The Mets and the Boring Approach
The Mets have lost seven games in a row. It’s never a good time to lose seven games in a row, but a particularly bad time is when the rival Nationals decide to win five games in a row. So it is that the Mets have ceded control of the National League East, falling perilously close to the surprisingly competent Braves. Now, if you just fast-forwarded from the start of the season to now, these standings wouldn’t be a surprise. The Nationals were supposed to run away with the division. The Mets were supposed to be okay, and the Phillies were supposed to suck. Outside of the Marlins, it seems mostly normal. But sequences of events matter, and the way the year has gone for the Mets makes this current situation feel desperate. A season feels like it’s slipping out of their grasp.
There’s an awful lot of pressure on Sandy Alderson to make a move. Alderson feels it, and he’s been in communication with other front offices. Here’s one move, that just showed up literally as I was writing the above paragraph:
Source says #Mets calling up Matz. Two different club officials declined comment when asked. Team again could be pondering six-man rotation.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) June 25, 2015
This has been coming. Fans knew Steven Matz was on the way. But, consider the first tweet response to that:
Young Ideas ?@DickYoungsGhost 23m23 minutes ago
@Ken_Rosenthal Unless Matz can bat .400 and play all other positions, still doesn’t help the @Mets.
During the losing streak, the Mets have scored nine runs in seven games. They’ve had a bottom-five NL offense for the year, and a bottom-five NL offense the last month or so. Pressure isn’t on to make any move — pressure is on to make an offensively-minded move. It’s understandable, given how the Mets have looked. But it might very well be prudent for Alderson to keep on taking the boring approach.
To quickly review the year: the Mets have squandered what they accomplished early on. Before anyone in the division played any games, the Mets were projected to go about .500. To this point, the Mets have played about .500. That misses the details, details like the early 11-game winning streak that shot the Mets to 13-3. At that point, they had about a 52% chance of making the playoffs. A few days later, the Mets opened up an eight-game lead over the Nationals, and their playoff odds topped out at 54%. And right now? 16%. They still look more or less like a .500 team, but all those things people said about wins in the bank — those were true, but the Mets gave their advantage away. They’ve erased the memory of the winning streak, a streak that made people believe this could be a special year.
A very simple rule of thumb is that things are never as good as they seem after a win, and they’re never as bad as they seem after a loss. So you can imagine the overreactions to an extended streak of either type. A winning streak makes a team feel unbeatable. A losing streak makes a team feel terrible. Right now, it feels like the Mets can’t hit anything. And, yeah, over seven games, they’ve managed a .482 OPS. The seven games before that, it was .762. This offense isn’t a good offense, but it ought to be functional. Things have gone wrong.
It is too easy to blame injuries, but it’s not like injuries are a non-factor. Consider what the Mets have been forced into doing. Injuries to Travis d’Arnaud have left the team playing Kevin Plawecki, and though Plawecki’s a good young player, he isn’t yet ready to hit in the majors. Daniel Murphy has missed time, and though it isn’t the end of the world to have to play without Daniel Murphy, his absence is a hell of a thing to combine with the absence of David Wright. So Mets fans have seen names like Eric Campbell and Daniel Muno, and the reserves have been a black hole.
The good news is that Murphy’s about back. And d’Arnaud should be out just a couple weeks. These are two of the team’s better hitters, and while no one’s really sure what should be expected of Wright, there’s talk he could return around the All-Star break, and Wright might still be the team’s best all-around position player. The Mets can’t count on Wright to provide anything. They can count on Murphy, though. And they can count on d’Arnaud. And Wright, at least, would be a fascinating wild card.
Look at the Mets, and look at the market. You can see where the Mets could be better, but the fixes aren’t simple. They’re probably not about to write off Michael Cuddyer, given his track record and given the team’s investment. Juan Lagares is locked in, as is Curtis Granderson, and obviously Lucas Duda is doing just fine. Potential options on the market are few and far between, because there aren’t many sellers, and those teams doing the selling are only going to get there because they didn’t have enough good players.
Just about a perfect fit would be Ben Zobrist, but that’s complicated by a few factors. For one, the A’s are playing better, and they aren’t totally out of it. And for two, every team could use Zobrist, and all it takes is one more aggressive general manager to shut the Mets out. The Mets have been connected to Aramis Ramirez, but he hasn’t been good. Alexei Ramirez would stand to be available, but he hasn’t been good. Maybe the Mets could, I don’t know, try to trade for Chris Taylor, but it’s unclear whether he’d be an upgrade. Juan Uribe might be available to get flipped again, but the Braves are just about even with the Mets in the standings. An intriguing idea would be Steve Pearce, who’s playing less and less in Baltimore. He could probably be had, and he was tremendous just last season, but he’s struggled this time around, and the Mets would have to buy him as a second or third baseman. Pearce might be the most creative upgrade, but there are worries there, and probably also other teams placing the same sort of call.
