Ranking Jacob deGrom’s start, the poor debuts of Lindor and McCann and the one decent reliever

Just how good was Jacob deGrom’s start yesterday? In case you missed it somehow, deGrom had the following line – 8 IP, 1 ER, 0 BB, 14 Ks. That’s an outstanding line for anyone and it seems an incredible one to end up in a loss. Back in the 1980s, Bill James came up with [...]

Francisco Lindor, Michael Conforto and the new reserve clause

I’ve been a baseball fan as long as I can remember. Went to my first game in 1973. So, I was a kid when the whole Baseball Revolution happened: I was nine when Catfish Hunter signed with the New York Yankees, ten-going-on-eleven when Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally became the first true “free agents” and [...]

Starter & Reliever breakdowns for the NL and the Mets

Through four games, it feels like the Mets have gotten great starting pitching, while the bullpen has been a disaster. That’s been true of both entities in three of the four games. But when dealing with tiny sample sizes, one game can have a pretty big impact. The end result is that the starters’ ERA [...]

How many average or better relievers does a 90-win team have?

If you asked most Mets fans coming into the season what their biggest worry about the team was, the most likely answer you would have received was the bullpen. And three games into 2021, the bullpen has done nothing to allay those fears. In 9 IP, relievers have allowed 6 ER and have a 1.778 [...]

Gut Reaction: Phillies 8, Mets 2 (4/7/21)

In a game direct from the Mets’ 2020 playbook, complete with lousy starting pitching and terrible clutch hitting, the Mets fell to the Phillies, 8-2, Wednesday afternoon in Philadelphia. The second batter of the game for Philadelphia hit a homer and it kind of snowballed from there, as the Phillies put up four runs in [...]