When the Mets signed Jose Bautista back in May, my reaction was not good. To his credit, Bautista gave the club a useful six weeks. But he’s been every bit as dreadful as expected since the beginning of July. Now comes a report that the Mets are interested in having Bautista return in 2019, which boggles the mind. It’s bad enough that the Mets are playing a washed-up guy every day here in this lost season. Now they’re going to compound things by bringing him back next year? Unbelievable.
Let’s start off with the good news. From when he first joined the Mets on May 22 through the end of June, Bautista had a .266/.438/.506 line in 105 PA. He hit for a solid AVG, did a great job of drawing walks and his .240 ISO was like he turned the clock back five years. Someone, perhaps Chris F., made the statement that the Mets were getting Yoenis Cespedes-like production from Bautista and it was true.
As far as dead cat bounces go, this one was one of the best.
Of course the reason it’s called that is because the vehicle has no life left. From July 1 to the present, Bautista has a .172/.294/.290 line in 109 PA. The walk rate remains good but everything else has fallen apart. And he’s struck out 34 times in this stretch, a 31.2 K%. It’s one thing to strike out that much when you’re delivering power. But his ISO has dropped to .118 – which is generic middle infielder territory. For a point of comparison, Amed Rosario has a .121 ISO.
The recent Mets have loved their veterans, a trait we first subscribed to Terry Collins and later to Sandy Alderson. Both of those guys are now gone yet the fetish lives on. Now, it’s not to say that Messrs. Alderson and Collins didn’t prefer them old. But at least there was a breaking point for Alderson. He signed Adrian Gonzalez and watched as the first overall pick of the 2000 Draft put up a .766 OPS over his first 37 games and 129 PA. But Gonzalez was sent packing after a 14-game stretch where he put up a .475 OPS. He ended his Mets career on a 1-19 skid in his final five games.
Bautista had a higher dead cat bounce but the length that they were useful were very similar time frames. And then reality set in for both players. And in his last five games, Bautista has an 0-16 going on.
So, why did Gonzalez get released – with no clear replacement – when his reality set in and when the same thing happens to Bautista, not only does he continue to play but the word is out that the team wants him back next year? The one clear difference is that Alderson is no longer around.
Bautista does have more value because of his ability to play in both the infield and outfield. And subjectively he seems to have more bat speed left. Those are both real advantages but they seem to be the type that would keep you on the team as a bench player, rather than ones that would keep you in the lineup playing every day.
Another possible explanation is that Omar Minaya is back with a say in these types of things. If there was a hallmark of Minaya’s first go round in charge with the Mets it’s that he would sign a veteran off the scrap head, enjoy some success with him and then re-sign him the following season, always with results that did not match what the player put up in the first year.
Jose Valentin joins the Mets in 2006 as a 36 year old and has a strong season. He comes back in 2007 and puts up a .676 OPS. In 2007 Moises Alou (40) and Damion Easley (37) have strong seasons and both are re-signed. Alou managed just 54 PA – and saw his OPS drop 139 points – and Easley put up just a .692 OPS in his second season with the club. The following year it’s Fernando Tatis, who’s not quite as old and who doesn’t have quite the same drop off. But another over 30 guy brought back who declined the following season. The last guy with this profile was Alex Cora, who wasn’t quite as good in his first season but who was brought back and declined in his second go round.
Few were complaining when the guys in the above graph were brought back for a second year. Well, there were injury concerns with Alou and no one really was excited about Cora returning. But if these old guys were good in Year 1 and not good in Year 2 – why continue to make the same mistake again? And Tatis had an .853 OPS, Valentin checked in with an .820 mark and Alou had a .916 OPS. We’re looking at the 37-year-old Bautista with a .754 mark –and dropping – with the Mets and a .728 mark overall here in 2018. What about that screams bring him back?
One of the biggest things that separates the winners from the losers in casinos is winners know when to leave the table. The losers enjoy some success and keep going back for more until all of their winnings have melted away. With apologies to Donald Fagen:
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me New York Mets Blues
If you had a 190 million dollar payroll like the Yankees maybe you can justify it. But I keep harping on this. The Mets are already at 92 million for 2019 payroll. With arb hearings likely to push that total at least 25 million more. What kind of expectations can Mets fans have if there’s no money to sign one decent FA? And I’m not talking about a Frazier type. Lastly can the Mets please stop back loading their signings? It seems every year this team has more money on the DL than on the field
Pete, I completely agree. With so many arb raises coming it would have been smarter to sign guys like Bruce, Frazier, Swarzak and Vargas to front loaded deals. Also would have made it easier to trade or DFA them next year. Typical short-sighted cheapskate thinking that I’m more convinced than ever comes from ownership. I think Sandy had to play these games to get permission to use the check book – short-term, backloaded deals only.
The Mets can afford to sign four top flight FAs this offseason without pushing payroll past $155m.