There isn’t much out there, and the Mets’ situation isn’t dreadful, provided they erase the black holes. Murphy coming back should help that. d’Arnaud coming back should help that. And no one knows about Wright, but if he comes back and is playable, that’s the best midseason upgrade imaginable. The Mets are still probably going to project as a below-average offensive team, but that simply isn’t their strength. They currently project to have baseball’s second-best starting rotation. Adding Matz into the picture means the Mets have too many qualified big-league starters. And if you think about Matz, while his promotion does nothing to help the offense, it does, in theory, mean the offense will need to do a little less in order to win. Runs saved and runs scored, and all that.
The Mets now probably won’t make the playoffs, and that’s hard to accept, given where they’ve been, and given that the Nationals opened up an opportunity. But you have to forget about those things and just focus on the days and months ahead. For now, the Mets are a pitching-first team with offensive help soon to come off the disabled list. The market bears little fruit, and while there are moves that could potentially help, consider this: Dilson Herrera has struggled, but he’s hit well in the high minors. Maybe he’s a quick breather from restoring his confidence and being able to help the big-league infield. There’s always the temptation to make a trade, and staying internal is less sexy, but the internal options might not be worse than the external options. Alderson might do well to just enjoy the good young pitching while hoping for health and better performance on the position-player side.
It’s kind of boring. It does nothing to satisfy those reacting to the losing skid. But what the Mets are building is anything but dull. And the pieces that might most help them offensively don’t seem to be hitting the market, especially now that the A’s are inching back toward the mix. Maybe the best move to be made would be adding Steve Pearce, but when that’s the sort of upgrade you’re thinking about, maybe it’s no worse than just adding a reliever or two and enjoying the hell out of an awesome young rotation.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
The problem this doesn’t even begin to address is that the “internal” pieces don’t fit together in the field, and that vitiates the chances to win with run prevention, as the current bad-fielding-driven losing streak has amply demonstrated. Flores at shortstop has been pretty disastrous, and so the team is stacked with young second basemen with plus-potential bats and barely-adequate gloves, while it has essentially no good options for short (or 3B beyond Murphy). Meanwhile ownership has committed the team to old guys with bad gloves and barely adequate bats at both outfield corners, filling spots where you could look to upgrade offensively. This piece is going after dumb “traid for batzzz!!!1!” arguments, but there are better arguments that the ’15 Mets are crying out for a trade (or a number of trades) for position players — essentially, that it’s a badly constructed roster, with too many overlapping pieces and too few elsewhere.
The 9 runs in 7 games doesn’t suggest that the current losing streak is especially fielding driven. Team UZR is slightly negative, mostly middle of the pack. Sure, Flores isn’t a great ss, but he’s been overall fairly adequate. While one can question the wisdom of the Granderson and Cudyer signings, those moves are done.
I think Jeff is right. I wouldn’t make any panic moves to improve somewhat this year, if it means sacrificing youth. Most of the pieces they can trade won’t bring back much, unless you are talking about trading away what makes the teams trajectory promising: young pitching. Conforto, Nimmo et al will supplant the aging corners eventually and the injured guys will return (with Wright obviously still a question mark).
No one here is arguing for a panic trade. This level of continued sanguinity about the team’s ability to assemble an adequate (at hitting and fielding) group of position players, either now or in 2016, seems entirely unearned. There are non-panic-driven reasons to be increasingly doubtful that this roster of position players, plus an eventual Conforto or whoever, can become a competitive baseball team. It’s true that losing Wright may have just unforeseeably killed the Mets’ shot this season, but in any case, even as a long-term plan, standing pat doesn’t necessarily look smart.
Granted. No one ever advocates panic trades. But I still don’t see how any trades, or just dropping players or dumping salary, helps all that much. Pearce sounds like a nice add, flexible position player and a decent hitter having some bad luck in a small sample this year. The bench has been exposed with the injuries. But not sure if the Orioles will deal him or for what.
Losing 3/8ths of the starting offense for large chunks of the year, 3 of your 4 or 5 best hitters, in Wright, D’Arnaud and Murphy, with 2 prospects not showing they are ready or needing more time (Herrera and Plawecki), the bench disappointing, Cuddyer slumping, all of those things combined have left them at .500. They could afford a few, but not all of those occurrences, along with 1/2 the bullpen being injured. The Cuddyer signing wasn’t the smartes, and all teams have injuries, but I don’t think you could have expected the offense to be this bad. The projections were better.
