Archive for New York Mets

J.P. Ricciardi is part of the Mets’ collaborative process. A special assistant to general manager Sandy Alderson, Ricciardi is one of the decision makers, and the decisions have been savvy. New York – a club with a cleverly-sculpted roster — is in the World Series.

Ricciardi’s role is multifaceted, and in his own words, he brings a “more old-school” voice to the table. That may seem surprising to some. The 59-year-old was viewed as a Moneyball protege when he worked under Billy Beane in Oakland, and later when he was handed the GM reins in Toronto. He joined the New York front office in 2011.

Ricciardi shared his thoughts on team-building, and how the Mets go about it, during the NLCS.

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Ricciardi on the Mets front office: “What’s good about the group we have is that it’s all-inclusive. I don’t think any one person can take all of the credit for anything we’ve done, either the good or the bad. Sandy Alderson involves the people he brought in – Paul DePodesta, Dickie Scott, John Ricco, and myself. We’re all involved in the decisions. It’s never one person saying, ‘I was in charge of that.’

“We all bring something a little different to the table, Sandy is very analytical. Paul is analytical as well. I’m probably the least analytical – the most old-school – of the four. My background is probably more… I wouldn’t say I’m a gut-feel guy, because that can be a very misleading term. I’m a little more of a throwback in the sense that if I like a player, I’ll fight for him, even if the numbers don’t add up to X, Y and Z. Of course, if the numbers show that he’s clearly not the player we think he should be, I’m not stupid enough to say that we’re going to put a square peg in a round hole.” Read the rest of this entry »

Mounds are set to specifications. They need to be elevated 10 inches above the rest of the field and slope at a rate of one inch per foot over a span of at least six feet. The front edge of the rubber has to be exactly 60 feet, six inches from the rear point of home plate.

They may be the same, but they don’t all feel the same. Jonathan Broxton, Steve Cishek and Jason Motte told me that each one is a little different. Cardinals pitching coach Derek Lilliquist opined that they’re all the same, but then compromised his claim by saying “some can change your feel, change your mechanics a little bit.”

But again, they’re set to specifications. Motte told me he saw the grounds crew measuring the Wrigley Field mound as the team was preparing to travel to Pittsburgh for the Wild Card game. As Lilliquist put it, “At the end of the day, it’s still 60 feet, six inches, with the same slope.”

Motte also told me that “It’s not like you can do anything to try to gain some kind of home field advantage by giving pitchers an advantage, or a disadvantage.”

Why then the different feel? Read the rest of this entry »

I went to a baseball game in Oakland last night. This wouldn’t have any bearing on this article if not for this: I drove to the game, and in that 30-minute drive to the stadium, the Washington Nationals went from clawing their way back into some sort of contention in the NL East by beating the Mets to looking up October beachfront condo rentals. When I got in the car, there was the prospect of an interesting September division race. When I got out of the car, poof — that was all but gone. One inning, three pitchers, six walks, and six runs after the start of the top of the seventh, the score of the game was tied at 7-7, and all it took was a home run off the bat of Kirk Nieuwenhuis in the eighth to finally sink the Nationals.

If you follow either or both of these teams, yesterday’s seventh inning was an encapsulation of how the season has unfolded. The Mets have been one of the best stories in baseball; the Nats have been 2015’s poster child for the biggest gap between performance and preseason expectations. One of the most alluring things about baseball is how large season trends can play out in the microcosm of a single inning, and so the seventh inning saw a shift in win expectancy inline with the arc of the Nationals’ season, from spring training to today:

At one point, with two out and one on in the top of the seventh, the Nationals had a 99.2% expectation of winning the game. And, while late 7-1 leads are blown in games many times during the course of an entire baseball season, when they happen in this sort of context and with this kind of futility, it’s our responsibility to break them down.

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Michael Conforto got to the big leagues in a hurry; the 10th overall pick in last year’s draft is already wearing a New York Mets uniform. It fits comfortably. The 22-year-old Oregon State product is hitting a stylish .292/.375/.531, with five long balls, in 112 plate appearances.

Conforto flew through the system this summer, punishing pitchers at two levels before being promoted directly from Double-A. Hoopla accompanied his arrival and he wasted little time justifying the buzz. In his second game, the left-handed-hitting outfielder stroked four hits, including a pair of doubles. He did so with access to data never before at his disposal.

“When I came up, I wanted to use all of it,” Coforto told me on Wednesday. “I wanted to see the heat charts of pitchers, and the percentages of pitches they use in certain counts and with runners on base. Everything. I tried to digest all of the information, but it’s tough to put all of those things into your head and still hit.”

Veteran teammates cautioned the youngster to keep it simple, telling him “You didn’t have those things in the minor leagues and you still hit.” He heeded their advice, but not to the point of eschewing all available data. Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend’s four-game series in San Francisco between the Giants and Washington Nationals may be remembered as an important point in the playoff race for the teams fighting for the NL East crown. By getting swept for their sixth consecutive loss, the Nationals now find themselves reeling, four and a half games behind the Mets. Victims of their own sweep at the hands of the Pirates, New York can now look forward to better times, as they play no other NL teams with a winning percentage over .500 for the remainder of the season.

