In 2011 the Mets were not a very good team. They had finished fourth in the division, didn’t have any kind of consistent pitching, and couldn’t keep their stars healthy. Despite these struggles the Mets had a trait that is needed right now- the ability to score runs. They figured out ways to score runs no matter the situation, but especially with two outs. Here’s a few raw stats: the Mets scored 99 more runs than last year (619 to 718); they had an identical OPS at home and on the road; and they led the National League in doubles, walks, and sacrifice flies. The Mets, this season, led the league in strikeouts- that’s it offensively. With a couple of adjustments, the Mets can become at least an average defensive team and maybe a top-scoring team.
First, and foremost, the Mets need to stop focusing on raw power and hitting home runs. Citi Field is just not meant for players to be hitting 35+ homers on a regular basis and the Mets need to accept that and deal with it. In 2011, the Mets were 13th in home runs for the National League, but 6th in runs scored. The Mets need focus on hitting a ton of doubles and triples- mostly doubles.
In 2011, fourteen players on the Mets hit double-digit doubles, but in 2013, only eleven surpassed this total. The lovable losers are focusing solely on knocking a ball out of the park but if they would just stay back and wait for a pitch to hit in the gap, it would put them in scoring position and might even knock in a run in the process. Players on this team that are known for power (Curtis Granderson, Chris Young, and Ike Davis/Lucas Duda) should be shooting for 35-40 doubles and 15-20 homers rather than just going for 35 bombs.
The slugging percentage on this team may not be very attractive, but doubles will move runners around and put hitters in scoring position while possibly cutting down the strikeouts.
The quickest way to question my theory of run production is to question whether or not the Mets can produce anything without Reyes or Carlos Beltran in the lineup. I understand this problem. After all, they were involved in about 38% of the runs scored in 2011 and they aren’t in Flushing now.
In all honesty, there is no guarantee that these guys will even come close to replicating the offensive production, but if there is one thing that can be passed on- it’s being patiently aggressive. Here is what I mean by this, the Mets were one of the toughest teams to strike out in 2011, but they led the National League in walks. In 2013 the Mets had technically kept the same approach, but they led the league in strikeouts and were fourth in walks- which is reasonable. The Mets should take pitches and try to knock a starter out, but when they get their pitch- swing. The Mets have been a team that is afraid to actually swing the bat and relies heavily on the opponent to toss four balls, which usually leads to another one of the 1384 useless strikeouts.
My personal preference has been against Tejada’s play since the beginning, but he has the right idea with his previous hitting by taking pitches that are balls and actually swinging when the pitch is over the plate. The Mets need to realize that taking pitches is a positive idea and to be used frequently, but at the sole cost that when the perfect pitch comes- they take a legitimate swing at it.
One of the original great traits in a baseball player is to hustle and run hard no matter the situation. Even though the Mets ran well in 2013, they need to make a few tweaks. Technically, they were one of the top teams in stolen bases this past season but, in my opinion, is bogus because Eric Young Jr. stole 1/3 of them. If a hitter gets a single, they should constantly be trying to grab a base especially with the semi-established speed on this squad.
The outfield trio of Granderson, Juan Lagares, and Chris Young should be stealing at least 15 bases each, but in the likely event that Young is traded mid-season, Young Jr. should steal every base in sight. In regards to the infield, David Wright and Daniel Murphy should casually steal 20 bases. At this point Tejada seems to be the starting shortstop and while he is not really a base stealer, he should try to swipe ten. This leaves Travis d’Arnaud and whoever is on first, they are off the hook due to positional obligations and an overall lack of speed. The Mets should be stealing 120 bases and making the most of a trip to the base paths.
In conclusion, the Mets should hit for less homer power and more gap-to-gap power, take pitches and swing when necessary, and continue to hustle on a regular basis. There are players on this team who may have trouble preforming under these circumstances; whether its Granderson not swinging for the fences in his first few months, Lagares taking a pitch for once, or Duda attempting to run, the Mets should try their best to even out their strengths with their weaknesses. As one may recall, in 2011 the Mets had the scrappiest lineup in history, but none of the hitters had an OBP under .322 that got 250 PA, and if that can be duplicated in the slightest combined with the pitching staff assembled this year, the Mets can really do something in the 2014.
