Back before they finally won the World Series, jokes about the Cubs were a thing. My favorite was one attributed to Pete Rose, who allegedly asked, “What did God say to the Cubs? “Don’t win until I come back.” Anyway, if 2016 never happened, we could make some jokes about the Cubs and Jose Quintana. [...]
It’s time to look at the recipient of the new $50 million extensions, Jeff McNeil. This time last year, McNeil was coming off the worst season of his career and the computer models put a bunch of weight on that bad performance. The most-optimistic prediction from the six models was the .779 OPS forecast from [...]
Max Scherzer was better than expected in his first season in all categories except one – health. After making 30 or more starts in 11 of the past 12 full seasons – and having 27 starts in the other – Scherzer made just 23 starts in 2022, as he missed seven weeks with an oblique [...]
For hitters this year, we’re going to bring back the playing time element by projecting PA. RotoChamp does not include PA, so their entry will be AB + BB. Along with that will be the triple-slash line of AVG/OBP/SLG. There are five categories for pitchers so to bring it in line with the hurlers, let’s [...]
Now that the ZiPS forecasts are out for the Mets, it’s time to start our annual projection series. This marks the 11th year of doing individual projections for the top players on the Mets. My hope is that everyone will weigh in on what they think the player will do in 2022. You’ll have more [...]
Here’s the final look back at the preseason projections. Forecasts were done for the five starting pitchers and the closer. The predictions were good for the infielders and not so great for the outfielders. Which direction will the pitcher forecasts tip the scales? Because of the lockout, only rate stats were used. The categories for [...]
After checking in on the projections for catcher and infielders in our first look back, this time around we’re going to do the outfielders and designated hitter. Because of the lockout, we looked at rate stats only – forecasting AVG, OBP, SLG, BB% and K%. Unlike in 2021, we saw some good projections right away [...]
It seems a lifetime ago. But in the beginning of 2022, we had the lockout and there were concerns about how many games would actually take place this season. Fortunately, we got all 162. But that was unknown when the projection series started. Because of this, we moved to all rate-based stats for the individual [...]
The Mets seemingly have three choices for their primary designated hitter – Robinson Cano, J.D. Davis and Dominic Smith. Originally, my thought was that Davis would get the majority of time at the new NL position. But news came out that Smith played through an injury last year and when we saw him in Spring [...]
Edwin Diaz is a pretty good closer. Unfortunately, the Mets paid a heavy trade price to get him and now his salary is no great bargain, either. The money is no real issue these days. But can Mets fans be content with Diaz if he’s somewhere around 5-10 among closers rather than the best in [...]
What do the Mets have in James McCann? He was a non-descript catcher with the Tigers for parts of five seasons, as he posted a .240/.288/.366 line in 1,658 PA. That’s an okay AVG, a poor OBP and a poor SLG. Then McCann goes to the White Sox and puts up an .808 OPS. He [...]
In his last two full seasons, Eduardo Escobar hit a combined 63 HR. If you had any doubt as to the main reason the Mets signed him, it was to deliver power. But that’s not all Escobar brings to the table. He can play anywhere in the infield and while we hope not to see [...]