The Pitcher With the Most Incredible Plays

What are the Mets going to do to get over the final hump? Are they going to find an upgrade at shortstop? Are they going to find an upgrade in center field? Might they dip into their vast pitching resources to swing an unforeseen blockbuster? I don’t know. Let’s watch Jon Niese play defense.

Just to set the table real quick — last year, opponents bunted against the Mets 120 times. That was the highest total for any team in baseball. Bartolo Colon saw 17 bunts. So did Matt Harvey. Jacob deGrom saw 19 bunts. And Jon Niese saw 26 bunts — the most in baseball, by five, over second place. Clearly, there was something about Niese opponents thought they could exploit. It just didn’t always work. It actually almost never worked. Granted, 16 of those bunts were sacrifices. But just one bunt resulted in a hit, and zero resulted in errors.

Related to this, you’re probably familiar by now with our Inside Edge defensive statistics, where plays get classified by probability. There’s a category, labeled “Remote”, including plays given a 1-10% chance of being successfully made. These are the most challenging defensive plays, among those plays that could reasonably be made, and last year throughout baseball pitchers turned a total of 25 remote plays into outs. The individual leaderboard:

1. Jon Niese, 3 remote plays made
2. 22 pitchers tied with 1

Niese was the game’s only pitcher to convert multiple remote opportunities, and he finished not with two, but with three. No less astonishing is the fact that two of those remote plays were converted in the same game in June, just a few innings apart. Let’s say that again: over the span of four innings in Arizona, Jon Niese converted two remote defensive opportunities. No other pitcher converted more than one all season long. Niese threw in a third later on for good measure. You want to know how the offseason is going to go. I don’t know how the offseason is going to go. I do know that Jon Niese made some great plays. So let’s just watch them, as we wait for everything else. He deserves some fleeting attention for this.

Play No. 1

Date: June 5
Hitter: Ender Inciarte
Highlight: link

How do we know Inciarte is a good bunter? I guess we can’t know Inciarte is a good bunter, but there’s enough circumstantial evidence. He’s a leadoff hitter, and he doesn’t have power, and he stands 5-foot-10, which means he really stands shorter than that. Also, he bunts a lot. Inciarte is one of those players who gets the most out of his skills possible, even though his skills aren’t particularly jaw-dropping, so it makes sense that bunts are a part of his game. Above, you see him bunting in the first inning, in a 1-and-0 count, as Niese’s first opponent of the day. It’s a good bunt. If Niese doesn’t field it, nobody fields it in time. Mostly, that bunt is a hit. Even as Niese is reaching the ball, it still looks like a hit:

Getting to the ball was the easy part, relatively speaking. Niese pounced, but as a lefty he faced a disadvantage here — there wasn’t time to spin around and throw, so Niese basically had to throw in reverse of his usual throwing motion. When pitching, his arm goes from back to front. With this shovel, his arm went from front to back, and while we all know how to do that, nobody’s trained to do it well, or with any sort of strength, and to be totally honest it’s not like Niese’s shovel was outstanding. But it got to where it needed to get to, before Inciarte did, and if this were an easier play, there would’ve been more than 25 remote plays made by pitchers all year. Or they wouldn’t be called remote. Whichever. The point is, nice play.

Play No. 2

Date: June 5
Hitter: Chris Owings
Highlight: link

We’ve been over this, but it’s still nuts: Niese made a remote play to lead off the game, then in the fourth inning, he made another remote play. What the plays had in common is they were bunt attempts. But, one was by a lefty, and one was by a righty. One was with nobody out, and one was with two outs. One was on the first pitch, and one wasn’t. One went to Niese’s left side, and one went to Niese’s right side. They were very different challenges, but Niese was equal to both. As in the first case, here, this play was going to be Niese or no one.

It’s nearly full extension. Then Niese had to turn and throw from his back knee, with a sidearm motion, again unfamiliar, if less unfamiliar than a backhand flip. Niese’s throw was strong and perfect, and it beat Owings to the bag by a step. The first throw might’ve been harder, but Niese had a little more time. There was less time on this opportunity, and Niese’s conversion was flawless.

A quick interruption: I don’t mean to suggest that Jon Niese is the greatest-fielding pitcher in the league. He’s good, sure, but he makes mistakes. Example: the very same game! In the previous inning. The bottom of the third saw Niese attempt to field a non-bunt. It didn’t go so well.

Niese had a busy few innings. Some went good, some went bad. I’m sure he got tired of scrambling around. Nobody has fun having to scramble around. He probably wanted the Diamondbacks to just leave him alone, but the Diamondbacks aren’t out there to do pitchers favors.

Anyway,

Play No. 3

Date: September 1
Hitter: Cesar Hernandez
Highlight: link

And now we finish with a blend of the first two bunts. This goes the same direction as the first one, but Niese has to make a play a lot like the second one, diving to stop a would-be automatic single. Then he has to throw sidearm from his knees again, and the throw is a bit low, but on target and in time. Niese’s natural motion carries him a little toward the third-base side, so this play required a quick change of direction and an all-out sprawl.

Hernandez has faced Niese 16 times in his career. In 2014, he bunted once, for a single. This past year, he bunted on April 15, but Niese threw him out. He bunted on May 9, but Niese threw him out. And he bunted on September 1, but Niese threw him out. On August 27, he fouled off a bunt, meaning Hernandez has played five games against Niese so far, and in each one, he’s tried one bunt. After the play above, Niese stood and shook his head, maybe just tired of Hernandez forcing him to run around. It’s like a little thing they have going on. The game within the game, that I’m sure Niese would prefer would just come to an end so he can throw a pitch and then get the ball and then just throw another pitch and not have to wear himself out.

Three incredible defensive plays by Jon Niese, where, by this measure, no other pitcher in baseball finished last year with more than one. All three of Niese’s outstanding plays were on bunts, which makes sense, as he was bunted against more than any other pitcher. But he did very well to field his position, to his own — and to his team’s — benefit. Because of Niese’s tremendous efforts, the Mets only lost the first game by five, and they only lost the second game by six.