No, the Mets Do Not Have a Good Designated Hitter Situation
Last week, I discussed the significant disadvantage NL teams will have if the universal designated hitter is adopted for this season and NL teams were then forced to compete with AL teams for playoff spots. I did the best I could to estimated which players might be the greatest beneficiaries of playing time and then looked at how their teams might be impacted. One team jumped out in a negative way — the Mets finished dead last, receiving no benefit at all from Dominic Smith’s increased playing time at designated hitter. I did note that putting Yoenis Céspedes at the designated hitter spot would put the Mets in the middle of the pack in the NL, though that’s still hardly what one might consider a good situation. Still, it’s probably worth a deeper look.
Before we start moving playing time around to potentially maximize designated hitter production for the Mets, let’s take a look at the team’s projections. Below is every player projected to take at least 100 plate appearances in the field (over a full season), how those players project in their expected playing time, and their projections based on 600 plate appearances. Note that the fielding column is at their position and a positional adjustment has not been applied; only their time in the field is accounted for:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | WAR | WAR/600 PA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff McNeil | 616 | 119 | 3.6 | 3.5 |
| Pete Alonso | 658 | 131 | 3.5 | 3.2 |
| Michael Conforto | 560 | 124 | 3.1 | 3.3 |
| Amed Rosario | 644 | 95 | 2.2 | 2.0 |
| Brandon Nimmo | 497 | 110 | 1.9 | 2.3 |
| Wilson Ramos | 422 | 102 | 1.4 | 2.0 |
| J.D. Davis | 504 | 108 | 1.3 | 1.5 |
| Robinson Canó | 504 | 98 | 1.3 | 1.5 |
| Yoenis Céspedes | 238 | 110 | 0.8 | 2.0 |
| Jake Marisnick | 238 | 80 | 0.3 | 0.8 |
| Jed Lowrie | 105 | 90 | 0.2 | 1.1 |
| Dominic Smith | 168 | 92 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
| Tomás Nido | 166 | 61 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
Overall, we see a decent team with seven players who project as average or better, two more who are pretty close, and a few more solid bench options. One player worth highlighting is Robinson Canó. The second baseman is sometimes mentioned as a designated hitter candidate in part because of his declining defensive skills, his age (37 years old), and his once-potent bat. But Canó would not make for a very good designated hitter. He was a below-average hitter last season and even with the slight bounce-back expected by the projections, he’s still a below-average offensive player. To provide further context, here’s what all of the players above would look like over a full season as designated hitters:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | WAR/600 PA DH |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pete Alonso | 658 | 131 | 3.1 |
| Michael Conforto | 560 | 124 | 2.7 |
| Jeff McNeil | 616 | 119 | 2.2 |
| Brandon Nimmo | 497 | 110 | 1.6 |
| Yoenis Céspedes | 238 | 110 | 1.5 |
| J.D. Davis | 504 | 108 | 1.3 |
| Wilson Ramos | 422 | 102 | 0.5 |
| Amed Rosario | 644 | 95 | 0.4 |
| Robinson Canó | 504 | 98 | 0.3 |
| Dominic Smith | 168 | 92 | 0.1 |
| Jed Lowrie | 105 | 90 | -0.3 |
| Jake Marisnick | 238 | 80 | -1.2 |
| Tomás Nido | 166 | 61 | -2.5 |
There’s normally a decently high standard for designated hitters. Last year, 17 players in the American League received a fair portion of their playing time at DH (at least 300 PA). Those players averaged a 120 wRC+, with a median of 126, and only six of the 17 players had a wRC+ of 110 or below. Pete Alonso, Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil would all make fine DHs while Brandon Nimmo, Yoenis Céspedes, and J.D. Davis would all be decent to average. Everybody else would be bad.
