The Mets and Their Weak Opponents
The Mets can’t lose, and having won 11 straight games on their way to a 13-3 record, they own the best winning percentage in baseball. On Monday, I pointed out that we have to take them seriously as contenders because of this hot start, as those wins aren’t going to be stripped away in the future even when the Mets stop playing this well. But, while the wins-in-the-bank argument is still valid, there is a pretty decent counterpoint to that argument; the Mets have essentially been borrowing from their overall expected win total by playing a collection of lousy opponents so far.
Among the 16 games they’ve played this season, we find three against a depleted Nationals team that started the year with a Spring Training roster, six games against a Braves team that projects as one of the NL’s weakest squads, four games against a mediocre Marlins team that might be worse than expected, and three against the Phillies, everyone’s pick for the worst team in baseball. In addition, 10 of their 16 games have come at home, so while home field advantage isn’t a huge factor in baseball, they have gotten a slight bump from a disproportionately low number of road games.
So, yes, the Mets have been beneficiaries of a very easy schedule so far, but how much should we have expected them to win based on their opponents to date? This is actually something we can answer now, since we publish pre-game odds for every match-up in baseball on our scoreboard page. These odds take into account the actual line-up and starting pitcher for that day, so we’re also accounting for the fact that their games against the Nationals included match-ups with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Jordan Zimmermann; facing those guys is not the same thing as facing the Nationals when they’re throwing Doug Fister or Gio Gonzalez, with no disrespect intended to two quality pitchers who just aren’t quite at that level.
By looking at the difference between a team’s average game odds for the year and their expected rest-of-season winning percentage from Opening Day, we can get a decent idea of a team’s quality of opponents. So, with some assistance from Sean Dolinar, that’s exactly what I did, and the results can be seen in the graph below.
Teams above the line have had an easier schedule, teams below somewhat tougher.
The numbers confirm what we’d expect; playing a steady diet of the Marlins, Phillies, and Braves has indeed given the Mets the easiest schedule of any team in the big leagues to date; their average game odds have put them at an expected .535 winning percentage, up 30 points over their pre-season .505 mark. The other team who has seen a 30 point spike in their average game odds compared to their pre-season expected winning percentage? The 12-4 Royals, who have baseball’s second best record. It is not a coincidence that the two teams who have started the strongest have also played the softest schedules of any team in baseball; quality of opponent matters.
But again, what we really care about is the magnitude of the factor, and with a .535 expected winning percentage based on average game odds, the Mets are still trouncing their expected record. Having a weak slate of opponents would have suggested that we think the Mets should be 9-7 after this stretch, not 13-3. This isn’t the kind of variable that explains the entirety of the Mets success so far, and we can’t just wave away 13 wins in 16 games as the sole product of having played a weak schedule. The weak schedule explains just one of their extra five wins.
And it’s not like a slate of weak opponents is any kind of guarantee of success. Of note, check out the Brewers in that graph; they had a pre-season expected winning percentage of .481, but have had average game odds of exactly .500. When you look at their overall opponents — six against PIT, three each against STL, CIN, and COL — you might not think it was a relatively easy ride, but they got really lucky in their starting pitching match-ups against the Pirates: two starts each from Vance Worley and Jeff Locke, plus a call-up start by Casey Sadler, and then one tough game against Gerrit Cole.
Misisng both Liriano and Burnett makes those games against the Pirates easier match-ups than you might think, and Andrew McCutchen sat out one of the contests as well. The Reds and Rockies aren’t very good, so combine those seven games with easier-than-expected match-ups against the Pirates, and the Brewers have actually had a pretty easy go of things as well. And yet, even after getting a good draw to start the year, they’re 3-13, and their season is effectively over already. The Mets have taken advantage of weak opponents; the Brewers inability to win the games they’ve played suggests that they might be even worse off than we think.