By mid-year next year I expect Conforto, Nimmo and Cecchini will all be up and providing at least depth and energy. And the starting will be very good.
The defense has assuredly been atrocious, but even sparkling defense can’t win games when the offense is barely averaging over a run a game as the Mets have during the recent losing streak. And it’s not necessarily the roster but how it’s deployed: any infield configuration with Flores at SS and Ruben Tejada at either 3b or 2B is very poor allocation of on-field talent, but the Mets FO is (thus far, though there are whispers it may change) stubbornly refusing to play Flores anywhere but shortstop.
The larger problem with the “traid for batzzz!!!1!” argument is twofold: 1) there are few obvious places on the field to upgrade and 2) for those areas that could be upgraded there is a paucity of available talent to be had. The only real exception to this would be in the OF were the Mets to act in a very un-Metsian way and bench the all-around awful Michael Cuddyer, or at the very least platoon him with Curtis Granderson (who while posting respectable numbers overall has an utterly laughable 9 wRC+ against lefties).
But really, the biggest problem is injuries and an over-exposed lack of depth. There are five players one could reasonably expect to perform at above-average levels offensively on the Mets, and 3 of them are on the DL, replaced by a mix of minor leaguers who aren’t quite ready yet and minor leaguers who should never have been in the majors to begin with.
Injuries have kind of doomed the season. Best thing Mets could do is try to unload Granderson/Cuddyer contracts by adding in some young talent to sweeten the pot. Granderson+Montero for a bag of potatoes type deal. The upgrades the Mets could make via trades cant likely salvage the season (even if Wright came back). Natural upgrades to the team when pitchers return healthy — Black, Carlyle, Edgin, Mejia, Blevins, Goeddel, Montero and Wheeler should make for an excellent pitching staff next year and may help with the position players by providing some depth for trades. Unloading Murphy, Niese and Colon make sense as they arent going to be around next year anyway. Give Reynolds, Ceciliani (or maybe Nimmo/Conforto in September) a chance to play.
Not injuries, the fact that your roster wasn’t very good to begin with offensively doomed your season.
That isn’t really true.
ROS ZiPS projections for Mets season opening lineup:
D’Arnaud 113
Duda 134
Murphy 105
Flores 100
Wright 117
Cuddyer 110
Lagares 87
Granderson 113
You just wouldn’t project that lineup to result in a team 88 wRC+ by mid-season. Only Lagares is below 100 and he’s at 87, just shy of the team’s current wRC+.
Yeah, clearly not injuries. David Wright, Travis d’Arnaud, Daniel Murphy, Zack Wheeler, Jerry Blevins, Rafael Montero, Bobby Parnell, Josh Edgin, Vic Black, Erik Goeddel, Buddy Carlyle, and Jenrry Mejia (suspension) don’t count for anything.
They need a psychiatrist or hypnotist to fix the players’ mindsets with RISP.
Overall triple slash: .236/.299/.366
With RISP: .250/.331/.351
Whatever their psychiatric needs, they don’t seem to be especially manifest with runners in scoring position.
The ship has already sunk, Sandy Alderson is drunk off Pepsi Cola and the Wilpons are bathing in Perrier. This franchise needs to dump its deadweight and shed Cuddyer and Granderson’s contracts. Forget being buyers, sell every position player out there. Bunch of 1 win players who aren’t even worth a shot of tonic water in the Sahara desert.
Granderson is already at 1.1 wins, he wouldn’t bring anything back in return, and the idea that Conforto could already provide a win in the second half is a risk. It sounds great to just dump guys but I don’t think it helps at all.
Just getting out of one or both of Granderson’s and Cuddyer’s contracts would be a huge win for the Mets, medium-to-long-term. Financially constrained as the team seems to be, that money going to those guys is a real problem.
Grandersons not that bad, cuddyer was just dumb. Who backloads a 2 year deal to a 36 year old!
” Who backloads a 2 year deal to a 36 year old!”
Well, lets see- here are the recent two-year deals to position players 35 or older, min $10M total committment:
2015 Adam LaRoche $14M/$13M
2014 Marlon Byrd $8M/$8M
2014 Juan Uribe $6.5M/$6.5M
2013 Torii Hunter $12M/$14M
2013 Ichiro Suzuki $6.5M/$6.5M
2012 Carlos Beltran $13M/$13M
AVERAGE $10.0M/$10.2M
If Cuddyer’s $21M was split to reflect that it would be $10.4N/$10.6M rather than $8.5M/$12.5M
At this years trade deadline, the difference is 1/$15.3M remaining vs 1/$14.0M remaining. Is the $1.3M that much of an extra barrier to moving him?
