When the projection series started back in January, it was unlikely that one would have been done for Michael Wacha, who seemed likely to get most of his work done in 2020 pitching long relief out of the pen. But the injury to Noah Syndergaard gives him a clear path to a gig as a [...]
We like things that are easy. It’s why we add together OBP and SLG to get OPS, which we use as a shorthand for offensive production. In mathematical reality, you never add things with different denominators. But adding together OBP and SLG gets you very close to the “right” answer so we do it anyway. [...]
Rick Porcello made 32 starts in 2019, the eighth time in his 11-year MLB career that he topped the 30-start plateau. He’s never had fewer than 27 starts in a season, a pretty remarkable run of health and durability. In his 2,037.1 lifetime IP in the majors, Porcello has amassed a 99 ERA+. Put it [...]
In his final 60 games of 2019, Michael Conforto had a .913 OPS. In his first 42 games of last year, he had a .926 mark. So, what happened in the middle of the year? In the May 16 game, the one that ended the opening hot streak, Conforto collided with Robinson Cano and ended [...]
It’s been established in everyone’s mind that Steven Matz is a riddle, someone who’s consistent only in his inconsistency. It seemed like more of the same for Matz in 2019. However, a look at the numbers show he was extremely consistent over five of the six months of the season. It was only the cursed [...]
Amed Rosario has made steady improvement since making his MLB debut back in 2017. That season he put up a 76 OPS+ in 170 PA. The following year his OPS+ rose to an 88 and last year it was 102, a really nice number for a 23-year-old shortstop. Over his final 372 PA, Rosario slashed [...]
The Mets acquired Marcus Stroman near the trade deadline last year, partially as an upgrade to Jason Vargas and partially as a 2020 replacement for Zack Wheeler. The cost was two prospects, which by itself was okay but combined with giving up two prospects in an earlier deal, really caused the Mets to be thin [...]
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the 2019 season – and there are a ton of good options from which to choose – was the team not believing more in Jeff McNeil. Sure, they believed in him enough not to trade him. But they thought so little of him that the GM considered second base [...]
Perhaps no pitcher on the staff has the chance to benefit more from new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner than Noah Syndergaard. Sure, sure – Edwin Diaz' results may be more important to the club. But would Hefner get credit for that or would it be the offseason work with Pedro Martinez that Diaz has supposedly [...]
It’s difficult not to be seduced by Robinson Cano. He was on a Hall of Fame trajectory through the end of the 2017 season. And after a miserable start to 2019, he hit like what his supporters hoped he would in the final 25 games of the season. In that stretch, he posted a .338/409/.600 [...]
Jacob deGrom won the Cy Young Award last year, which is kind of remarkable given the start that he got off to in 2019. After nine games, deGrom was 3-5 with a 3.98 ERA and hardly resembled the pitcher who was so dominating in 2018. But from that point until the end of the season, [...]
Today we kick off our eighth year of doing individual projections for the top players on the Mets. Like last season, these will be my own forecasts, not a group forecast like was done the first six years of the series. My hope is that everyone will weigh in on what they think the player [...]