First - kudos to David Stearns for putting Mark Vientos in the lineup and giving Brett Baty reps at second base in the minors. Ronny Mauricio’s injury has come up as one of the major hindrances to the New York Mets season, as he was the plan to step in at second base. These are [...]
Have the New York Mets already decided it is “starting figuring out next year” time? Has someone in the front office decided the Mets need to be well above .500 before rolling into June, and if not, the decision to fish or cut bait must be made quickly. Even as the electrons were drying on [...]
Preseason predictions largely estimated the New York Mets would be a near .500 ball club. A little better if the pitching staff performed slightly better than a median forecast, but also a little worse if the rotation performed a bit more poorly. The Mets are currently 14-13 and performing about as expected. The Mets Pythagorean [...]
Spring Training 2024 ends tomorrow, as the New York Mets face off against the New York Yankees at 1 pm, the Mets lineup seems to have sorted itself out. But not without some last-minute help. Batting order, at least any sensible batting order, does not have significant effects on a team’s ability to score runs [...]
The Mets offense has a very good core, with top players at multiple positions. Filling a few holes with good hitters (and fielders) meant the Mets would still be in contention for an 85-88 win season with the expected pitching staff. Then last week Kodai Senga came up with a shoulder capsule injury that is [...]
One of the items flying under the radar last week was the Arbitration Deadline, on Thursday January 11. The New York Mets had a half dozen players with the right service times – players between three and six years, plus Super Twos. Going to arbitration is almost universally a bad play for teams because they [...]
After three years of Steve Cohen owning the Mets and splashing money around once free agency opened up, the Mets so far this offseason did not make the headlines for free agent signings they had in the previous years. In the offseason following the 2021 campaign, the Mets made big moves, signing Max Scherzer, to [...]
One baseball player trait fans admire is “played their whole career with the same team”. It is standard trivia to know Brooks Robinson and Carl Yastrzemski both spent their entire 23-year careers with the same team – that’s the record. There are 11 players, all in the Hall of Fame, that played in 20 or [...]
Dan Szymborski self-describes as “Senior Writer for FanGraphs, ESPN contributor, data provider for teams/agents, ZiPSetician, gamer, exasperating, possibly the worst. BBWAA, Digital Dandy.” Dan and I have been friends for about 27 years, discussing and arguing baseball on USENET discussion boards. He developed ZiPS, the premier projection system for 20+ years, and I developed RED, [...]
The Mets 2023 season has just a handful of games remaining. Mostly it was a dark season but ending in the general area of .500 is a mere disappointment, rather than a slide into an abyss. The biggest reasons to just exhale, and prep for 2024 is the brightness of the team – the good [...]
The Mets have managed to sink to the bottom of the National League East. There are still positive aspects to the season and certainly skills to build on for 2024. While the hitting is always under the microscope, having a defender give away runs in the field definitely has to be prevented. It is a [...]
The Mets have made it to the 99-game mark. Sitting at 46-53, what can the Mets expect to achieve the rest of the season? The first information to review is what the prognosticators assessed the Mets true talent level before the season. Most already included Edwin Diaz’ injury, so that issue was included in the [...]