You understand backloading means you pay more in the second year right? So hunter is the only one that qualifies. He put up a whopping 2.7 war. Uribe and beltran were each 35. The first year of their deals. And thats a big deal.
“You understand backloading means you pay more in the second year right? So hunter is the only one that qualifies.”
Please re-read my post since you didn’t read it before. That wasn’t a list of players that I thought had back loaded contracts, it was a a list of all players 35+ that signed a two year deal [with an AAV of at least $5M].
The idea was to see what is the normal breakdown for year one vs year two and normal for the remaining money at the trade deadline the first year says that there isn’t a whole lot of difference as far as how much money is left either way.
“Uribe and beltran were each 35. The first year of their deals. And thats a big deal.” OK, what is your point? I was including older players so I added one younger year. In any case, I don’t think age 35 and age 36 is as apples and oranges as you seem to imply.
That said, removing those two doesn’t change the year one vs year two break-down in any meaningful way, so the point still stands.
While one year normally would be a negligable difference you are discussing players at the back end of their careers. Using a normal age curve you can expect significant regression along with an increase in durability issues.it actually does change your point because those are the only two successes, therefore proving his initial point that the contract was “dumb”
Ruben Tejada playing 3B and batting 2nd is all you need to know about this team’s offensive struggles.
To put this in perspective Addison Russell is playing SS and batting 8th. Compare these two offensively and the problem becomes apparent.
Campbell needed to be at 3rd, despite some defensive gaffes early on.
And until they move 2 of their starters to the bullpen, this team is going nowhere. If Thor is the 8th inning guy, that’s fine. If Gee can be reworked as a 7th inning guy, great.
If Mejia can be decent in the 7th, and Montero can come back also work in the pen, then this team might win 81 games. Otherwise, forget it.
PS – The Mets schedule in July is really tough, just about all of their opponents are playoff teams. This only gets worse before it gets better.
Russell was batting 9th. Hit 5th today though.
Partly because Castro, Montero, and Denorfia were out, and Herrera, Ross, and Baxter were in.
The more the Cubs lineup looks like a Mets lineup, the farther up Addison Russell bats in the lineup, which is kind of my point. Either way, Russell is a far better hitter than Tejada, playing a less offensive position, and batting lower in the lineup.
I still think that in two years, Dilson Herrera and Flores could be a decent 2B/SS combo. People are piling on these two without realizing how young they are.
They all can’t be Carlos Correa, sorry. The Astros had how many years of being awful and getting top picks.
In retrospect, the Mets would have been better off trading in the last 4 75 win seasons for 45 win seasons.
Flores just isnt a shortstop, i actually like herrera
Thor as the 8th inning guy, huh? lol
I am not denying that Mets have good pitching, but I dont know why Met fans think they are simply a little offense away. Nats, Cubs, and Pirates can pitch too, and do everything else better. Stick Tulo on the Mets, do they catch up to these teams?
They don’t need to catch up to Cubs and Pirates, and it’s taken a Mets losing streak and a Nats winning streak to get them out of first. The division is very winnable.
This division is only winnable in the sense that a team who goes 80-82 can win a division.
Let’s see what things look like after a July that has them facing the Cubs, the Dodgers twice, San Fran, St Louis, and the Nationals twice.
Good luck finishing that stretch over .500
August and September are relatively easy, but by August 3rd, they ought to be at least 6 games under .500 and probably 10+ games out of first.
The Nats have been as banged up as the Mets, and are going to have Rendon, Zimmerman, and Werth all back by August.
The Mets need to do one thing. Keep Daniel Murphy healthy, keep him at the top of the lineup, put him at 2nd where he is comfortable, and trade him for as many middle relievers that they can get for him.
Nats, Cubs, and Pirates seem to be their main competition for playoffs, obviously. I am not denying that they are physically within reach of the Nats…
Simply analyzing the teams void of record, I dont see how Mets can compete with teams that can match up with their pitching, considering how much ground Mets give in all other aspects of the game to these teams. Mets staff is overrated to me in the sense that relative to their main competition, it is arguably no better, or negligibly better. if you are going to be worse offensively, and defensively, you cant just be as good or slightly better in pitching. There is nothing out there that closses the gap enough in the other areas of the game, IMO.
Maybe this year. Pirates lose Burnett after this year. And the Mets haven’t had Syndergaard up for long, and even at that have been better than the Cubs. And neither the Pirates nor the Cubs had a significantly higher wRC+ until this slump. Even now it is 94 Cubs, 91 Pirates, 98 Mets, again with 3 of the Mets best hitters out.
