The season mercifully came to an end on Sunday. The Mets went into Saturday with a chance at the playoffs and proceeded to dump the season in getting swept by the Washington Baseball Team, surging into the National League East cellar.
Tremendously, the Mets played well on offense. The starting nine only had Amed Rosario hitting below average. The Mets poor finish is solely on the shoulders of the pitching and defense. Jacob deGrom was stellar as usual, and rookie David Peterson was excellent. Both have a strong argument for their respective awards – deGrom could win his third consecutive Cy Young (check opponent quality) and Peterson was the top Rookie, and not just pitchers. Ke’Bryan Hayes must play more than that…
The pitching staff will have to be overhauled – Rick Porcello, Michael Wacha and Steven Matz combined for a 2-16 record with an ERA in the sixes. Seth Lugo struggled as a starter but showed flashes of competence. Porcello’s FIP certainly suggests he needed some defensive help. The bullpen did not implode, and Edwin Diaz pitched pretty well.
Let’s talk about the defense. Was it good? No. Was it terrible? No. Well, was it terrible for just 60 games? It was not good. The Mets posted the third-worst defense in the National League. Both the Phillies and the Nationals were significantly worse (7-8 runs), which is why they were just “bad” and not “terrible.” Based on what we expected, how did the Mets do?
As expected, Pete Alonso played first base, mashed a few home runs, made it through his sophomore slump, and performed approximately as expected on defense, perhaps even a slight improvement over 2019. Good work for Alonso in the field, now hit some dingers next year.
At second base, the Mets stumbled around just below average, by a couple of runs. As noted, the five-man committee turned in a performance just below average, and the runs not saved were small. That isn’t a reason not to upgrade the position with an everyday player, preferably one whose agent isn’t the General Manager.
Rosario had a good year with the glove, but rookie Andres Gimenez made some flashy plays, leading people to call for a “youth movement”, even though Rosario is 24. Gimenez was clearly an improvement at the plate, even if his shortstop play was about the same. Gimenez did field well at second and third, so there is definitely room for him on the team.
Third base had a similar five-man operation as second base, and four of them performed average or above. Unfortunately, J.D. Davis gave all of those runs back and more and posted the worst defensive numbers on the team. He simply cannot play third base competently and is more suited to be a designated hitter.
Instead of being an average infield, the Mets chipped away, playing 10 guys in various positions managed to post a -8 runs; in 60 games, or the equivalent of 22 runs over a full season. When the Mets look around for improvements this offseason, finding younger, better fielders is a must.
The Mets defensive bright spot was the outfield. That sounds odd if anyone watched the games, but Michael Conforto played well, a few runs above average. Brandon Nimmo was average when not in center field. Jeff McNeil played well in left and right fields and played half the time there.
In the preseason, we commented that the outfield should improve with Luis Rojas at the helm, and that came true. “Better” doesn’t necessarily mean good, and Dominic Smith, Brandon Nimmo, Jake Marisnick and Davis were all below average generating a cumulative -5 runs (multiply by 2.7 to extrapolate to 162 games), and you can see that left and center need help stabilizing.
The Mets catching improved significantly, but it is hard to tell why. Wilson Ramos “just improved”. Perhaps he had an injury, perhaps it was the sample size, but the catching improved by ten runs. On the other hand, perhaps 2019 was an off year and he returned to his normal performance.
A couple of key takeaways: Davis should be traded for other talent. Nimmo should probably be traded for other talent. Nimmo and McNeil are remarkably similar, with McNeil being slightly better but also a year older. McNeil can also play infield. Cano mashing really makes it hard for the Mets to part with him; besides who would take that contract.
McNeil has a .319/.383/.501 career slash line, and a 139 OPS+, and 9+ WAR in three seasons. Mets fans shouldn’t talk about him as a “bit player”. The Mets have their own Ben Zobrist and should relish it.
Lastly, the Mets best player this year has been Smith. He leads the team in RBI, doubles, OPS, OPS+, and just nudged out on WAR, and so on. Keeping Smith in the lineup is critical to the Mets’ success. Smith’s defense in left field is adequate, and better than Davis’.
Smith has also been a leader on the field regarding how we move forward in society. He knelt for the anthem and spoke about social justice in America. His comments were moving and appreciated. The cancellation of the Mets-Marlins game, and the wins on Jackie Robinson Day were great for him. This writer will cheer him on. Black Lives Matter.
A couple (few) points that come to mind when I read this: Baseball, unlike football, uses the same players on both offense and defense. If you like the offense, there are only very minor tweaks that can be done with those same players when they have to play on the field. So the “finding younger, better fielders, is a must” becomes very difficult to do. I agree with that statement only at the catcher position. You could argue with 2nd base and Cano, but with that contract that can’t be moved, and the fact that the man can just flat out hit, make it less important. They do need to decide if Davis, McNeil, Nimmo, and even Dom Smith fit into the team they want to present, and where to play them. My personal opinion at this point is Davis is the third baseman, Smith is the left fielder, Nimmo and McNeil are trade pieces, bring in George Springer as the better defensive centerfielder and tweak the rest.
JD Davis is a worse hitter and worse fielder than Jeff McNeil. I can’t see any reason to prefer him over McNeil.
