Conventional wisdom used to be that the good teams knew how to win the close ones. And while it's true that generally good teams have good records in one-run games, where they really shine is in blowouts, games decided by five or more runs. A team can "luck" its way to one-run wins. It's a [...]
Between 2017-2021, Jesse Winker had a 129 OPS+ over 1,523 PA. And it seemed like he did the vast majority of his damage against the Mets. After a down season in 2022 and a dismal year in 2023, Winker rebounded with a strong start with the Nationals this season. Back to a 128 OPS+ in [...]
Since the world loves lists
Here are two players for your consideration: Player A: 310 PA, 103 OPS+ 1.3 rWAR, 1.5 fWAR, $10.5 million Player B: 233 PA, 96 OPS+, 1.5 rWAR, 0.6 fWAR, $2.025 million They’re pretty similar. Perhaps you’d prefer Player A due to his fWAR advantage, at least until you looked as their respective salaries. The players [...]
The Mets need starting pitching and the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal has been mentioned as being on the trading block. It’s hard for me to believe they would actually deal one of the top young pitchers in the game but perhaps where there’s smoke there will be a fire. The Mets were willing to spend $350 [...]
Fans love to come up with trades for their favorite team. It probably ranks second among things they like to do as armchair managers/GMs, behind only making up batting orders. The best thing about this is that many people have graduated past the idea of, “hey let’s package three things we don’t want for another [...]
No matter how you slice it, 2024 has been a bad year for Jeff McNeil. Combine that with his rotten 2021 and his 2023 season where he was bad for the first four months of the year, there’s a lot to be concerned about his ability to be productive going forward. At the same time, [...]
You hear people say that pitching is too dominant and we need more offense in the game. My belief is that just because people say something, well, that doesn’t make it true. But let’s not assume that they’re wrong, either. Let’s approach this question of offense with an open mind. It seems to me that [...]
There are always going to be bad relievers. But there are different levels of bad. There’s Adam Ottavino and his 4.89 ERA bad. Beyond that, there’s Jake Diekman and his 5.53 ERA bad. But in the first half, the Mets had seven relievers beyond Diekman-level bad. In alphabetical order, here were the baddest of the [...]
This is David Peterson’s fifth season pitching for the Mets. In that time span he’s pitched in 88 games and has made 72 starts. And despite all of that time in the majors, he’s kind of an enigma. If someone asked you if Peterson was good – how would you answer? It seems impossible to [...]
If you asked 100 people who the best starting pitcher for the Mets is, the most common answer would probably be Luis Severino. And while he got off to a great start this year – buoyed by having six of his first 10 starts in Citi Field while it was playing as an extreme pitcher’s [...]
Congratulations to Pete Alonso for being chosen as the Mets’ representative to the All-Star game. This will be the third time in a row Alonso has made the All-Star team and the fourth selection in his career. It’s just hard for me to believe that anyone feels like Alonso is anywhere close to being the [...]