I’d watch out. The Mets could go on another hot streak. They have the starters to do it.
The Mets are a half game behind the Cubs, with half the lineup and an entire bullpen on the DL. Why are you insinuating that the Cubs are some kind of juggernaut that is running away with the Wild Card?
As a Cubs fan, I would love the Mets to send us a pitcher or two for our surplus.
But, from the Mets view, why would you trade any of their ace pitchers? They are cost controlled, good, so why wouldn’t you hold pat and try to make small offensive upgrades where you can and spread it the money around for hitters next year in Free Agency?
Because there are no hitters next year in free agency.
Justin Upton is a hitter. The Mets trading away a starting pitcher not named Bartolo or Dillon is the dumbest move imaginable. Ever. In the history.
Ever.
Justin upton is a hitter… at a position they are paying granderson and cuddyer a combined 30 mil to play next year. They wont have the money to sign him, if they did they lose a first round pick. Their top prospects are of’s, didn’t think i had to specify no if bats available other than a 36 y.o zobrist.
That is a different story than “there are no hitters” hitting free agency.
If a team ( any team ) can’t find room to sign Justin Upton, because they already have Cuddyer and Granderson, then that should be the first and last word on that teams chances.
There’s no need for any deeper analysis: that team is in trouble.
I think they aren’t going after a bat, and will unload salary after a poor start to the second half preparing for next year.
They will not trade any of their big pitchers, as in Syndergaard, Matz, etc. I think Montero is a big trade candidate, but the severity of his shoulder ailment might end up ruining trade value. Niese and Gee have showed how mediocre they are. Colon is an unknown as well, but has shown to be very respectable over the season.
As for hitters. It would be interesting if they could move Granderson and/or Cuddyer. I feel like Granderson is more tradeable, while Cuddyer might be better suited for more of a swing guy. Getting Nimmo and/or Conforto up – even though they aren’t seasoned yet – is important to see where they are over a month period. This will set things up to see if they should sign/trade for a corner outfielder this off season. Yes, it may cost them a shot this year at a playoff opportunity, but being able to get an extended period of time to evaluate and set up for the following season is huge plus. I cannot see them being good enough this year, with the likes of the Pirates, Giants, etc. Hopefully that’s the thinking is.
Montero ought to be in the pen. Keep him.
Conforto isnt going to skip aaa and start his service clock on a losing team. I think his time line is June of next year, after super 2 passes. Try to figure out a way to clear an outfield spot for him.
More likely a kris bryant like timed call up for the extra year of control. He doesnt have crazy power so likely wont get too expensive through arb.
Pearce is especially intriguing because the Orioles don’t seem to realize that he’s mostly been the victim of bad luck in 2015. Today (he went 3/5 with two doubles) was the first time in about a month where he played and wasn’t pinch hit for the first time he faced a RHP.
Cuddyer used to play 3B, can he not do this anymore? Seems reasonable that it’d be easier to find a decent OF bat than an IF one.
Better yet. Duda is going to be 30. They ought to ship him and them they can move Cuddyer to first. Duda is good, but he’s not a long term solution given his age. They should move Duda, Murphy, and Colon for sure, and try to move Granderson and Cuddyer too.
I’d rather see d’Arnaud at first if I could get anything for Cuddyer. d’Arnaud seems to be on the DL alot, perhaps he’d be better at first. He can hit.
Duda is arb eligible, so he is going to be affordable for another year. Cant trade Duda off next years team, that is going to be looking to win. Now if Mets are in same position this time next yr, Duda is gone.
d’Arnaud’s injuries haven’t been because he’s unhealthy. Just look at the past few:
2013 – broken foot from foul tip
2015 – broken hand from HBP
– hyper-extended elbow from collision
People seem to overlook things way to easily, but especially Mets fans.
You’re also forgetting his 2012 knee injury he got sliding into second base and his 2014 injury when a backswing gave him a concussion.
You can chalk some D’Arnaud injuries to bad luck, but “injury prone” is certainly an apt label at this point in time.
My oh my, wouldn’t Justin Turner have been a perfect fit for this team the last couple years…
I keep thinking about how different this season would look if the Mets had only had the foresight to sign Jung-ho Kang. Even just substituting Kang for the Cuddyer signing I think the team would be in a vastly better spot for playoff contention.
Kang was a bigger risk. The real question is why sign cuddyer over colby rasmus? Ill take the cheaper guy in his prime with more positional flexibility.
Cuddyer was a RH power bat, at least that was the logic.
As for Kang, he came with more unknowns. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.