New York Mets – Red Seam Dreams

No Miracle Needed For The Mets Rotation

In genealogy, a researcher uses documents and DNA tests to trace a family history back as far as the records and science will take them. Often genealogists will see patterns in families which makes sense. Maybe you are a farmer and your father was a farmer and his father was a farmer, and so on. Starting pitching is part of the DNA of the Mets who can trace their rotation tree back to Doc Gooden, David Cone, Sid Fernandez, and Ron Darling who can trace their roots back to Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Jon Matlack. The Mets family tree is stunted because they only came to life in 1962 but their current top of the rotation is looking like they could carry on the legacy of their forefathers. There were some changes to the rotation during the off-season, but the Mets will live and die with their starting pitching again this year, so before the craziness of playing in New York starts, we should look at how the Mets rotation projects for 2020.

So who is the Met’s “Daddy”? That would be Jacob deGrom. When you’ve just won your first Cy Young, what is left for you to accomplish? How about winning another one like deGrom just did in 2019? Now armed with a Rookie of the Year Award, three All Star game selections, and two Cy Youngs, can deGrom put together career numbers that get him into the Hall of Fame? Weirdly, that is in doubt because he didn’t even debut in the majors until he was 26. His numbers are phenomenal but he doesn’t have the counting stats that one normally would see as gatekeepers for making it into the Hall. His career ERA is now 2.62 but he only has 65 wins so there is no way he will make it to 300 or 200 and he has to stay healthy to even get to 100, which would normally not be enough to qualify him for a discussion of HOF membership. I doubt deGrom is losing much sleep over his end of career place in history as he heads into spring training. He would win most arguments that at the moment he is the best pitcher in baseball having just struck out 763 batters in the last three seasons while walking only 149 batters in the same stretch. He has three straight seasons of surpassing 200 innings pitched while making at least 31 starts – plus the back-to-back Cy Youngs. Interestingly, as he has aged, deGrom has picked up velocity on his fastball going from an average (according to FanGraphs) of 94.2 MPH in 2016 to 95.8 in 2017 to 96.7 in 2018 – and last year to 97.2. At this rate he will be bringing it at 107 when he is 41! Seriously though, deGrom’s numbers have reached a superior level and with his annual uptick in velocity without a decrease in control, it is hard to see anything changing for the worse in the near future. He is an ace in the prime of his career pitching in a pitcher’s park – yeah, he’s great.

Is your nickname the name of a Norse God? No? Is it something like Stinky or Cue Ball? Well then it is likely that you aren’t as gifted or as talented at throwing a baseball as Thor – Noah Syndergaard. You probably don’t have long flowing blonde hair either! At 6’6, 240, Thor is built like the prototypical lightning bolt throwing God you’d expect to defeat evil- or the Yankees. Even though his ERA was 4.28 (FIP of 3.60), the Mets were probably much happier with Syndergaard’s 2019 campaign than they were with his 2018 campaign when it was 3.03 (FIP of 2.80) because he made 32 starts last year as opposed to only 25 in 2018. If the Mets get deGrom and Syndergaard for 30 plus starts each, then they have an excellent chance of making the postseason. Thor, at 27, has just had two similarly good seasons in a row – ERA differences mostly occurred because a higher percentage of his fly balls left the yard in 2019 (.52 in 2018 versus 1.09 in 2019). Lively ball? The somewhat random nature of home run rates on fly balls? You pick – the point here being that Syndergaard pitched well and figured out how to stay reasonably healthy all year. Having only reached 30 starts one other time in his career (2016), that is a big step toward becoming an ace himself.

Unlike the two beast masters at the top of the rotation, Marcus Stroman doesn’t throw 97 MPH. What he does is make his 32 or so starts (3 years in a row) strike out seven-ish batters per nine, keep walks to around two and a half per nine with an ERA in the mid threes. He is an excellent number three in any rotation and, at almost 29, should be in his prime as he pitches for his next contract. It seems like a recipe for another good year from Stroman who is one of the shortest starting pitchers of the last decade at 5’7. Baseball has a huge bias against short pitchers so it will be interesting to see what kind of contract Stroman gets if he has another good year – which would be three in the last four. Stroman works predominantly with a three pitch mix (fastball, sinker, slider) with the slider consistently having the highest pitch value – a score of the effectiveness of a pitch in games – of any of his offerings. In an environment where the slider is king (as it is in the Major Leagues right now), Stroman will continue to get chances to throw it in the rotation as long as he continues to succeed, but will probably have a shorter leash because of his size or lack thereof.

