The Travis d’Arnaud-Jon Niese connection

In his career, Niese has thrown 179 innings to d’Arnaud, nearly a full season. His performance with d’Arnaud as his battery mate has been significantly better than without. With d’Arnaud, he has a 3.22 ERA and a 3.05 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Without d’Arnaud, his ERA rises to 4.04 and the strikeout-to-walk ratio drops to 2.59. The [...]

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Howard Megdal on the Mets’ biggest problem

Indeed, even the talking point from the organization about Wilpon has shifted from "of course he can afford to run a large-market team" to how much he cares about winning, as if that matters even slightly if he lacks the means to make it happen. And yet, here are the 2015 Mets, their best pitchers [...]

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Jeff Sullivan on Bartolo Colon

Colon has two fastball types, and he has command of them both. Most simply, Colon throws a lot of his fastball. More accurately, Colon throws a lot of two fastballs. Most accurately, Colon throws a whole array of fastballs. Nothing about the batter-pitcher matchup is as black and white as you want it to be. [...]

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Dave Cameron on the Mets’ quick start

In reality, the Mets are probably still the 7th or 8th best team in the National League, but they’ve already collected 10 irrevocable wins, and the 4th, 5th, and 6th best teams in the NL aren’t exactly monsters. The NL Wild Cards will be won by two flawed teams that likely over-perform their actual abilities [...]

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