To get a sense of how to best optimize the situation, we can compare the players’ WAR/600 in the field to their WAR/600 as a DH:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | WAR/600 PA | WAR/600 PA DH | Lost Value as DH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pete Alonso | 658 | 131 | 3.2 | 3.1 | 0.1 |
| J.D. Davis | 504 | 108 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 0.3 |
| Dominic Smith | 168 | 92 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Yoenis Céspedes | 238 | 110 | 2.0 | 1.5 | 0.5 |
| Michael Conforto | 560 | 124 | 3.3 | 2.7 | 0.6 |
| Brandon Nimmo | 497 | 110 | 2.3 | 1.6 | 0.7 |
| Robinson Canó | 504 | 98 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 1.2 |
| Jeff McNeil | 616 | 119 | 3.5 | 2.2 | 1.3 |
| Jed Lowrie | 105 | 90 | 1.1 | -0.3 | 1.4 |
| Wilson Ramos | 422 | 102 | 2.0 | 0.5 | 1.4 |
| Amed Rosario | 644 | 95 | 2.0 | 0.4 | 1.6 |
| Jake Marisnick | 238 | 80 | 0.8 | -1.2 | 1.9 |
| Tomás Nido | 166 | 61 | 0.4 | -2.5 | 2.8 |
Pete Alonso doesn’t lose much value at all moving from first base to DH, which would make him a fine candidate for the swap except then the somebody else has to play first base. Dominic Smith might be better than his projections, but he adds very little projected value at first and would negate Alonso’s move.
J.D. Davis makes some sense, though as a full-time DH, he’s still below average as a player, checking in at 1.3 WAR. If you could replace Davis’ production in the field with something comparable, the Mets would have at least an okay setup with the DH. In the infield, Jeff McNeil is pretty much maxed out. Plugging Robinson Canó and Jed Lowrie in costs the Mets a couple runs. In the outfield, giving the playing time to Nimmo and Céspedes actually nets the Mets three runs, and they end up with an extra run in addition to Davis’ 1.3 WAR at DH.
There are a lot of different machinations we can go through. We could make Céspedes the full-time DH. We could spread playing time around among Céspedes, Davis, Conforto and others. None of the options give the Mets a good situation. They might not be worst in the National League, but they never get close to adding an average player with the extra spot and they don’t get anywhere near average for an AL team.
The Mets have a solid team with decent options, but ultimately they are limited in the same way most NL teams are. They don’t have an extra, high quality hitter just sitting around, because that doesn’t make sense for roster planning when there isn’t a DH. They also don’t have extra starter-quality players who can come in to replace a DH-level hitter in the field. They have some good mix-and-match options, but the projections aren’t bullish enough on them to make a significant difference on paper. For the NL that’s fine, but if they have to compete against teams in the AL — particularly the Red Sox and Yankees — they will be at a serious disadvantage.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
You’re overlooking the obvious in your article. It would make the most sense for Pete Alonso and Davis to be the DH most often. I believe this would be the case almost any time Dominic Smith is in the lineup. That would give the Mets a significant advantage. Also when Alonzo and Davis are DH the defense is upgraded considerably. This is the most important reason why the DH would help the Mets
Dominic Smith is projected to be worth .4 WAR/600PA, just barley above replacement level. Any benefit from having Alonso or Davis at DH would be negated by Smith playing a replacement level 1B. Additionally (relative SSS alert) Alonso is a better fielder than Smith, so moving Alonso to DH and putting Smith at 1B actually hurts the defense instead of helping it. Saying “You’re overlooking the obvious in your article” seems to imply you didn’t actually read the article. The most logical case I can see for the DH actually helping the Mets is if Cespedes is able to take the role on full time.
The thing that really stands out to me about this particular DH situation is that Alonso almost can’t play 1B (imo the only mlb-caliber 1B he’s better than defensively is Seth Beer). ZP^ pointed out Smith has bad ratings in a tiny sample (basically, he made 2 bad errors in a few games during 2018), but if you scout him he looks pretty typical at the position. And if Smith really is as bad as his projection, then you put Cespedes, Cano, Davis, McNeil, and Lowrie into the mix and see what sticks.
I’m led to a different conclusion than Craig. The Mets put together a faux-deep roster. So much of the depth was inaccessible under NL rules. Adding the DH opens the door to actually get some value out of all their parts.