Davis is a singles hitter that can’t field Nimmo and McNeil are like three times the players.
I agree with bringing in Springer, but not with dealing Nimmo and McNeil. Trade Davis and Rosario (and Matz, if anyone will take him).
I think the DH benefits the Mets, so hopefully it will be retained.
Starting Team:
1B Smith/Alfonso
2B Cano/McNeil
SS Gimenez
3B McNeil
LF Nimmo
CF Springer
RF Conforto
C Realmuto
DH Alfonso/Cano/Smith
McNeil is a much better player defensively & offensively than Davis & I personally would never at this time trade McNeil & keep Davis. J D Davis is a terrible fielder &, this year not as good a hitter as he was last year. Jeff McNeil is a better hitter & a better fielder, who is more versatile & the obvious choice to build your team around along with Conforto, Alonso, Jimenez and/or Rosario & Smith. The biggest need for the Mets is pitching they must get at least two more quality starters including one # 2 & a # 3. Syndergaard will be back but you never know how effective he will be especially the first year back or when he will make it back. The catcher position is easily fixed by signing J T Realmuto to a free agent contract & be done with it!
While neither McNeil nor Davis will remind you of Brooks Robinson on the hot corner, McNeil was so awful over there this year he only played 9 games before they ended that experiment. With 5 errors in 37 chances, he is certainly not a much better player defensively than Davis. Yes, this is 2020 stats, and 2019 was a bit better, still a small sample size. Davis seems to generate a case of short-term memory lapse, as he was the second coming after his breakout 2019. Which is real?
My end thoughts on this are that McNeil is probably at the top as far as trade value goes and he hits left handed. If your point to get a solid #2 and/or #3 starting pitcher is valid (and I agree that it is), it is much more likely to happen if McNeil is the centerpiece of the deal than Davis. Another point is that they cannot carry all three of McNeil, Nimmo, and D. Smith as left-handed hitting parttime outfielders, none of whom can play center. And he is also rather a clone of Cano at 2nd base if you prefer him there – he will never be the ‘defensive replacement’. The only way he gets a lot of time at 2nd is if Cano goes down with injury for a long period of time – entirely possible at his age, but do you want to build your team with that precept? I say let’s dangle him out there and see what he is worth. I am not interested in giving him away for a hit or miss reliever, but as you state, a starting pitcher might be available if he is going the other way.
Cool work Chris. While McNeil is more flexible, I’d move him and keep Nimmo. McNeil doesn’t have a great on base and while he can give you some power, the hits need to fall in for him. Don’t get me wrong,I like the player but I’m just comparing two players. I expected a far worse defensive report, so this wasn’t as bad as I thought. Too, I thought Gimenez would have been much better than Rosario.
A thought on Davis, who started off playing a good third base early on: he works hard on both offense and defense and those players keep improving. Not that he will be a Hall of Famer, but both George Brett and Mike Schmidt were bad defenders when they came up. I’d give Davis another year to show me something; I bet he does.
McNeil has a career OBP of .383. Nimmo’s is .390. I’m not sure where you are coming from there. Moreover, McNeil’s is comprised of fewer walks (which means more baserunner advancement).
Re: Gimenez vs Rosario – Rosario’s MLB expereince is helpful, so Gimenez would probably be better going forward as he learns MLB better. Rookies usually struggle adjusting the MLB, and see defense improve the second year.
Re: Davis – why? He was bad at third last year. He’s a bad fielder, and when you mention Schmidt and Brett, they were 3-5 years younger than Davis. Davis will be 28 next season, while Brett and Schmidt were 22-24 when they were at Davis’ experience level. Davis won’t get better because defense declines with age (any age over 25). Few people can hold their age 25 performance, and very very very few improve on it. Ozzie Smith got worse after age 27, so I doubt JD Davis won’t.
The Mets were a bad defensive team and need to improve. Reading the article it was apparent that the best defensive and offense alignment together was Smith LF, McNeil 3B and Davis DH. Nimmo in CF was the weak defensive link with this alignment. Therefore the Mets need get a CF to improve their defense. The new centerfielder should replace Nimmo’s career .838 OPS. Free Agent George Springer fits the bill with a career .852 OPS. and a 6 DRS. The Mets could improve the defense a bit more by putting Smith in 1B, Nimmo is LF and Alonso DH. After all, Nimmo is a better offensive player Davis career .795 OPS.
Chris, would you explain the average rating for Ramos. He seems to be a poor pitch blocker, immobile and can’t control the running game. Realmuto would be dream and McCann would be a good back fall.
The starting pitching needs to be overhaul with two “mid rotation or better” starters.
Pitching and defense is a championship combination.
Ramos’ not terrible performance is as simple as “200 innings instead of 900”.
JD Davis’s play actually improved at 3rd base. I thought he was far better than he was in 2019 and he was much better than mcNeil who was having his own problems playng 3rd. I look for more improvement from Davis in the 2021 campaign after a full camp/preseason at 3rd base.
Hope I’m not posting this question too late to be noticed, but what is the historic impact of defense on winning championships, both WS and playoffs, or having a W/L record sufficient to be considered championship caliber?