Likewise, the Marlins (.500 pre-season expected record, .527 average game odds) have also benefited from playing the Braves and Phillies, at least theoretically, but they haven’t capitalized on those games the same way the Mets have. While people like to cite record versus winning teams as some kind of true barometer of roster quality, the reality is that playoff teams usually just pound bad teams into the ground, then try and hold their own against the decent or good teams. The Mets and Royals have done exactly what they needed to do thus far; beat the pants off of lousy opponents.
So, yes, the Mets have had an easy schedule. No, they don’t get to keep playing the Braves, Marlins, and Phillies all year, and they will find the road more difficult when they travel to face some better opponents. But the Mets low quality of opponents to date doesn’t cancel out the fact that they’ve played .812 baseball against a slate of games where we expected them to play .535 ball, and the difference between their current winning percentage and their game-odds expected winning percentage is still the largest in baseball. No team has outperformed expectations more than the Mets, even after you adjust for the fact that they’ve played the Marlins, Braves, and Phillies 13 times.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I don’t care about spring training numbers like the rest of America, but I think it’s worth noting that they crushed spring training opponents as well. They were really primed to come out of the gate hard in 2015 season.
If you don’t care about spring training numbers, why did you use it as the sole argument in your comment ?
Because how a team does in ST, especially the last 2 weeks, has a mildly positive correlation with how they start the regular season in April (r=0.34)
exactly how many times do people have to demonstrate that spring training stats are predictive before the community at large will believe it?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/spring-training-matters/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2015/03/baseball-statistics
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/when-spring-training-matters/
Whether or not it is predictive, the dude said he didn’t care about ST, and then dedicated the entire remainder of his post to ST.
yes and everybody means exactly what they say on the internet
It’s not at all incompatible. For example, I don’t care about the cost of premium seats on airplanes. However, I still think that those fares are worth noting (because other people may find them useful). The same relationship holds for about a million other things.
In short, here are the premises of his comment:
1. Mets 1969 thinks that Americans (on average) care about spring training numbers to a significant degree
2. Mets 1969 cares less about spring training numbers than the average American (in his/her estimation)
3. Mets 1969 thinks that it would be worth reporting such numbers to the percentage of America that would find them noteworthy, despite the fact that he/she does not trust them particularly.
Really not that hard to parse.
Great article. Probably also worth noting that the Mets have suffered their fair share of key injuries to date–I would imagine that has had some effect on lowering their game odds–and this just sort of speaks, in part, to the importance of having serviceable depth pieces(Campbell, Plawecki, etc.) who can step in and perform for various periods of time. The Mets are obviously not a .812 winning% baseball club, but I have to think that their quick start and their depth in the upper minors gives them as good a shot as any NL team to weather the attrition of a 162 game season and compete for a playoff spot.
I think it’s pretty careless to omit this from the article. The Mets are doing this without Wright, d’Arnaud, Mejia, and Blevins.
Exactly. It seems bizarre to not even mention the injuries. Then again, I don’t come to fangraphs for, you know, journalism.
Not careless, as much as it doesn’t fit the narrative. Dave’s aware of the injuries, they just don’t further his point so he omits them.
“we find three against a depleted Nationals team that started the year with a Spring Training roster”
Then why mention other teams injuries?
Because Cameron needed to hit his word count. Nothing in the article added anything to what the title already said. If someone can identify a single useful Cameron article, please speak up.
Well, to be fair Wright and d’Arnaud have only been out a few days.
Whereas Wheeler and Edgin are out for the full season, and Mejia, Parnell, and Black have not pitched yet, and Blevins is out, and Harvey has a sprained ankle and was sick for his last start (but still dominated, at least in terms of peripherals).
Also known, apparently, as “What everyone else said.”
And black, Parnell, Elgin and wheeler
You could argue they have been the most unlucky team in baseball
Uhh … the Rangers say hello.
Actually John that’s only partly correct.
Wright, D’Arnaud (TDA), and Blevins were there for most of the wins so the Mets weren’t “doing this without” them. In fact, TDA and Blevins were huge contributors to the first eight wins of the 11 game winning streak.