Projections for a guy with such a small sample of MLB PAs and such a huge variance in wRC+ are mostly worthless. They’re just going to heavily regress no matter what, which may be right or wrong.
And by both DRS, UZR/150, and a basic eye test, Smith was a better defender at 1B than Alonso last year. Alonso is way better than advertised, but you’re incorrect in saying Alonso was better. For Smith’s numbers, you can’t just look at his defense in aggregate because he’s a garbage LF, and that gets lumped in to his DEF.
Great call out that Smith’s numbers include his time in left field. I missed that completely, and was looking at the aggregate
Meh. It’s a pain to get anyone who is above-average at DH because the penalty is huge. This is basically just an article about defensive adjustments, coupled with the fact that projections are predicting way too much regression to the mean for JD Davis on both offense and defense.
Alonso at DH or Davis at DH with the other at 1B basically solves all the problems.
Yeah it’s insanely weird that JD Davis and his projected 1.3 WAR as a dig are being called “below average.”
Dom Smith is a better defender than Alonso, so even if you just make that swap, the team has improved.
I think JD Davis is unlikely to be as good this year as last year. Dom Smith is likely under projected given his gains last year from solving his sleep apnea were never fully realized because he broke his foot. No one knows what Cespedes can do. Between those three seems likely that at least one of them can have a very nice half a season, but I don’t really trust the Mets to figure out how to maximize this situation either. As a Mets fan I too thought that they were in a better situation with a DH but looking at it objectively we’re probably over valuing the chance that they maximize this spot. I think it’s fair to say that they have a high variance of outcomes here. It is the Metsssss of course.
The one advantage I think the Mets have is that between Cespedes, Davis, and Smith, you have three players who have some proof that they can be significantly above average hitters. You don’t need all three to pan out in order to have a solid DH, just one of them, who hopefully would then cannabalize the playing time.
Of course, as others have mentioned, this assumes the siutation is managed correctly, and that we even have baseball to play…
I dunno I kind of think he’s a true talent 130’s wRC+ guys his statscast numbers are excellent and his fly ball percentage went up the last three or so much months of the season— I think he’d be a top tier DH.
I don’t have so many thoughts on Davis’ ceiling but remember thinking he was a shrewd pickup who had mostly mashed in the minors. He seems like a guy many expect to step back but like you suggest there doesn’t seem a ton saying he won’t keep mashing
There is very little in the underlying metrics to indicate that Davis is going to regress. Everyone says it’s going to happen but no one can explain why, other than he hasn’t done it before.
He’s not going to have a .355 BABIP again, so….
His xbabip was very high too and guys that hit the ball as ridiculously hard as he does usually have high babips and Statcast has his expected batting average higher than his batting average.
Every projection system sees his K rate ticking back up 2-3%, which would be more in line with his track record. His K rate was lower than anything in his career aside from rookie ball and about 2/3 of an age 25 AAA season in the PCL.
Particularly the Rays and Yankees would make more sense.
1) It feels weird to discuss Smith’s projections (and Davis to a lesser extent) without saying that sample sizes are small and that their 2019 performances were well above what the projections have, with both being over 130 wRC+ for the season. Obviously the projections bake in some regression, but how can we tell what is real improvement and what is flukey, especially with guys so early in their careers? There’s more variance potential here than is implied by just citing projections, and for what it’s worth, Davis’ statcast numbers were full of red, validating his 2019 to some extent that isn’t reflected in projections. Repeating their wRC+ numbers would be well above the A DH threshold for either, and probably more likely for Davis.
2) Wouldn’t adding 15 more DHs lower the replacement level WAR threshold for the position, since there’s now 30 instead of 15? Is that accounted for in your estimates, or are you just subtracting the defensive penalty? If the latter, then at least the wRC+ threshold would decrease, to the point where Davis and Cespedes are probably ok options by their projections. The whole notion of an “average” player seems like it should change if we’re add a new position to half the teams.
3) The DH is probably a mix and match situation, with the most obvious play being Smith at 1B and Alonso at DH against righties and some arrangement with Cespedes and Davis against lefties, depending on which guy needs to be hidden more and who needs the rest.
This exactly. Came here to say the same.