I would like to thank everyone who reads and writes here on Mets360 and in two weeks it will have been a great half-year of writing here. Here’s to another year of Mets as we hope for the best in 2014!
In 2013, the Mets were a top5 scoring team until mid-August when we lost Wright to injury and traded Byrd. I don’t understand why people think this team can’t score runs.
In addition to the September swoon, they also struggled to score runs through most of May, too. In 22 games from May 5 thru May 28, the Mets scored just 61 runs. That’s an average of 2.77 runs per game, which is atrocious.
Also, I think fans will forgive a team that doesn’t score a ton of runs if they have a half decent record in low-scoring games. The Mets were 18-65 in games where they scored three or fewer runs – which certainly doesn’t help. That’s a .217 winning percentage.
B-R lists winning percentage by team for three levels of runs, 0-2, 3-5 and 6+. The NL average was a .137 winning percentage with 0-2 runs and the Mets had a .098 winning percentage in those games.
That extended swoon in May makes the fact that top5 at mid-August more impressive IMO. That means they were pretty much top3 in the other 3.5 months.
Thanks for those winning % percentage numbers. i was going to calculate them on my own but now i don’t have to.
Those below-average numbers indicate to me that the pitching was the problem. Despite our sexy prospects coming up in the pipeline, last year overall the pitching wasn’t very good results wise. They allowed the 3rd most runs in April, May, and August and 7th in June. The only good month was July when they were the 3rd best.
To sum up: The pitching was mostly the problem last year, not the offense. I don’t understand why the pitching gets off scot-free while we criticize the offense so harshly.
What you have to remember, Name, is that the Mets had Marcum and Hefner at his worst for parts of this and the players that did excel will be returning while the players that struggled are leaving.
The analysis above was solely on the 2013 season. Even though it looks better going into the 2014 season, I think it’s unfair that all the negative attention is channeled to the offense and the pitching gets praises when the offense was above-average last year and the pitching was below average.
Many of the reasons they scored that many runs up to August are permanently gone. We almost had a league average C, and we had a great season in RF from Byrd.
Many of the reasons they scored less runs after August, are still with the team; our weakness at SS, 1B, CF (offensively) and C have in no way been addressed other than hopes and dreams.
In fact, we might be relying on those limited bats even more now.
I don’t think Duda is a limited bat at first, but those “hopes and dreams” are probably enough to carry at the other 3 positions. Tejada has a past of being effective on offense, Lagares’ glove is good enough that you can deal with his offensive deficiencies by hiding him in the 7 or 8 hole, and d’Arnaud got a cup of coffee and should get better with more playing time. Can’t really judge a player by 112 PA.
Let’s just say we disagree.
We can hide three barely average players with sub 700 OPS’ if the a lot of the five are all way above average, We’re hoping to find two average bats out of three (C/CF/SS) where we had *none* a year ago.
Sure sounds like hopes and dreams to me. Tell you what; let’s get Drew and we’ll hold the pillow tight on the CF and C, and pray defensive gloves up the middle cover a lot pain. 🙂
What I actually found interesting is that according to the Pythagorean W-L theory, is that if the Mets scored the amount of runs they did in 2011 and they allowed the amount of runs they did this year- the Mets would be an 84-86 team.
Runs in baseball are decreasing due to the exceptional pitching talent coming from the minors. In 2011 the Mets scored 718 runs and were 6th in the league. In 2013, only 1 team had more runs than that.
I bet Met fans would find this hard to believe, but the Marlins actually allowed fewer runs than the Mets this year.
Name, there is no doubt the Mets could put numbers on the board through August. Ive tallied up the W or L margin data to look things over. As you mentioned, September was a nightmare, so I didnt put any of that info in my analysis. What struck me is that while we were 62-72 on Sept 1st, 13% of our wins came by 8+ runs, whereas only 7% of our losses came by that margin. Quite a few of our runs were just giant pile-ons, so that when we had good days we had triumphant blow outs where adding runs was just redundant and not an indicator of daily play. Had those runs been scored in more close games, then we would have been in much better shape.
In addition what i posted under Brian, here are some additional stats.