In the fourth slot in the rotation, Steven Matz was a top prospect who looked like he would never be healthy enough to contribute to the Mets – so a disappointment. Then he went and had back to back 30 start seasons in 2018 and 2019. Matz is 28 and is probably a bit maddening to the Mets because he hasn’t become anything more than an innings eater in spite of his ability to occasionally dominate. The former 2nd round pick is unbelievably homer prone with three straight seasons of home per nine rates over 1.4 in spite of his other good peripherals like his Ks per nine of 8.88 and 8.59 the last two seasons and his walks per nine of 2.79 for his career. If you averted your eyes from the ERA column and home run rates, then Matz is a two or a three. Sadly, home runs count and they lead to high ERAs if you give up enough of them. Will Matz turn the corner and help the Mets to the playoffs, or will he continue to frustrate and have the Mets finally cut bait and move on from the lefty? I wish there was a stat that indicated Matz had finally figured it out but, other than halving his home run rate in the second half of 2019 leading to a much lower ERA, you will have to stay tuned.

You have to love a rotation where Rick Porcello is your 5. Not because Porcello is an ace ambushing teams from the 5 spot but because if you are going to stick someone in the 5 spot how nice is it that he has a 22 win season and a Cy Young in his portfolio? Porcello is 31 and not really an ace – more of an innings eater with the possibility of more. Still if your number five guy can throw 180 league average innings, you are in really great shape and it is a decent bet that that is where Porcello’s lives now. In the decade just passed, Porcello never failed to make at least 27 starts and that has value, especially to a team that has seen its share of pitchers go down. His career ERA now sits at 4.36 which is about what the Mets should expect – maybe a bit lower due to their pitcher’s park, but moving from Boston where he had that Cy Young season might take some pressure off Porcello where he was always expected to be that guy again. Now, Porcello can fill the bottom of the rotation with average innings and all will be well.

And if things go south or injuries hit, Michael Wacha, who even though he seemingly has been pitching since Tom Terrific wore a Mets uni but is only 28, is ready to go and apparently healthy. Like Porcello, Wacha is probably not a top of the rotation starter anymore, but his velocity appears to be up this spring, and if he can get even part of the way back to where he was in 2015 after battling numerous injuries over the last few seasons, then the Mets have at least some depth, and pretty talented depth at that. Wacha’s ERA has only been below 4.00 once since 2015 (3.20 in 2018) but his FIP has been below 4.00 multiple times. Last year wasn’t pretty – an ERA of 4.76 and a FIP of 5.61 with an incredible 1.85 home runs per nine that was likely the culprit. On paper the Mets don’t need Wacha to start the season in the rotation but will very likely give him the chance to win a spot in spring training. For him to succeed, his walk rate needs to creep back closer to the 2’s like it was during his salad days instead of the high 3’s like it has been the last three seasons. The home rate will probably be better this year even if it is just because he is pitching in a tougher home run park.

There isn’t an obvious answer at triple-A although top prospect, David Peterson will likely start the season there after a meh season at double-A. After not exactly killing it at high-A either, it seems like the Mets would want him to show that he can, if not dominate, at least hold his own for half a season at triple-A before they call him up. His ground ball percentage which was in the high 60’s in the lower levels, has dropped to the mid-50s, which could signal a change in approach or a decrease in effectiveness. Watch what he does in Binghamton – maybe even go see him pitch and take a side trip to see the former site of the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Factory – you know – if you have extra time.

The Mets have a top-heavy starting rotation with lots of innings eaters with upside at the bottom. Every team would love to have the Mets top two starters, and every team would be thrilled to get 180 league average innings out of each of their bottom three starters; that’s the kind of season the Mets can realistically expect to get out of their rotation. By retooling for reliability in the rotation, the Mets have taken a lot of pressure off the bullpen. If things don’t break that way because this is baseball and plans are for stooges, the Mets probably don’t have the depth in the minors to pivot. They would have to convert Gsellman or Lugo back to starters, go sign someone or make a trade, or hope for their pen to step up and rescue them. With the rosy glasses of pre-injury spring, the Mets rotation looks poised to compete in the NL East. If history repeats itself and the Mets recapture their glorious pitching heritage, look for a deep playoff run for the New York team that wears purple and orange.