What would be accurate to say is that the Mets are doing this without Wheeler, Parnell, Mejia, Edgin, and Black, none of whom have pitched this season.
In fact, the Mets have an entire bullpen on the DL.
In a theoretical game, the Mets could have started Wheeler with Parnell, Mejia, Edgin, Black, and Blevins – five pretty decent relievers, three right-handed and two left-handed – coming out of the ‘pen.
And now all six of those pitchers plus Wright and TDA are presently out.
Wheeler and Edgin aren’t relevant to this article since they will not play at all this season.
Wright was there for the first 3 games of the 11 game winning streak. They’ve gone 10-2 since he was injured. You are correct about d’Arnaud and Blevins, though, they were there for the majority of the win streak.
…and Wheeler, and Edgin, and Parnell, and Black.
It’s taken into account. He did reference how the Nats injuries were reflected in the Mets odds of winning each game because they’re based on actual SP matchups and lineups. So it holds true that the odds of the Mets winning would have lessened when Wright, Blevins and then d’Arnaud went down.
Yep, there are two major places where the Mets have an opportunity to outpace projections:
1) If to date one year wonders (Harvey, deGrom, Duda) can stave off the (correctly) expected regression.
2) Projections underestimated the quality of depth the club had in the high minors.
So far so good on both counts.
There’s also a piece that (and I usually hate saying this) the forecast models may not be able to accurately account for. Getting off to a good start means increased attendance. Particularly for a club everyone believes is struggling financially, increased attendance is a big deal. Getting butts into the seats and enjoying TV Ratings spikes in April, May, and June may increase the chances that they can overpay for those crucial few extra marginal wins in July. This has been the company line for a while now, but this will be the first opportunity under the Alderson regime to actually put the theory to the test.
Are you really considering Harvey a one-year wonder? I understand why one would think that about deGrom, but Harvey, really?
Harvey had elite strikeout numbers at every minor league level and in his rookie 2012 season. A young pitcher improving control-wise as he gets older is not at all surprising.
I’d also question the deGrom claim mainly because his peripherals (and velocity) backed up his fantastic breakout season.
You;re right. Harvey is a 3/4 year wonder.
It’s also worth noting that he used individual game probabilities to calculate the expected win percentage. Those probabilities take into account who’s playing, and by definition who is not. So theMets chances of winning each game according to FanGraphs probabilities were appropriately adjusted to reflect that Wright, d’Arnaud, Mejia, and Blevins missed the games they did.
There’s a certain kind of fan that just shouldn’t read fangraphs articles about their favorite team.
Because the reality is never going to be as glowing as “your team is perfect”.
This article is overwhelmingly positive about what the Mets have done. Yet there’s a large group already complaining that it’s not enough…and that it’s the writer and not the fan(atic)s that are biased.
Thank you for pointing out that the complaint about not including injuries is baseless.
“while home field advantage isn’t a huge factor in baseball” I can agree with this statement over a short playoff series, but season home winning percentage is pretty impressively skewed to suggest it is a huge factor. Only 9 teams had losing records at home last year, home teams had a .544 win percentage last year, seems like a pretty big effect to me.
The only thing notable about the Mets winning at home early on is that they’ve been a terrible home team the past few seasons.
That is a huge factor that is not addressed a lot of the time. Citi Field has been a more hostile environment to the mets than other stadiums for years! I realize this is counted in the projected odds, but it really is worth noting that home-field is more of a liability than an asset for this team!
It’s a 4% bump, which you’re right is rather large. It is actually accounted for in the Game Odds in the graphic and on our Live Scoreboard page.
“No, they don’t get to keep playing the Braves, Marlins, and Phillies all year”
But they will get to play them more than any other team in the NL save the Nationals. Even if the Nats find the form that everyone expected them to show before the season started, that should give the Mets a huge leg up on winning one of the NL Wildcards.
They’re already in the position right now to play .500 ball the rest of the year and end up with 86 wins, which is only 2 off last year’s WC teams.
