Dominic Smith is a first baseman who’s athletic enough to fake it in left field. That’s a good thing because the Mets have a 1B who hit 53 HR and while he’s not as good defensively as Smith, he’s not going to sit for him, either. Last year, the planets aligned for Smith to get [...]
Grapefruit League play – where the samples are small and the competition is less than MLB-quality. It’s tough to make decisions based off what happens in Florida. Sometimes players really are working on something and aren’t overly concerned with results. Still, let’s examine some players, both those still in camp and those who were sent [...]
A lot of people were down on David Peterson coming into the 2020 season. He was a former first-round draft pick who seemed more like a bust than a future rotation stalwart. In 2019 at Double-A, Peterson was 3-6 with a 4.19 ERA. At age 23, it’s not like he was young for the level, [...]
The use of the shift has become a hot topic of conversation in the baseball world. Depending on whether or not you fall into the bucket of new-age fans who see advanced statistics as a vital part of the game, or the old guard that is happy without them, you probably feel one way or [...]
Now that Carlos Carrasco is out for at least the first six weeks of the season, the starting pitching depth that the Mets acquired will get tested right away. Also getting a test will be manager Luis Rojas, who had already talked about using an opener before Carrasco went down and now that seems almost [...]
Later tonight, NC State begins postseason play with an opening round NIT game against the Davidson Wildcats in Texas. Nothing about that sentence seems right. The Pack wasn’t supposed to be in the NIT and if they were, surely, they would have had a home game. The idea that two NC teams would travel to [...]
Five years ago, an article was posted here with the premise of the Mets not making a trade in a dozen years. Little did anyone think we would have to revisit that topic again so soon. Except this time, it’s not a dozen years, it’s two years. Would the Mets be better now if when [...]
Pete Alonso got off to a slow start in 2020 but by the end of the year was once again a very productive player. In his last 91 PA, Alonso had a .992 OPS despite a .231 BABIP, with 13 XBH, including 10 HR. Still, there were people out there who wanted to trade Alonso [...]
At the conclusion of the 2020 season, it seemed like a pretty safe bet that David Peterson would be in the Mets’ rotation in 2021. After all, it looked like the Mets were going to need to sign three starters and how likely was it that they were going to get three or four guys [...]
You've probably heard about Luis Guillorme's epic PA yesterday. Here's video from MLB.com https://twitter.com/i/status/1371181080846475264 Today, Baseball-Reference's Stathead newsletter talked about Guillorme's trip to the plate and compared it to lengthy regular season PA. Since 1988, the beginning of "consistent pitch data" for B-R, there have only been two instances where a PA has lasted for [...]
Last Thursday Major League Baseball announced major rules changes at all four levels of the minor leagues for the 2021 season. They were met to mixed reactions, though many fans came down on the side of being against some of these drastic changes. In case you missed it, the changes are as follows: Triple-A: The [...]
The top 50 column is one of my favorites; but a challenging piece becomes just about impossible with the missing minor league season in 2020. No one has any idea who the layoff will affect the most, which means this list will likely be a bigger guess than usual. Anyway, about half of these entries [...]