievers have almost always been converted starters. I would convert Matz, who can’t seem to stay healthy as a starter, and re-convert Dunn, who seems built for the bullpen, adding to Lugo and Gsellman. Signing free agent relievers or trading for veterans seems fraught with bad results (Putz, Francisco, Swarzak to name a few recent Mets misses).
Converting Matz means you need a 4th starter. Someone like Morton or Sanchez shouldn’t cost too much.
Adding Grandal or Ramos would help immensely. I’d love for them to sign Machado, but don’t see that as a real possibility given the ownership. CF is still a hole. No great free agent choices and most good trade targets are on contenders. Could be stuck with Bruce, Lagares, Nimmo, and Conforto manning the three OF spots. Could think about trying to convert Gimenez to CF. Many SS have done so successfully.
I’ve gotten this far and not mentioned Cespedes. Huge x-factor, as no one knows how much healthier he’ll be after his heel surgery. Can he play OF again? If not, can he play 1B? Would an AL team want him as a DH? It would behoove the Mets to have a team that can contend without him. If you could trade him for 25 cents on the dollar in the off-season, that might be worth doing, just to clear up a roster spot and get some clarity around who plays where.
Just to drive home the theme of this article, on baseball-reference.com they still have the minor league photo of Jeff McNeil. By bWAR he was the third most valuable position player and sixth overall on the team.
Wrong to trade Degrom. The only bright spot of the team. Not worth going to or watching a game if He’s not pitching!
Another great article, Dan, but how can current Mets management be considered bad when they only have to exceed the level set by M. Donald Grant, who feuded with and traded (and was hated by, justifiably so) Tom Seaver, perhaps still the franchise’s best player ever?
Knobie, that was 40 years ago. Let it go!
A few other examples of their consistently making assenine decisions that weren’t mentioned:
In 2015 and 2016, they didn’t have a catching coach but rather left their young catchers to be coached by Tim Tuefel, a former second baseman because he was the infield coach and the catcher is in the infield. Talk about cheap!
This year, while having a player in Nimmo that was among the leaders in NL OBP, finishing second, he only batted in the top two spots in only 76 games. Too, he was sixth or lower in 42 games. That’s throwing opportunity out the window.
This article and the entire comments section to date has no mention of Amed Rosario. I find that odd. He showed improvement in the 2nd half and appears to be the leadoff hitter we need if he can keep improving on that .318 OBP through Aug/Sept.
I don’t think he’s a future leadoff hitter; that should be Nimmo. But he might be a solid 6th or 7th hitter. That plus good defense makes him pretty useful.
Just looked at Nimmo’s numbers for 2017 and 2018… with essentially the save AVG and BB%, his OBP jumped from .379 to .404 thanks to an MLB best (?) 22 HBP. Any Mets fans aware of what’s behind this? Does he stand directly on the plate while batting or something?
Yes, he hangs over the plate. He’s basically an outfield version of Chase Utley who’s not also a breaker of shortstop’s legs. Great player.
It sure seems like the core hitters found this season should win a few games next season if the pitching stays healthy. But, it will be a couple of more years before they truly get beyond Madoff and start spending like a true NYC team. Maybe they could pay off some more of that debt by trading DeGrom to a to a team that is really going for it now like my Nats.
Perhaps the author is a Mets fan, and so feels qualified to characterize the typical Mets fan’s experience as “mostly [] mind-numbing frustration peppered by only the occasional highlight.”
But he does not speak for me.
I became a Mets fan when I moved to NYC in 1984. From that year to this, their total record ranks 9th in MLB (.512 W%).
If that’s too long a view, they’re 12th over the past 20 years (.500). Still too long? They’re 14th in the past 5 years, with a pennant and another playoff appearance.
I don’t deny that there are many frustrations in the relationship. But those are consistently overstated on this site. I’ve been boycotting Fangraphs since this line of lazy cheap-shots began late this summer, and I’m not surprised that it continues — because lazy begets lazy, absent a concerted challenge to do better.
Some boycott
Zack Wheeler before this year had a career 93 ERA+ and an infuriating 10.2% BB rate. Even before the TJ surgery, it was 100 ERA+ and 10.2% BB.
Congratulations to him for finally breaking his nibbling habit in the second half. It was thrilling and deeply satisfying to watch that.
And congrats to anyone who actually predicted in print that he would be good this year. Absent such prediction, citing Wheeler’s “more upside” than Vargas is simply practicing 20-20 hindsight.
um wut? Vargas was the worst pitcher in baseball in the 2nd half of ’17. And at 35, he was predictably a poor bet to pitch back to mid-rotation levels.
While no one foresaw Wheeler breakout to this level, his upside was clearly more than Vargas’s given their respective career stages.