Supposing the Mets go just under .500 against all out of division teams (a big assumption but not totally unreasonable), and if the Mets can beat up on the Phillies at least as bad as the Nationals will beat up on the Mets from here on out, there are still multiple series against Miami and Atlanta for the Mets to emerge as Wild Card contenders. These are all huge assumptions, but assuming that the Mets perform “ok” from here on out and do nothing impressive, they will be real contenders.
Yeah, if the argument is that the Mets have banked wins by beating up on their lousy division opponents, that bodes well for their season because those are the same teams they have to be better than.
Agreed. I thought this piece was well reasoned, but it basically confirms that the Mets have been beating up on bad teams in their division. Everyone and their mother said this would be their best potential path to the postseason when they did season previews.
I think it’s actually quite relevant that the Braves, Marlins, and Phillies are all NL East teams. As the weakest bottom 3 in any NL division, the Mets benefit from playing them more often, meaning the Mets don’t have to be quite as good as other NL to achieve the same record and make the playoffs.
The wins-in-the-bank argument holds… at 13-3 with a .500 ROS projection, that’s 86 wins, putting them firmly in the WC race, even if the Nats finally run away with the division.
Also known, apparently, as “what Stinky Pete said.”
May be a little premature for “finallys” re: Nats running away with the division.
To clarify: premature to imply that they are taking their sweet time. It’s three weeks’ worth of games.
I meant “finally” as in “final results,” not implying that they should have already been running away with it. Maybe you’d prefer “ultimately”?
Dave better beware the wrath of Met fans for not believing!
The Nationals had a depleted lineup, yes. But Scherzer, Zimmermann and Strasburg is a nasty trio of pitchers to open the season against.
Also known, apparently, as “what Dave Cameron said.”
Do you really expect me to finish reading the entire article before overreacting to the first sentence of the second paragraph?
(Seriously, though, that sentence was on the hyperbolic side.)
You know, you’re SUPPOSED to defeat the ‘weak’ teams. Also, the Braves have played decently, not going to last of course….but they still have done well.
Also, as others have pointed out, Mets have had major injuries and depended upon their minor league depth in this incredible stretch. None of this is an easy accomplishment!
I think that what is more important than the Mets winning all these games is seeing the Marlins lose all these games. The Marlins will probably come close to .500 in the not-too-distant future, but it will be a huge uphill climb. We all know the Phillies will tank with the Braves soon. That leaves the Mets in sole position of second place for a long time, and as you have pointed out, the depth of the bench players in light of the injuries seems to make this streak all the more impressive.
I’m not convinced that large sample size expectations should be compared to small sample size results. Sure the Mets would be *expected* to go 9-7 if things were consistently uniform, but the long sample-sized season is composed of many deviations from uniform. A .667 team doesn’t go 2-1 every 3 games; it’s only by averaging out the ups and owns that 2-1 for every 3 games becomes representative of the entire season.
Going 13-3 is a dirty job, but it’s likely at any point in the season that some team is doing it or something close.
It still means that a ROS regression places them ahead of preseason projections. And it’s still unlikely that the Mets would do it.
“Going 13-3 is a dirty job, but it’s likely at any point in the season that some team is doing it or something close.”
But teams aren’t limited to one hot streak. Sure, the Marlins (or Pirates, Cubs, or any other ~.500 projected team) can go on a similar streak over the remaining chunk of the season. But so can the Mets. It’s not like they got their hot streak out of the way, so now they’ll sit back and watch a different team do it.
This has to be the hardest time of the year to write current, relevant stuff. It takes two functioning brain cells to know that you don’t go 13-3 or anything close to that because you are playing a fairly weak schedule. The Mariners (projecting T4th best ROS) are playing at home today with the King on the mound against the Twins (projected T3rd worst ROS) and they still only have a 2 in 3 chance of winning. The Mets are crushing that winning percentage.
“you don’t go 13-3 or anything close to that because you are playing a fairly weak schedule. ”
No, it’s usually a fairly weak schedule and a fair amount of luck.
To sum up: they won’t play .800 baseball for the rest of the season, but they’re probably better than we thought. Deep, man.
