On the Mets offensive woes and surviving on a win streak

The Mets’ loss to the Phillies last night set their record at 18-11. They no longer sit atop baseball, which was nice but ultimately temporary. They still hold the top spot in the NL East, though, a situation both unexpected and welcome. The surging Nationals, 8-2 in their last ten games to the Mets’ 4-6, are pushing to overtake them. The good feelings garnered by the Mets’ unlikely 11-game winning streak are starting to turn sour. While the team’s pitching has been superb, the obvious culprit here is their anemic offense.

As of games through Friday May 8^th, the Mets as a team have a Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) of 84, good for 24^th in baseball. According to FanGraphs, wRC+ is a “rate statistic for hitters that weights each offensive action and controls for league and park effects.” League average is 100, so an 84 means the Mets’ offense is performing at a rate that is 16% worse than league average. That should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, as the only players to play in the majority of the team’s games with an above-average wRC+ are Lucas Duda (131) and Curtis Granderson (102). The biggest culprits have been Wilmer Flores (86), Juan Lagares (80), and above all Daniel Murphy (67).  David Wright (127) and Travis d’Arnaud (146) were putting up great numbers but have missed significant time.

Granderson and Michael Cuddyer (97) have been, according to wRC+, merely near average. Brian Joura noted a few days ago that these two have been better of late and producing at what should be realistic expectations for them at this stage of their careers. This is a fair argument in the context of these individual players, but when taken as a whole the overall picture of the team’s offense has become a major concern.

The team’s starting corner outfielders, second basemen (not including Dilson Herrera), and third basemen not named Wright have been average or below average. You don’t typically expect big offense from your shortstop, center fielder, and catcher, which means the team is only getting above average production from their first base position. That’s not going to work if this team hopes to weather the inevitable hiccups of their pitching staff.

There’s been a lot of talk about Flores and how much his defense has cost the team compared to how relatively little he’s done on offense to offset it. No one is talking about Murphy, though, who has done even less to offensively offset his contribution to the team’s poor up-the-middle defense. Murphy has provided surplus offensive value (and an above-average wRC+) in every season of his major league career except 2009 (wRC+ of 94). This has allowed the Mets to live with his defense. Nobody, including the team, was worried about getting solid production from Murphy this year. It could be that this is just a very prolonged slump, but it’s uncharacteristic of Murphy and bears watching moving forward. Herrera is here and (in a very limited sample) has so far produced positive value on both offense and defense.

The catchers, while performing admirably in d’Arnaud’s absence, have contributed like solid backstops rather than putting up the type of offense that d’Arnaud was finally starting to show. Rookie Kevin Plawecki has a wRC+ of 88 in his short time in the majors. In a vacuum having league average or just below from your catcher is fine. The problem, which has been made abundantly clear in his absence, is that the team was really depending on d’Arnaud’s bat to help keep the offense above water.

Eric Campbell started off well before cooling off while filling in for the injured Wright at third base. The team called up Herrera to play second and slid Murphy into the starting role at third, indicating that they will do what needs to be done to keep the offense afloat. Herrera has done well so far, but Murphy remains a black hole in the lineup no matter where he plays at this point.

The absence of d’Arnaud and Wright, combined with the struggles of Murphy and average production from the corner outfield, are things the team hasn’t yet been able overcome.

You can argue small samples sizes all you want, but by the end of this weekend the team will have completed almost 20% of the season. Their 18-11 record is something that all Mets fans would have signed up for at this point. The record is fueled by that 11-game streak, though. The issue here isn’t the record so far as much as it is the concern for what may come based on their performance outside of that winning streak. We keep coming back to it, but it seems as though much of the positive data is encapsulated in that streak.

Outside of those 11 games the team is 7-11, a roughly .389 winning percentage. What if the Mets hadn’t beaten up on a struggling Marlins and the lowly Phillies? What if they merely played 6-5 or 7-4? That would still be a good stretch, but their current record would be a less stellar 13-16 or 14-15.

The team has scored 110 runs and only given up 89. That’s a good ratio, but 57 of those runs came during the 11-game streak. Additionally, those 110 total runs scored are far less than any of the other division leaders in baseball.

The fear of fans of a baseball team with its primary strength as pitching is that the team will lose lots of 1-0 games. It’s hyperbolic in a sense, but the team lost back-to-back 1-0 games for the first time in 25 years last week. The team also has a record of 6-4 in one-run games this year. Sounds great, until you realize that five of those wins came during the winning streak.

It’s said that a team isn’t really as good as they seem during a winning streak and never as bad as they seem during a losing streak. Well, the Mets have gone 5-8 since the winning streak and were 2-3 before it. Terry Collins correctly made efforts to temper the excitement during the streak. Teams get hot and teams get cold. That’s the nature of the marathon that is the baseball season. At roughly 20% of the season, which parts of the team’s performance so far do we value more.

Those 11 wins are in the bank so we can’t discount them. In the end, they may be what propels the team into the post season when all is said and done. Something needs to give with the offense, though, as even the streak won’t be able to save a season at the current performance level. So what’s the solution? Aside from the moves already made, and barring some unlikely trade for a bat, the only thing they can do is tread water until Wright and d’Arnaud return and strengthen the lineup as a whole. That, and hope the pitching doesn’t suffer a prolonged slump.