The relative values of Jay Bruce and Yoenis Cespedes

Since the middle of the 2015 season, we’ve seen a spike in home run production. The increase has been so drastic that this past offseason we saw general managers essentially being indifferent to acquiring power. The prevailing thought has been – if everyone has power, why pay a premium for it? On the last day [...]

What Chris Flexen needs to be effective in the majors

Last year when the Mets needed to reach into their system and call up pitchers they weren’t expecting to, they got great results from both Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo. That fortune has not repeated itself this year with either Tyler Pill or Chris Flexen. It’s not a big surprise with either, as Pill doesn’t [...]

Exploring the trade market for Jay Bruce and Curtis Granderson

On Saturday, broadcaster Keith Hernandez called 36-year-old Curtis Granderson frisky. For those of us who grew up watching “Happy Days,” that word has a little bit different meaning. But clearly Hernandez meant it that Granderson was feeling good, as twice when he was on base he was looking to run. He got picked off by [...]

Exploring the Mets’ infield now that Amed Rosario is here

Now that the July 31 trade deadline has passed, the Mets need to figure out their infield deployment, both for the remainder of 2017 and next season. Right now the only thing seemingly written is stone is the status of Amed Rosario, who was just called up and has yet to play a single inning [...]

Examining Jerry Blevins’ poor 14-game stretch

Relievers are fickle by nature. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the better pitchers are most often starters and the second is that because relievers pitch fewer innings, they’re more susceptible to small sample size issues. When Jacob deGrom has a lousy eight inning stretch, he’s going to have 190 [...]