The Mets currently have an almost 70% chance of winning the division per our playoff odds; we predicted them to have a 7% chance at the beginning of the year. Crazy things happen during baseball seasons, and projections are made with the information on hand at the time — teams over or underperform; players get traded; young stars get called up early. The Mets now find themselves in a position that was viewed as extremely unlikely at the beginning of the race, and for the first time in what seems like a long time, they’re now favorites.

Adding to the unlikeliness is the fact that New York’s offense has been powered in large part by a resurgent former 40 home run threat who now finds himself toward the later stages of his career. Quite simply, Curtis Granderson is having a great season, and he’s turning back the clock in some rare ways by doing so.

We know who Granderson was during his prime: an elite power-hitting outfielder with great speed on the base paths. An injury-marred 2013 season with the Yankees seemed to mark a steep downturn, as he was able to perform just 7% better than league average on offense during his first season with the Mets in 2014. Though passable, it probably wasn’t the kind of production New York had in mind when they agreed to terms on his four-year, $60 million deal in the winter of 2013.

This year, however, we’re seeing glimmers of the Granderson of old. Already matching his 20 home run output from last year, the left-hander’s overall offensive performance is at its highest level since 2011: he’s now performed 22% better than the league average offensive player, good for the 17th-best offensive outfielder in the major leagues as measured by wRC+.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

Brandon Nimmo is one step closer to the big leagues. He’s also off to a good start in Sin City. The Mets promoted the 22-year-old outfield prospect to Las Vegas at the end of July, and he’s finding Triple-A to his liking. In 12 games with the 51s, Nimmo is hitting a handsome .297/.413/.405.

The sample size is small, but at the same time, it’s indicative of his potential. Drafted 13th overall out of a Cheyenne, Wyoming high school, in 2011, Nimmo is one of the top prospects in the New York system. A lanky left-handed hitter, he’s been compared to Miami’s Christian Yelich. He’s comparably raw – remember, Wyoming – but the styles are similar.

Nimmo discussed his hitting approach, and touched on his Citi Field ETA, during last month’s Eastern League All-Star game.

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Brandon Nimmo on hitting: “My plan is simply to hit something hard. I’m not trying to hit home runs, or anything like that. Home runs are actually mistakes that come from getting under the ball a little bit. I’m trying to hit line drives, and if I can get something on the barrel, that’s where I’m going to have the most velocity and the most chance of having something fall. I want to be short and direct to the ball. Read the rest of this entry »

News broke on Monday that Zack Wheeler had a tear in his UCL, and would need to undergo Tommy John Surgery. This sucks. It sucks every time we lose an exciting, young arm to injury, and this case is no different. But one man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity. While unfortunate for both Wheeler and the Mets, Wheeler’s injury helps clear up the log jam in the Mets rotation. It opens the door for a slew of youngsters, who may have otherwise spent a good chunk of the year in Triple-A or the bullpen.

Even after losing Wheeler, the Mets are still able to field a full rotation without turning to any unproven rookies. Dillon Gee will presumably join Matt Harvey, Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese and Jacob deGrom in New York’s rotation. Still, even if the Mets rotation is set for now, we all know that teams almost always need more than five starting pitchers to get through a season. Furthermore, the Mets number one and number two starters are coming off of Tommy John Surgery and old as dirt, respectively. It’s only a matter of time before they will need to dip into their farm system, and luckily for them, they have no shortage of replacements to choose from.

Read the rest of this entry »

Anthony Seratelli came into spring training with a chance to make the New York Mets roster in a utility role. Instead, the 31-year-old career minor-league veteran spent the entire season in Triple-A. Now he’s heading to Japan.

Seratelli signed a one-year contract with the Seibu Lions, and the primary reason was money. Nine years after entering pro ball, his big-league hopes slowly fading, it was time to finally earn a meaningful paycheck.

Minor-league salaries are abysmal. The standard salary for first-year players is $1,100 per month. At the Double-A level, players get approximately $1,500 per month. Triple-A players can make markedly more, depending on experience and 40-man-roster status, but some earn as little as $2,150 per month. Major League Baseball’s minimum salary recently increased to $507,500 per year.

Minor-league players only receive paychecks April through August. They aren’t paid during spring training, instructional league, or during the offseason. For seven months out of the year, they’re training on their own dime. According to Garrett Broshuis, the Uniform Player Contract “requires players to perform work throughout the year, but teams aren’t paying them for that.” A prospect-turned-attorney, Broshuis is involved in a class-action suit to improve compensation for minor-leaguers.

Each Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) team has a 70-man roster and the lowest-paid player on any roster reportedly earned the equivalent of $44,000 US dollars last year. Seratelli signed with Seibu for $600,000, plus incentives. Read the rest of this entry »

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

In this installment, I’ll discuss three pitchers I’ve come across in A-ball who boast more polish than most at their level.

Summary
Plutko gained plenty of prospect helium with a dominant run at Low-A early in the season, but he’s found the going tougher after a promotion to the Carolina League.

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Today, I’m going to do something slightly different in this space than I have previously. Rather than discussing the pasts, presents, and futures of three prospects I’ve seen in a serialized fashion, I am going to tell you about a game I attended this past Saturday, July 5th.

Of course, I go to a lot of games, and not all of them are worth talking about. But the reason this particular one was interesting was that it involved two pitchers who entered the game with statlines that almost had to be seen to be believed.

Read the rest of this entry »