Line drives help fuel Jeff McNeil’s hot streak

Back on April 4, an article was published here talking about Jeff McNeil’s slow start to the season. It also included his Grapefruit League and WBC numbers. At that point, McNeil was 9-53. Just in MLB games, he was slashing .191/.191/.238 in 21 PA. But despite that slow start, McNeil is back to last year’s [...]

Edwin Uceta and the necessary search for Trevor Williams’ replacement

If we go back 10-15 years ago, we see that MLB relievers as a group had consistently better ERAs than starters, typically in the .25 to .50 range. This occurred despite for the most part that the better pitchers were utilized as starters. It showed the advantage of being asked to pitch seven innings versus [...]

A look at why the Mets consistently have no outfield depth

At the Winter Meetings in 2012, then-GM Sandy Alderson was asked if the Mets’ top priority was adding to an outfield that consisted of Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and not much else. Alderson decided to respond with a joke, which didn’t exactly succeed the way it might have inside his head. He said, “Outfield, what [...]

Deep dive on the 194 times the Mets had a ball with a 100 or greater EV in September

As baseball fans interested in learning more about the game, we took a giant step forward with the arrival of Baseball-Reference. It’s hard to remember but there was a time when they did not update stats with the current season until the year was over. We took another step forward with FanGraphs, with all of [...]

A look at the offensive output of the three NL East teams to make the playoffs in 2022

One of the best ways to have a good season is to have your stars stay healthy and produce. Focusing strictly on the hitters, the 101-win Mets did an excellent job of following this concept. After years of pointing out the discrepancy of how healthy other teams in the division were compared to the Mets, [...]

How the projected 2023 Mets’ rotation compares to the 2022 version

There have been so many big deals involving the Mets, both through new additions to the team and re-signing some of their free agents, that it’s hard to tell if they’re done. It feels like they should be done, except for maybe a late-inning, non-closer bullpen guy. But are they done? Would you be willing [...]

Why pulling the ball is a good thing for almost all hitters

It’s a fascinating phenomenon on how when people want something to be true that they’ll ignore all evidence to the contrary. Carl Everett didn’t believe in dinosaurs and The Flat Earth Society is still a thing. Let’s add to that the belief that Jeff McNeil had a good year in 2022 because he stopped trying [...]

How the Mets’ bullpen shapes up against the pens of all NL contenders

Many people were upset that the Mets didn’t do more at the trade deadline. We’ve already seen that the hitters they imported have been much better than expected. Everyone thought the Padres won the deadline and they brought in Juan Soto, Josh Bell and Brandon Drury. Those three have combined (thru Wednesday’s games) for a [...]