This article’s conclusion is based entirely on very conservative projection numbers, which are in-turn based upon very small sample sizes. This is then compared to existing DH performance which would naturally decline across the board if the rule was enacted.
Along w Smith and Davis, I’d add Nimmo to that list of young candidates difficult to project. He had a 148 wRC+ in 2018, and a hobbled 114 last year.
Let me just leave this as a reminder… the projection systems are good at what they do, and if you’re disagreeing with them on anything less than a Podhorzer level analysis, you’re going to be wrong much more often than you’re right.
“Zips has Dominic Smith at a 94 wRC+” is so much more compelling than “I dunno, I think he’s a true talent 130 wRC+” or “There are reasons to doubt the projections” or “He was a 130 wRC+ guy in 2019” or “Projections for a guy with such a small sample of MLB PAs and such a high variance are mostly worthless”
Sample sizes for the projection systems are not small, they have thousands of PAs of data. Sample size for Smiths good 197 PAs in 2019 is small.
Re: “The title of the article should be changed to “No, the Mets do not have a good Designated Hitter situation according to projections”…. Yeah, this is why we’re on fangraphs and not metsfan.blogspot.1990sbaseballfan.net. “I based my analysis on tested and refined projection methodologies” is better than “I have an opinion, and I’m going to share it”
Sure, it’s possible that Dom Smith is a really good hitter in the future, and if the Mets have to play a DH, they actually get good value out of the spot, but we’re talking about what’s likely, not what’s possible.
Smith was a surprise non DFA coming out of camp last year. Recency bias is powerful. That said, he had some solid if unspectacular prospect pedigree in the past. The projection systems certainly seem to think that a couple months of part time play isn’t enough to pull a guy’s outlook away from the DFA bubble.
I think people have bought into the narrative where Smith surges after getting treatment for his sleep apnea, a la Josh James. It does account for his improvement last year. Sure projections are generally accurate but there is a place for scouting knowledge
There is certainly a place for scouting knowledge, and while projection systems are way better than the vast majority of individual projections, they are certainly not always better.
But the times where individualized analysis is better are not “I think he’s good” or even “he was hurt last year, so bump up the projection by 10%”… they’re this: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/2020-pod-projections-yandy-diaz/
If someone wants to actually do an analysis of JD Davis or Dom Smith and then argue the projections are wrong, that might be persuasive. I’m by no means saying that its impossible that the commenters here are right (and that the Mets DO have a good DH situation because Dom Smith is a good hitter). What I am saying is that this:
“It feels weird to discuss Smith’s projections (and Davis to a lesser extent) without saying that sample sizes are small and that their 2019 performances were well above what the projections have”
is the opposite of the right idea… The sample sizes are not small for either player. It doesn’t feel weird to talk about the projections, it feels weird for so many people to be so confident they are wrong without bringing up the underlying inputs. The fact that the projection systems predict large drop offs should tell us so much more than 2019 wRC+ numbers, not the other way around.
@dknapp
Smith has 529 career PAs, about equally spread over 3 seasons. Davis has 634 career PAs spread over 3 seasons, mostly in 2019. Their sample sizes are quite small for accuracy of projections.
I made it pretty clear that my issue is the inherently higher variance on an individual level for these players given how little data the systems have to work with. Projections may be right, or they may be wrong. They regress to the mean pretty hard when there’s less individual data to work with, which is correct when analyzing a large pool of players. They will be right in aggregate. That doesn’t mean they will be correct in any individual case, and it’s always worth looking into where the blind spots may be.
Whether it’s Davis and his statcast data, Smith and his cured sleep apnea, or the most important fact that the samples for each are small (and in Smith’s case, scattered), there’s a lot of room for variance in either direction with these particular projections, so basing an entire article on a pretty flawed premise (Mets DH options being bad because 50th percentile projections say so, and not adjusting for 15 new DHs in MLB) is worth critiquing.
Blindly deferring to any projections without applying critical thought is the opposite of the right idea. They’re a starting point for discussion, not an ending point.