NL average scoring 0 runs: 7.2%, Mets: 4.9%
Nl average scoring 1 run: 12.5%, Mets: 13%
NL average scoring 2/3 runs: 30.5%, Mets: 33.3%
NL average scoring 4-6 runs: 32.4%, Mets: 34%
NL average scoring 7+ runs: 14.8%, Mets: 17.5%
As you can see, the offense was more consistent than you are giving credit to them. They got shut out much less than the average team and had percentages from 1-6 runs. They actually had less blowouts than the average squad so i would disagree with your giant pile-on statement. Also, keep in mind these numbers include their dreadful September when the rookies couldn’t hit a lick so they would likely look better without them.
NL average when scoring 2/3 runs: 35.5%, Mets expected: 32.4%, Mets: 27.8%
NL average when scoring 4-6 runs: 67.5%, Mets expected: 61.4%, Mets: 63.6%
NL average when scoring 7+ runs: 90.6%, Mets expected: 82.7%, Mets: 87.5%
Seems to me here like the pitching isn’t the one doing their job. The pitching is winning 15% less games than they should in the 2/3 category. Over a full season that’s 2-3 games lost that should be won.
Pitching was the problem last year.
I would say both pitching and hitting were a problem. Loading up useless runs does little. Clearly we pitched like crap. This year will be no different on the hill, and likely worse. Consequently, I see that we will again be in a struggle with the Phillies for a lousy record and 3rd place in the division.
Those facts didn’t convince you that the pitching wasn’t the problem? The Mets didn’t load up on useless runs; they scored 7+ 14.8% of the time while the league average was 17.5% and they got shut out less than the average squad. The offense for the most part did their job, it was the pitching that didn’t hold up to their end of the bargain; they were expected to win 32.4% of games when scoring 2-3 runs and instead only won 27.8% of those games.
If i had to place blame, probably 80% pitching, 20% offense. If we are to contend this year, we actually have to start seeing some of the pitching living up to the praise we’ve been giving them.
Facts come in many forms. Like I said we had nearly 2x the blowout wins than losses. Those are useless runs. Through the April-Aug window, we has 19 1-run wins, and 24 1-run losses. I would gladly have taken some of the runs when we scored 16 and put them to other games. Comparing to league average does not apply to actual game results in my opinion.
Our first 10 wins through April break down as 65 runs scored and 20 runs allowed, which is more than 3x in our favor. In that same stretch we went 10W and 9L. That tells me we scored quite a bit in overage. I would gladly have taken some of the 45 excess runs and applied the 4 games we lost by 1 or 2 runs by the 10th win. In May games we went 11-15. In games we won, the total was 50 scored against 29 allowed, but in games we lost we were outscored 92 to 37. Sure we can assign pitching as part of the problem, and Im completely with you on that. But there were not enough runs scored to remain competitive. We lost 4 games by less than two runs. Add the 7 games in April we lost by 1 or 2 runs and we are looking at 85 Wins if runs were not piled up. June through the August looks a lot like April, and September looks like May.
In my book we scored a ton of futile runs last year, which punctuated long stretches of losing. When we did shine, a lot of runs came in. All Im saying is that we could have had 11 more wins just through May if a bunch of those runs were more evenly distributed.
Seems like this might be a glass half full/half empty situation. You see that the offensive runs could have been more evenly distributed, i say that the pitching allowed runs could have been more evenly distributed. You say that you could take the excess runs and apply them to the games we lost by 1 or 2 runs, i say that we could take the runs allowed in the 1-2 run games and apply them to the games we won by a lot. You could say we scored a ton of futile runs, i say we prevented more runs than we needed.
Looking at the May stretch you mentioned, the offensive was 50 runs scored in winning games and 37 runs scored in losing games. That variance is much less than the runs allowed side of 29 and 92. That indicates to me that the pitching was the main problem and the offensive was much more consistent than you are giving credit.
According to FanGraphs, the Mets finished 10th in the NL in pitching WAR with a 10.9 mark. The highest mark was 18 and the lowest mark was 4.4
They finished 10th in the NL in hitting WAR with an 18.1 mark. The highest in the league was 27.5 and the lowest was (-0.7)
They finished sixth in the league with a 2.8 UZR/150. The best mark was 8.1 and the worst was (-10.6)
So, they had 61% of the top pitching value and 66% of the top batting value.
I could support your claim that pitching was a bigger problem than the offense but I would not come close to the ratios you suggest. Also, we would have to separate pitching into starting/relieving and without looking at any numbers I would guess the RP take the majority of the blame.