The Mets Have All The Second Basemen!

Welcome to an interesting Mets’ off-season where they hired a new GM who was an agent, Brodie Van Wagenen, acquired not one, but two starting second basemen, a starting catcher, a center fielder, and two closers, not to mention some other bullpen parts. That’s the kind of off-season that gets a fan base worked up because the team is doing something instead of standing in place and hoping things will work out. Just because your team does something doesn’t necessarily mean they did the right things to turn them into a playoff team, but the Mets, under Van Wagenen, have definitely done something to change their fortunes for better or worse, especially on the infield. So let’s take a look at the impact of the guys who surround the pitchers on the dirt part of the field.

The catching position once appeared to be a strength for the Mets because they had Travis d’Arnaud back there and homeboy could hit home runs, and maybe more importantly, he could catch and throw. What d’Arnaud appears unable to do is stay healthy. Only once has he reached 400 plate appearances and that was in 2014 when he stepped into the batter’s box 421 times. in 2018 d’Arnaud made 16 plate appearances in what was a lost season. Now 29, it will be interesting to see what he can do to contribute to the team as the backup catcher to Wilson Ramos, one of the new acquisitions that Van Wagenen signed as a free agent. Ramos is a better version of what d’Arnaud looked like he might be. Ramos is a good hitter – excellent for a catcher – and a decent defensive catcher who posts solid pitch framing numbers and slightly less solid numbers for throwing and pitch blocking. Ramos is possibly the best hitting catcher in the majors not named J.T. Realmuto, and last year bested all the catchers with his wRC+ of 131 – to 126 for Realmuto who did it over 531 plate appearances to Ramos’ 416 PA’s. Ramos has had more surgeries than even d’Arnaud who had TJ surgery last season, so expecting 500 plate appearances out of either of them is foolishness. The hope is that the two of them together can form one relatively healthy catcher. Adding Ramos is a definite upgrade over the other catchers the Mets ran out there in d’Arnaud’s absence. If one of the tandem falters, then Mets’ fans can expect to see a fair amount of someone like Tomas Nido, who has shown some pretty great framing skills and won a batting title in the minors. That said, it is unclear that he will hit enough in the majors to be more than the short defensive end of a catching platoon. For the season to go well for the Mets, they have to hope Ramos and d’Arnaud combine for 600+ plate appearances.

Spring training should determine the starter for the Mets at first. Peter Alonso is 24 and Baseball America just ranked him as the #48 prospect in all the land. He is a big man with huge power who also takes walks, hits for a decent average, and plays poor defense according to reports. Alonso hit 36 homers to go with 76 walks across two levels last season. He struck out 128 times too, but that is a manageable rate if he can continue to draw walks. He seems to be limited to first base and the Mets will deal with his defensive limitations if he hits a bunch of bombs and manages to carry an OBP over .320. His projections expect him to hit 20-25 home runs, bat around .240 with an OBP of .320 or so. That would be a fine rookie season. Anything more than that from Alonso and the Mets are in a good place. Less than that and he likely won’t play if his glove and arm are truly as bad as the scouts say.

J.D. Davis is Peter Alonso-light with the bat. He hits lots of home runs, but not quite as many as Alonso. He gets on base, but doesn’t walk as much as Alonso, and he strikes out more than Alonso. Defensively, Davis is more versatile than Alonso with a huge arm – enough for third base or right field, but without great range or a great glove so you probably don’t want to start him in either spot. Davis has crushed lefties in the minors – OPS north of 1220 in each of his last three stops – so a platoon with Alonso at first might work, although Alonso hits lefties just fine. It is hard to see the Mets carrying both players due to their defensive limitations so again – spring training will tell us a lot about the plan for 2019.