If that’s all you got from this article, maybe you’re the one in the shallow end.
Enlighten me, then. What amazing insights am I missing?
This article is not really about how they might be better than we thought. The point, to me, is that weak opponents aren’t that important. Of course, neither are 16 game samples.
Over the last 6 years, the Mets have finished an average of 16 games below where they peaked mid-season.
2014: -9
2013: -17
2012: -23
2011: -12
2010: -15
2009: -29
I wouldn’t get so excited about this team just yet. They are poor finishers.
And to speculate why this is. The answer is they have overused, shallow bullpens that are completely spent by the All-Star break.
This is where the analysis gets tricky.
Their bullpen is not deep right now – really among the worst out there. However, if Black, Parnell, and Mejia come back before it falls apart, they may actually provide a late season bump. I also like the current plan to use a 6 man rotation ( with Montero ) in stretches.
There are probably enough real reasons to not fully buy in to the Mets without giving these guys demerits for poor finishes by teams that had entirely different rosters.
The rosters were different, but the thought process ( we don’t need a deep solid bullpen ) has been the same.
It will catch up with them.
Now if they want to get Thor and Matz in here for some holds, maybe they have a shot.
This is pretty much the first year in a long time that they project to have a deep solid bullpen. (Of course, half that bullpen is on the DL right now, but that sort of proves the pitching depth within the organization.)
It’s probably prudent to plan on getting no significant contributions from any of the three you mentioned (Black certainly, Mejia, and Parnell) and probably also Blevins. Anything positive gotten from those 4 would be icing.
Thing is that with all of the pen injuries and suspensions, they are down to a fringe group out there – Familia, CTorres, ATorres and Carlyle plus 3 guys who just showed up to the ballpark – Gilmartin, Robles and Goeddel. They’ll either have to start getting something from those 3 or will eventually (prob sooner than later) need to make an addition out there. This win streak is certainly covering for this obvious thin spot in the roster. How long can they really go before this costs them?
There are a few options though. The first option is if they get the icing you talked about, and Parnell/Black are able to contribute.
If they have setbacks, maybe the front office gets help from the minors. They can limit their top pitching prospects’ innings and give them MLB experience by calling them up at the end of the year and putting them in the bullpen, like they did with Montero.
If they don’t want to go that route, then they can look into a trade at the deadline. It’ll need to be an overpay at that point, but if they’re contending into late-July then they should have banked enough extra revenue to make a deal.
Except this team has never finished a season
Yeah, shoddy article to not mention SEVERAL key injuries. Got a little carried away with excel…
A bit of an aside, but is anyone else confused as to how Houston projects to a better record than Kansas City on the chart? I mean, I’m hardly on the bandwagon for a KC World Series or anything, but the Astros were terrible last year and did little to get better. Meanwhile, the Royals did okay last year and were able to tread water this offseason.
This being on Chart #2.
Related to my post on the Mets problems, the Astros brought in some quality relievers ( Gregerson and Neshek ). I don’t know about KC, but I’d spot them above the Mets.
On the bright side, the Mets play 58 more games (40% of the rest of their schedule) against the same weak opponents you just mentioned.
Mets fan here, and all I can say is you play the schedule the way it’s presented.
The Mets have aspirations of being there in September, and they NEEDED to get off to a strong start. I didn’t expect 13-3, and they have built up a good win equity early in the season. They have done this for the most part without Wright, d’Arnaud, Blevins, V. Black, Parnell and Mejia, who were supposed to have contributions in some way this year. They do have to play big boy teams, but I expect them to play well with their pitching which could potentially get better if they put a Montero or Syndergaard in the rotation for Gee. Plus, those guys I listed above will be back by May at some point (Mejia I don’t think will ever throw another inning for the Mets).
Here’s a factor as well, they play Atlanta, Miami and Philly 44 more times this season. Is it unrealistic to give them a floor of 25 wins with a ceiling of 30? This division might have the biggest discrepancy of talent from top to bottom. I know many will doubt the Mets ability to be a contender, but this is a pretty good team right now. Mets have to take advantage.. that’s all there is to it.
