True story that goes back close to six decades. My fourth grade teacher, Mr. Ward, gave me the nickname “Ulcers” because even back then I tended to worry compulsively about what might go wrong. In other words your humble blogger was an adherent to Murphy’s Law long before the actual Daniel Murphy was even born.
It is a great feeling to have the Mets preparing for the season as an actual championship contender. Since 1962 that has happened a few times but not with much regularity.
In thinking about what might derail the championship express I believe there are three main areas of concern.
#1 THE INJURY BUG
Now this one is not unique to the New York Mets. Rather every sports team worries over this. If you ask an Angels’ fan he will tell you how screwed they are if Mike Trout is injured. The Nationals know that they are going nowhere without a healthy Bryce Harper.
The Mets though are in a situation where there are five or six guys who are critical to their success. While perhaps being able to cover for one of them is feasible it probably will be fatal to lose more than one.
Four of them are the young starters Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz. It is quite probable that if they combine for 110 or more starts the club will be on track to go to the playoffs and quite possibly as repeat NL champs. But the club lost Harvey for all of 2014 and lost Zack Wheeler for all of 2015. Pitchers get hurt. That’s an absolute truism in baseball.
We all realize that some vicious swing by David Wright could end his season, perhaps his career. This spinal stenosis thing is serious stuff and it is not like there is a replacement on the roster or in the minors that can put up anything that approaches typical David Wright numbers.
Then there’s the talented catcher Travis d’Arnaud. Recent articles have been popping up bemoaning the lack of quality catchers in major league baseball today. The Mets have a young man who can play a serviceable defensive game while hitting like a corner outfielder. It is true that Kevin Plawecki could partially cover for still another d’Arnaud injury but it is hard to deny that the Mets desperately need this player to stay on the field and off the DL.
#2 Big money Yoenis Cespedes
OK Mets fans, here’s a list of five players. What do they have in common?
George Foster
Bobby Bonilla
Vince Coleman
Jason Bay
Michael Cuddyer
If you said they were all free agents that the Mets gave large contracts to only to see them dramatically underperform then you got it right. We could have added Kaz Matsui and Luis Castillo to the list as others who did not give the team its money’s worth. Even Curtis Granderson underperformed his career OPS by a bit over 100 points in his first year in Queens.
Sure you can counter with Mike Piazza and Carlos Beltran but you would have to concede that when the Mets have spent big for hitting talent it often has blown up in their face.
What if Cespedes flops? If he shows up with a 700 OPS for $25 million then this could help put the kabosh on a pennant run.
Personally I think Cespedes will have a good, if not excellent, year for the Amazins. He has already shown that he can perform on the big New York stage. He very much wanted to stay with the team and in some ways took less money to do so.
If he does struggle and goes into a prolonged Duda-like slump it will be interesting to see how he and the fans react. Hopefully this won’t happen but it has to be at least a modest concern.
#3 Leaky defense
As a long time Strat-O-Matic manager I have many times had to choose between the guy whose calling card is offense or the lighter hitter who can flash the leather. Usually my preference is the bat. But the Mets seem to punt defense at every opportunity.
The concern here is that the up-the-middle defense may be so bad that it will cost the team enough games to drop a division winner into a wild card team. Or the D could cost the team a playoff spot altogether.
Asdrubal Cabrera will be average at shortstop at best but it’s possible that he will cover no more ground at the position than did Wilmer Flores. Neil Walker may be an upgrade on Daniel Walker but we may be talking about going from bad to pretty bad.
Cespedes is a fine left fielder with a howitzer for an arm. But he is stretched as a center fielder. The good defensive CF’er the team has is Juan Lagares who will likely face lefty starters and otherwise provide late game defensive help.
Granderson is a good right fielder who has a poor throwing arm. Michael Conforto showed us adequate defense in his rookie campaign but carries a negative reputation when it comes to fielding.
Travis d’Arnaud will have to throw out a higher percentage of potential base stealers if he is to be considered an average or better defensive backstop.
Having power pitchers helps because they will get a lot of strikeouts and pop outs. But there will be grounders and gappers and one has to wonder whether the team will be able to turn enough of them into outs.
I hope so but don’t know so.
Given the Mets’ historical relationship with injuries, anyone who claims that’s not a concern either isn’t honest or isn’t bright.
But I’m not worried about either Cespedes or the defense.
I’m much more concerned with the bullpen potentially being a disaster.
Larry,
All this dose of potential reality, while negative sounding is, the actual reality of the game. I applaud you for taking the road less traveled at this time of the year. I dont think your article is a downer by any means, but identifying things that can go south makes up prepare better all along the way.
Let me think your concerns through.
1. Injuries are for real, but Im not worried about the hill. Any of the fab 4 can go down and we still have a formidable staff. I really am mostly concerned about DW, who is already 2/3 of the way to a season ending injury just crawling out of bed. I dont believe any option behind Wright is satisfactory, and even Wright himself may only be ok as a 3B. The more pix I see of Campbell taking reps at 3B, the more I cringe.
2. Ces is what he is. Expecting the August-Sept Ces is unreasonable. I like the 25 HR 80-90 RBI .260 guy and thats about what we will get. I expect streaky. I dont see Bay or Cuddy in Ces (as the most recent of that list) if for no other reason he has already well outperformed both last year alone.
3. I think you are right to be worried. The plain fact is that Sandy has built a team that defies the “strong up the middle” strategy common to WS champions. He intends to hit his way past the slop we are gonna see. TdA is not strong defensively. The middle infield defensive strength is anchored by Walker now matter what other name you use out there. Its a inch better than last year, but…
And then there is Ces in CF. He seems to have played CF more like LF. Poor reads, slow first step, and lousy routes. Hes gonna be a problem and I hope Conforto and Grandy both shorten his game by covering the gaps more. Conforto defers to him as a start and centerfielder, but I hope he takes more charge on balls in the gap. Both 3B and 1B have open questions about defense too. All in all, this troubles me the most given we are pitching centric. Can this team hit its way past this defense? I dont know, but lets admit this: the Mets aint the Jays.
Thats it from the Mayor. I have dry-cleaned my official blue blazer and ready to resume duty on behalf of the citizens of Panic City.
LGM!!!!!!!
Nice post Larry. In terms of injury fears, Familia may he the most irreplaceable.