I actually did a linear regression study on Team WAR with season win totals, and found that WAR was a terrible statistic in relation with wins so not sure I can buy any argument that includes team WAR values.
Looking at 2013 values specifically, the first thing that stands out to me is the Rockies have the highest pitching WAR… and are 13th in batting WAR… The traditional metrics have them dead last in ERA and 2nd in runs scored, but even with park factors considered should not lead to those values in my opinion. Seems like they are putting too much emphasis on park factors.
Like i said in an earlier post, WAR is the best we have at an all-encompassing stat, but still very flawed at this point and all discussion and metrics that revolve around it need to be taken with doubt.
Also, seeing as we are evaluating the past and not forecasting for the future, we have to take luck as it was. Since fWAR does attempt to take the luck portion out as much as possible, I don’t think it is useful for evaluation.
I found your last paragraph interesting. While I don’t agree that we should aim to keep the luck aspect intact, it would be silly not to at least examine how much said luck played with the final result in 2013.
Using bWAR, the Mets ranked 12th in both hitting and pitching WAR in the National League last year, although percentage-wise, the margin was greater than with FanGraphs. Using B-R, the batters contributed 52% of the league-leading WAR total while the pitchers contributed just 28%
So, the batters were a bit luckier in 2013 than the pitchers.
I think your last sentence (before the thank you) really hits the nail on the head. Last year the Mets had 5 players with a sub .320 OBP and >250 PA. It’s hard to score runs when you don’t have men on base.
Also I’d disagree with your assertion that a player can’t hit 35+ home runs at Citi Field. It can (and eventually will) be done – just look at Ike Davis’ 32 HR in 2012 when he was garbage for half the year. The Mets haven’t had a 35+ HR threat since they moved to Citi, and now that the steroid era is over, those guys are less and less common.
You can’t ask for guys to be players that they’re not. If you want a team of guys who hit 40 doubles and 15 home runs, you have to sign players who do that – you can’t ask for players to be different. The team signed Granderson and Young to walk, hit home runs, and play good defense.
The idea of Ike Davis actually being a power threat at home is not very accurate because in 2012 he hit 21 of his 32 homers away and in the second half when he went on his power surge he hit 12 away and 8 at home. I will admit the Mets should hit more homers, that’s why the fences were moved in, but I’m saying they shouldn’t swing for the fences.
Granderson can definitely hit 35+ doubles considering he did in Detroit while he hit 20+ homers. Same with Chris Young, he actually was a 35+ double guy with 20 homers in Arizona. I am also not asking them to not take walks, I am just saying they should stay aggressive while being patient. They aren’t changing who they are, they are just making adjustments to be the players they were.
Young’s 2013 O-Swing%: 28.3%
Young’s 2013 Z-Swing%: 61.8%
Grandy 2013 O-Swing%: 31.3%
Grandy 2013 Z-Swing%: 63.7%
2013 MLB Avg. O-Swing%: 31.0%
2013 MLB Avg. Z-Swing%: 65.5%
In 2013 they were right around average when it came to plate discipline (with Young being a few percentage points below), so there is room for improvement on swinging at strikes, but it’s not exactly like they’re just up there watching pitch after pitch go by.
Kind of interesting that you want to model the 2014 offense after the 2011 offense. In the article you identified the reason the 2011 offense worked: Beltran and Reyes. The Mets don’t have a Beltran, they have a Granderson. Granderson and Beltran get paid the same amount of money for the next three years even though Beltran is much older. The Yankees did not want to sign Granderson and even though it was a fair contract signing by the Mets, it does makes one pause and wonder why the Yankees chose that route. The Mets don’t currently have a shortstop like Reyes and chose not to pay Reyes what he wanted. The Mets didn’t have the money to continue to follow their 2011 model then and they still don’t now. Those type of players are expensive. If money wasn’t an issue, what GM in his right mind would have allowed 38% of his offense to leave at the end of 2011 and expect to compete?
At the time you have to remember that Reyes was injury prone and Beltran wasn’t inclined to even remotely coming back. Money was a huge issue back then as well. The idea is that the Mets can still follow the philosophy they had in 2011 even without two of the three stars they had- which is to actually swing when the pitch is a strike and hold back when a ball.