The Mets know how to capitalize when they need to. Sometimes there are those teams that are average and lose 2 of 3 to the Phillies.
games in April count the same amount in the win loss column as games in Sep.
Saying the Mets didn’t face the Nats best pitchers is BS. everyone on that pitching staff is strong and Scherzer is the best one. the Marlins look like a really good team on paper. ya the Braves are suppose to suck but apparently no one told them that because they are having a good year so far.the Phillies suck but even teams that suck rarely lose 100 games a year. not just taking 2 out of 3 and taking a sweep is still an accomplishment no matter who it’s from. trying to take away something from this streak is a little offensive.
I thought it was clear that Dave said the Mets *did* face the Nats best pitchers. And he didn’t seem to try to take away from what the Mets have accomplished. The article was about how the schedule only played a small part in their success.
“The Marlins look like a really good team on paper.”
Okay, whatever you say Kevin Towers.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the fact that they got lucky against a bad Nationals roster does not mean they are borrowing from their overall expected winning percentage. Their season winning percentage was projected against the Nationals team that is supposed to be the best team in baseball. That they faced a poor imitation of that team does not mean they have to play three more games against the real Nationals, it just means that they beat a team that they weren’t ever supposed to beat in projections.
Dave
If you look at the first graph, 4 of the top 6 teams that had over performed are indeed nym, but also Washington, Atlanta and Miami. On the other end of the scale there is Philly. Who was expected to be bad but is actually much worse. Could the whole effect really be the Phillies effect?
The second graph is 13 games into the year and all it really show was that the Marlins, Phillies and Washington was supposed to not lose 100% of their games to the mets, (in Nes case none of their 3) they have underperformance by the losses to the mets. Which does not say a lot
The important point isn’t that the Mets are winning against “weak” opponents, but they are beating other teams in their division, (which is arguably baseball’s weakest). Of course, their record will decline when the play teams in other divisions, but the same will be true for other teams in their division. More to the point, the Mets figure to be division champs, based on their record so far against division opponents, against whom they play the most games.
Why are Mets fans getting defensive (I’m a Mets fan)? This was a pro-Mets article. They have played weak competition and have still outperformed projections when accounting for the schedule (including injuries, starting pitchers, etc). That’s all he was saying.
This
Heh?
It is very pleasing to me that we are seeing the opponents make the errors and lose games whereas in the recent past the mets were giving away games in horrific fashion. Obviously the mets won’t finish as good as they start but you won’t need 95 wins to take the nl east this year.
I still think this team’s a year away from making a season long splash but i’m enjoying the ride…
Guess you didn’t see last nite’s game…
I agree with the premise, however those are their division opponents; Barves, Philth, and Fish are about 1/3 of the Mets schedule all year long. 57/162, so yeah they should just keep whipping em’.
I don’t think the Mets opponents have been particularly weak or strong. Going into the season, the top three teams were supposed to be the Nationals, Dodgers and Cardinals. The Nationals haven’t played all that well in any facet of the game but that doesn’t make them a bad team yet. The Cardinals they haven’t played but the Cardinals just got hit by a rash of injuries and lost their ace which means by the time the Mets play them, they’ll have some talent back and the Cardinals won’t be as good. The Marlins were supposed to be just as good as the Mets and despite injuries, the Mets have beaten up on them. And the Yankees by all rights should be a wild card contender if they stay relatively healthy and they’ve stayed relatively healthy. Winning 3/4 of these games despite losing their 3B, C, closer and replacement setup man is indicative of a better than expected team. Obviously they won’t win 121 games but winning the division seriously moves into their grasp over these next 6 days by splitting the next two with Miami and winning 3 of 4 with the Nationals giving the Nationals a 10 game gap to climb out of. There are plenty of bad to mediocre teams left to play in all three divisions. Starting the season 19-7 with many of their parts injured makes a rather clearly defined statement.