Todd Frazier is a good defensive third baseman but appears to have lost the ability to hit. He can still drive the ball over the fence from time to time – 18 homers in 2018 – but has back-to-back seasons hitting .213. To his credit, Frazier walks a lot so his OBP nudges past .300 every season – but just barely in three of the last four seasons – so he makes a lot of outs. Still, Frazier has been a three to four WAR player in all but two of the last six campaigns. His power does appear to be on the decline accounting for his first sub-two WAR season and his first wRC+ season below 100 since his rookie cup of coffee call up. 2018 was a 1.5 WAR season for Frazier. He is turning 33 before the start of spring training and it looks like his decline might be steep. If he starts, it will likely be at third, although he played a little first base in the majors. If the Mets carry him but don’t start him, then he is likely to see time at third, first, and maybe in the outfield where he hasn’t played since 2013. If he comes out of the gate hitting then the Mets will have a hard time finding spots for all their infielders to play because they have three guys who are second basemen and who will need to play almost everyday because of their bats. One of those three guys could move to first, but realistically the other two need to play either second or third based on their experience. More on that later, but the point is that Frazier could get squeezed out or flat out become a bench bat in 2019, the last year of his contract.

Shortstop is the most settled of the positions, with rookie and former top prospect Amed Rosario set to play everyday. Rosario is well thought of as a defender but didn’t put up good numbers according to DRS or UZR although those same metrics were good in 2017. So we will have to see what Rosario does with the glove in 2019. At this point in his development, his best tool is his speed and in the second half of last season he ran more often and more effectively stealing 18 bags in 24 attempts. He also hit 22 points better in the second half than in the first half, but he just doesn’t walk (4.9%) and he strikes out too much (20.1%) so his speed doesn’t get showcased enough since he isn’t on base often – a .295 OBP. Rosario just turned 23 so there is still likely some growth there and a 1.5 WAR season from a rookie shortstop with tools isn’t a disaster. The anti-Rosario came up last season – Luis Guillorme could step in if Rosario starts off frigid at the plate. Guillorme walks a ton, doesn’t strike out much, has no power to speak of, and is a wizard with the glove. His minor league slash line is .287/.363/.338 so in spite of the on base skills, he will likely transition to versatile glove man in the majors as his projections pessimistically agree on an OPS in the .500s. It will be interesting to see how he develops as he performed well with the bat at Double-A and Triple-A basically rising to the level of the competition. His glove will definitely push Rosario to perform.

Second base is where the logjam resides. Let’s start with the incumbent, Jeff McNeil. McNeil came up about midway through last season and flat out raked – a .329/.381/.471 slap line. He put up 2.7 WAR in half a season based in part on his wRC+ of 137, but also because of his solid work at second base – his primary position with the Mets, and his excellent work on the bases (7 of 8 stealing bases). In the minors, McNeil has been almost exclusively an infielder getting most of his time at second, followed closely by third base, then shortstop a distant third. He has played a total of 8 games in his professional career in the outfield. So it seems logical that he would get more time at second base or maybe third if you found a second baseman you just couldn’t pass up. Reports are that the Mets will try him in the outfield, but we will see what spring training brings. McNeil can hit for average, and found his power stroke in 2018 with 22 homers between double-A, triple-A, and the majors. If his bat is for real, then McNeil needs to be in the lineup everyday. His BABIP was on the high side at .359 but some players have high BABIPs regularly and it isn’t a sign of impending regression. McNeil has carried high BABIPs through most of his career so it will be interesting to see if he is one of those guys, or last season was lucky and he is really a .270 hitter with 10 home run power.

Robinson Cano was acquired this off-season in one of those deals where giant, lumbering contracts are exchanged. The difference with this deal was that the Mets also got a great closer in Edwin Diaz when they took on Cano’s gargantuan contract. This deal is interesting because Cano is coming off a suspension for PEDs in 2018, is 36, and before the suspension was still hitting like a 3-hole hitter. There is a small amount of data now on players’ performance after PED suspension and it doesn’t appear that most of them go in the tank when they are forced to play clean. Is that because the impact of the steroids lingers even after they stop taking them? Do they get better at hiding their transgressions? Were the steroids really helping them that much? Hard to know really, but 36 is 36 and Cano is due for some decline, although decline from perennial All-Star and potential Hall of Fame candidate at least starts out pretty high. His numbers show that he is still a good second baseman even if he isn’t a Gold Glove second baseman anymore. He had his knee scoped in the off-season so he should be at full health in spring training. Not surprisingly, considering that whole multiple Gold Glove thing at second base, Cano has played second base almost exclusively throughout his career getting his first innings at third and first last season. He contributed 4 DRS at second in 2018 despite missing half the season. Moving him to another position in spite of his continued ability to play the position well seems like a mistake and I would imagine he might bristle at the idea although that is hard to know from the outside.