@ DLHughey
Re: sample sizes, projection systems tend to incorporate minor league stats as well as MLB stats. I have Smith at 3063 PAs over 6 years, and Davis at 2856 over 5 years. Those are plenty big enough for confidence.
Therefore, there is no “higher variance on an individual level for these players given how little data the systems have to work with”. This part of the argument is simply erroneous.
Re: “It’s always worth looking into where the blind spots may be”… I totally agree. What I’m trying to say here is that “He had his sleep apnea cured, so he really is a true talent 130 wRC+, and we should throw out all of the data before 2019, because he was suffering from sleep apnea” is bad reasoning, and it’s what many of the commenters here are doing. If you want to get into the statcast data, actually get into it with a line of logic.
1. His exit velo and launch angle trends indicate an xBABiP of XXX and HR/FB% of YYY. In addition, given his plate approach profile, I’m expecting K% regression back to his career norms by 1.5%, and maintenance of his BB%, given these inputs, I expect a 9.4% BB / 22.4% K / .323 BABiP / 18% HR/FB / 44%/16%/40% GB/LD/FB, all resulting in a .284/.346/.484 Line with a 112 wRC+
^^^^ Meaningful^^^^^^^^
2. There’s no way he’s going to BABiP .355 again. He had his sleep apnea cured. He used to have some prospect shine. He had a swing change. He’s in the best shape of his life.
^^^^^^ Not Meaningful^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you don’t want to or cant make the analysis on that level, just trust the projection instead of trying to make tweaks in your own brainspace (the can’t part wasn’t pejorative, there are lots of things we don’t have the data to analyze… like, for example, how sleep apnea affects hitting performance)
Also, the idea that failing to adjust the methodology for the effect an injection of new DHs would have on the replacement level for the DH position is a straw man. By definition, an analysis that looks at all of the new PAs that would be given to DHs will normalize for the new baseline being created… This is a relative analysis, where the Mets came out on the bottom when compared against other teams. It doesn’t matter what the old average was, because they still look to be on the bottom of the new average…
I’m confused enough at where this argument is coming from that I don’t see how to properly refute it… it’s obvious, right?
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that projection models are built on so much historical data that they contain lots and lots of guys who had positive anecdotal information or perceived upside versus injury risk or anything else. No one is wrong that an individual player can exceed projections based on anecdotal information, or even a hunch. That’s not the job of a projection model. Some people seem to be criticizing the model for failing to do something it’s not built to do. You get 50th percentile projections out of the model. If you simulate a season a million times, you’ll get 250,000 seasons that are a player’s 75th percentile outcome or better. The model is going to hit on more players than it doesn’t, specifically because it doesn’t go case by case and adjust up or down on information that is subjective or difficult/impossible to quantify. I would just lean towards a model when we know there are already tons of successful and unsuccessful injury/upside plays baked into the model that’s, in the view of some, underselling Smith and Davis.
Alonso becoming a full-time DH at age 25 would be pretty rare. In the DH era, there have only been 14 qualified hitters who were DH more than half the time at age 25 or younger. Most of them were not as good as Alonso and the few that were moved back into the field the next year (Eddie Murray, Jim Rice, Frank Thomas, Albert Belle, Carlos Delgado).
https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/season_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&as=result_batter&offset=0&type=b&min_year_season=1871&max_year_season=2019&min_season=1&max_season=-1&min_age=0&max_age=25&lg_ID=lgAny&lgAL_team=tmAny&lgFL_team=tmAny&lgAA_team=tmAny&lgPL_team=tmAny&lgUA_team=tmAny&lgNA_team=tmAny&isActive=either&isHOF=either&isAllstar=either&bats=any&throws=any&exactness=everymarked&pos_10=1&games_min_max=min&games_prop=50&qualifiersSeason=battingtitle&minpasValS=502&mingamesValS=100&qualifiersCareer=nomin&minpasValC=3000&mingamesValC=1000&c1gtlt=gt&c2gtlt=gt&c3gtlt=gt&c4gtlt=gt&c5gtlt=gt&c5val=1.0&location=pob&locationMatch=is&orderby=year_id&number_matched=1
Yordan Alvarez will be this year
Possibly Franmil Reyes as well.
It’s still a pretty rare thing for a guy that young to be banished to DHing
They shouldn’t take the risk of pissing off Alonso. Sending a young player (coming off ROY, no less) to permanent DH land will cost him up to tens of millions of dollars on his first big contract.
I’m pretty sure all the optimism is based on Smith being closer to his 2019 wRC+ than his projection. Considering his health profile, there is reason to doubt the projections.
Does Matt Adams figure into this conversation at all? The Mets signed him to a minor league contract in the offseason and with expanded rosters he might stick.
Is Céspedes actually coming back (and if so, with positive value)? Do we have reasons to believe this?
You have to think the Mets have Cespedes penciled in as a zero, with any contribution a fun bonus.
i’m not sure if it makes their situation better or worse but any “projection” for cespedes at this point is so meaningless that it seems useless to even use it as an input for any kind of analysis. he might be really good or he might be nothing
i also think davis is better than these numbers, as a hitter at least. i think the optimism has more to do with the mets having a lot of guys like this floating around their roster which gives them multiple draws at upside, moreso than any kind of median projection particularly favoring them
Yes…. but wouldn’t all players technically lose value inherently from shifting to DH (excluding horrible defenders)
Based on what I saw last year, I’ll take the OVER on the projects for Davis and Smith. I also think Cespedes will be better than this projection.
I’d take the over on Davis and Smith as well. Absolutely no clue with Cespedes. The thing that makes projection systems better than the eye test isn’t necessarily without flaws. People make changes. That is why they play the game. A projection system won’t automatically pick up on changes that you can see with your own eye. I’d always trust a computer more than myself across the entire league, but there are exception. There are always exceptions.
I suspect much of the optimism about Cano is rooted in the belief that an older/injury-prone guy who gets more time at DH will see his bat bounce back to what it used to be.
I also suspect that sort of thing doesn’t actually happen very often. He might bump up a bit, but I don’t think that 130+ is happening ever again.
You also need to factor in the DH penalty at that point (not playing the field)
The title of the article should be changed to “No, the Mets do not have a good Designated Hitter situation according to projections”.
Cespedes’ depth chart PA projection is 283. You have 238.
He’s the obvious choice given his health concerns, yes, but if he can play the field then it’d be Alonso. In this scenario isn’t J.D. Davis the first option to go to 1B with Cespedes in LF?
They could have so many moving parts that are unlocked with the addition of the DH:
McNeil: LF, 3B, 2B
Lowrie: 3B, 2B
Cano: 2B, 1B
J.D. Davis: LF, 1B, 3B
Against RHP:
C Ramos
1B Alonso
2B Cano
3B McNeil
SS Rosario
LF Davis
CF Nimmo
RF Conforto
DH Cespedes
Against LHP:
C Ramos
1B Davis
2B Cano
3B McNeil
SS Rosario
LF Cespedes
CF Marisnick
RF Conforto
DH Alonso
The DH Situation being good would require one of two things:
-a breakout by dom Smith
-or Cespedes being healthy to play at an above average level
If Cespedes is healthy it is obvious he will DH a lot. The OF options are not that great but it is obvious Cespedes can’t handle the OF every day after those injuries and a DH would mean he could be in the lineup instead of resting on the bench.
If neither of those two things happen the DH situation isn’t great but honestly only the Dodgers and Cubs have a good DH situation in the NL anyway (cards and brewers maybe could be ok too but not spectacular).
To me it is less the Mets have a good DH and more this lets them use more of their roster surplus of hitting focused players. This would let some players get more playing time to see if they can reach a higher upside than projections. If projections are right then Dom Smith isn’t worth considering as a useful piece, JD Davis is just an ok bench piece, Cespades is adequate at hitting but unexciting and Cano is just a money pit not a player. Some or all of this might be true but people need ABs to see if there is upside.
I agree. Also, this is an opportunity for the Mets to improve their very poor defense (ranked 28th by DRS last season) while also allowing their “hitting focused” players to get ABs and see what sticks.