In case you were thinking that two second basemen wasn’t quite enough, the Mets also signed Jed Lowrie from the A’s. Lowrie is coming off his best season in the majors (with 4.9 WAR and a wRC+ of 122) and his best back-to-back seasons in the majors in part because he stayed healthy. Injuries have cost Jed a lot of time in the past and he turns 35 the first month of the season. Last year he looked like an excellent defensive second baseman as he contributed 5.6 wins according to UZR/150. It seems possible that putting him in one position and leaving him there for two seasons has had a positive impact on his defense which intuitively makes sense. So the Mets have signed him and claim that their intention is to move him around the infield like a Ben Zobrist or a Marwyn Gonzalez. That type of player has value, and Lowrie can definitely do it, but is that the best way to get the most out of Jed? He has certainly done that in the past, but his recent experience, coming off the best two season stretch of his career, implies that he does best when he gets to play everyday and play second base, or at least the same position everyday. His numbers certainly don’t paint him as a good third baseman or shortstop and he is no longer in his prime. That is not a knock on Lowrie at all. He was the A’s MVP last year and received some AL MVP votes, but he is a human and as such it makes sense to look at the context in which he has succeeded the most and try to capitalize on that. But the Mets have made their roster bed so let’s see what they can do to maximize the situation that they have created.

McNeil is the youngster in the “I’m a second baseman but we can’t ALL play here” mix and he has a decent amount of experience at third and wheels enough that it seems he could learn to play the outfield, so it seems that if anyone is going to be the super sub it should be him. Since it appears that Jed Lowrie had a lot of success playing one position everyday and has played third in his career, he should be the everyday third baseman. That means Todd Frazier either moves or sits. Ideally Frazier would have a hot spring and the Mets could trade him for something of some value, otherwise they spot start him and hope he shows enough to make him more interesting to another team or a depth piece for the Mets if they are in contention. He still has value, but his age and his downward spiraling batting average will likely scare some teams away. Rosario has star potential, but Guillorme needs to play enough to see if he can hit as it is already clear that he is an excellent defender. Rosario should be the starter but Guillorme, who hits righties better than Rosario (at least last season), should get spot starts against righties, and be a late inning defensive replacement. Robinson Cano should be the starting second baseman at least until it seems he can’t handle the position. He should probably also bat in the middle of the lineup – probably third – as it appears he is still a three WAR guy or better. That leaves first base to Peter Alonso. The Mets might want to start 2019 with Alonso in the short end of a righty/lefty platoon with Frazier, which would give the rookie time to break in and allow him to hit to his strength. At the same time it would showcase Frazier for a trade. Health will likely have a lot to do with the starting catching decision, although, barring a huge spring from d’Arnaud, Wilson Ramos will likely get the lion’s share of starts. I wonder if d’Arnaud can play second base?

The Mets shouldn’t rule out a couple more deals to either decrease or, God forbid, increase the crowding in the infield. It is never a bad thing to have extra talent sitting around so you can’t feel bad about the depth of the Mets infield, especially when at least three of the infielders are in their 30s. Without getting too deep into the outfield situation, the Mets are pretty set in the corners so it will be tough to find room for one of the infielders to play much out there. Brandon Nimmo, the right fielder, is coming off a 4.5 WAR season and looks like an excellent leadoff hitter. In left, Michael Conforto saw a bit of a drop off from 2017 from a 4.4 War season to a 3.0 WAR season, but is still clearly the starter with some star potential. Yoenis Cespedes is a complete mystery after heel surgery and may or may not even be in the mix this season. If he is healthy then he, Nimmo, and Conforto will split time in the corners with the Nimmo and Conforto spelling Keon Braxton and Juan Lugares who will likely platoon in center. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of room in the outfield for McNeil or anyone else and I won’t even mention the 4th outfielder contenders. Suffice it to say that Manager Mickey Callaway has his work cut out for him making sure that he maximizes that talent and keeps his roster sharp and rested at the same time. Get ready for an interesting spring training with lots of speculation in the sports pages in New York!