Both sides are making a lot of assumptions. The regression for Davis and Smith at the plate seems quite steep, and I don’t really see it happening. I think Alonso’s regression seems about right, and it would surprise no one if Cespedes cannot hit anymore either. Cano is showing signs of regression, and we certainly shouldn’t assume he will improve, but last year he hit the ball much better than the results showed. The DH penalty to me seems quite overblown, and despite basically rewording what you wrote last time doesn’t necessarily make it correct.
I disagreed with you on this in the previous article and I still disagree, but much respect on doubling down and backing it up. Hopefully there’s a baseball season so the Mets can prove you wrong!
I think everyone is missing a major factor in thinking about which NL teams will benefit from the DH implementation. To me two things should be important (1) Production of the DH slot (which everyone is talking about) and (2) effects of pitchers no longer hitting (which no one mentions). The Mets have several really good hitting pitchers. The Mets pitchers’ hitting provided the most added value in 2019 (I believe the Dodgers were 2). Anyway, the Mets lost an advantage they had had by losing pitchers hitting which their pitchers were comparatively better at than other teams.
I’m seeing 345 PA – total – from Mets pitchers in 2019. Are any of these individual samples indicative of replicable skill level, or is it mostly just random noise?
Mets pitchers have been above average hitters (as far as pitchers go) for a bunch of years now, so I suspect there is some element of skill.
But the pertinent question is, what about once you remove decent-to-above-average-hitters-for-pitchers Wheeler and Syndergaard and replace them Porcello and Wacha (guys with no or poor track-records as hitters)? And while Vargas wasn’t a good hitter, Stroman is likely to be worse.
Again, I don’t understand the basis for asserting that given pitchers *are* “decent to above average hitters (for pitchers)”. Syndergaard has 251 PA across five seasons. If that were a position player’s PA, we would reject the assertion on sample size. 50 PA/season doesn’t conclude anything… that’s a little less than two weeks of a starting position player’s PT.
DeGrom and Matz have been consistently above average hitters (for pitchers) for their careers. Less so for Syndergaard and Wheeler (although I would agree that they are good hitting pitchers). DeGrom was a converted shortstop from college so it is not surprising that he is well above average consistently. Agreed Wacha has been average at best. Porcello and Stroman who knows what they are going to do. It would be interesting to see the hitting projections for the pitching staff but my guess is that it adds 0.5-1 WAR for the year, which is not trivial given that modest excess values of the possible DH options for NL teams in general.
I just feel like here’s where projections miss the mark. Out of Smith Céspedes or Davis, whoever is not hitting(or is injured) will simply not get the ABs. DH should not be a weakness for Mets.
That could be all three of them
Regarding Smith and Davis’ projections, I think they’re both being sold short, but more so Davis than Smith. I watched nearly every one of their plate appearances last year. Davis looked legit, his stats didn’t seem inflated at all based on how consistently excellent his plate appearances were and how hard he was hitting the ball. Statcast numbers backed this up.
For Smith though, he got a LOT of lucky bounce, seeing-eye hits. He worked the count really well and hit some legit home runs, but I’m not buying his AVG/OBP/SLG numbers at all as his true talent. Statcast agrees. I don’t feel like looking it up right now but I’m fairly certain I saw that his xwOBA in 2019 was only in the .320’s, which seems about right based purely on the eye test. His plate discipline and his in-game power make me optimistic that he can put up a wRC+ in the 95-105 range but he’s either going to have to get lucky again or make more improvements if he gets anywhere close to his 880’s OPS from 2019.
Also, Pete Alonso’s going to be a solid defensive 1st baseman. I’m not betting on him ever winning a gold glove but the main defensive mistake I saw him make last year was ranging too far to his right on ground balls that were hit right at the second baseman. Tim Britton wrote an article saying the Mets were aware of this. He’s great at making picks, he’s sure handed, I’ve seen him make plenty of athletic, diving stops, and his defense from 2019 was a huge improvement over how he was in the minor leagues so it seems reasonable to expect more improvements and adjustments in the future.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/29200646/universal-dh-power-rankings-all-30-mlb-teams
15th overall in mlb