You need to sit with the payroll numbers and realize that about half the nominally dead money is recoverable and that all of the Mets good players are in fact quite cheap. Until you actually do the math, though, you’ll keep making nonsensical comments like that one.
The Mets in the FA market this coming off season are going to sign Frazier type players. If you’re going to make such a broad statement that the team can sign 4 quality top flight free agents can you please list a few? Eliminate teams that are rebuilding for 2019 there are at least 15 teams that the Mets will be competing against for those top flight FA’s you have not listed. Lastly you have a lot more confidence in this triad FO than I do. But that’s why we love our Mets. We endure the pain year in and year out.
wait till November .
Good analysis, Brian. I like Bautista as a versatile bench bat and 25th man type. With 3 of our outfielders and our 3rd baseman (until a few days ago) on the DL he wasn’t taking playing time away from anyone. It was the same story for Tatis back when. The problem is that a guy like this should never be your best option.
ugh…somehow the page reloaded…and lost all my words 🙁 anyway.
Nice job Brian on the Sunday morning “must read” Mets content.
Some time back I said Mets fans suffered from Stockholm Syndrome.
from wikipedia: Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity. These feelings, resulting from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time spent together, are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims.
We are here again; perhaps we never left.
Bautista has no business whatsoever on a team barking about being a playoff contender next year. He no longer is an above average, every day, major leaguer. He has no business being a bench guy. In short, entertaining any thought of having him on the team next year is simply a textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome. In the absence of quality every day major leaguers, we latch on to anything that offers hope. The same is true with Reyes, and of course, Wilmer Flores, who like a family pet, always has a wet nose and happy to get a belly rub. None of them belong on a contending baseball team. David Wright is not coming back to helm the bridge.
Its easy not to leave the poker table when you believe success is in the next hand. The Mets do the same thing year after year. We are told “90 Wins!” and we convince ourselves that there is enough talent to have that be true. And like anyone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, we believe it with fervor because our captors tell us its true.
It is time to wake up in my opinion. We need to stop believing the lies. The Mets are a complete disaster. It needs a new FO. The Mets, we are told, do *not* have an organization wide training manual, that indoctrinates every level in a consistent way of playing the game. It needs above average, every day, major league talent that can play on the same field at the same time. It does not exist.
How can a team that needs to bring in a new FO, establish a way of doing business, have an existing financial obligation of well over 100M$ next year (and 70ish pre-arb M$ the year after), and have consdierable holes all over the field convince us that it can be a contender after losing 90 games this year? Folly I tell you.
Bautista, Jackson and Reyes, guess that proves they’re contenders and not a rebuilding club!
Isn’t it simply that they have nothing in the system. Who is he blocking? I don’t think it’s anyone’s fetish it’s a broken minor league organization.
At this point, when you’re so far from being relevant, any player younger than 30 is preferable to Jose Bautista, regardless of what that player is doing in the minors. Levi Michael has an .864 OPS and he’d be 1000X better to give ABs to right now than Bautista.
BTW, Bautista 0-5 today, with four of those ABs coming with a man on base. Sixth straight game without a hit. But let’s keep putting him out there! And bring him back next year, too…
You forgot Vargas.
amen . yes
wait till november
Joey Bats is a polished professional and seems to be a class act. He is an easy guy to root for. That said, I agree 100% with Chris above, and Brian’s premise. Joey has no business getting any more ABs this season, and whomever in the Met organization that floated the possibility of a return should be terminated immediately. It wreaks on late 70s early 80s Mets.
On the $92 million already committed for 2019, that should in no way inhibit the big market Mets. Almost half of that money is committed to Wright and Cespedes, and significant portions of that money will be offset with insurance, no matter how Lying Jeffy will account for it. The are plenty of resources to improve the 2019 squad for a franchise that is savvy.
The insurance money gets reimbursed to the Wilpons not the team. Did they reinvest last years money into this season? I think not. All MLB teams received 50 million dollars from Disney’s purchase of BAMtech and yet the payroll stood about the same as last season. There are not plenty of resources TJ. If there were the Mets would not be signing back ended contracts so often. And TJ take a look at who’s eligible for arbitration and you’ll realize that 25 – 30 million dollars will be added to next seasons payroll. Does not matter if the FO is savvy if the budget remains the same for 2019
Correct Pete. It was reported that the Wilpon’s see the insurance money as already counted, and plowing back into the club. So any thought there is “extra” is off base. And of course, we have been seeing that year after year…so at face value, that is clearly true.
Gentlemen,
A few things here. First, the Wilpons are the Mets, so no matter how Lying Jeffy frames it in the press, insurance monies received for salaries of players that don’t play reduces payroll expenses, no matter what pocket he puts the money in. Second, many teams “backload” contracts, this is not a phenomenon exclusive to the Mets. Just check off Cots baseball contracts. Ironically, Daviv Wright’ssalary drops to $15 million next year, and that $5 basically offsets the “backloading” of Bruce, Vargas, Swarzak, and Frazier. So, that is a push. Third, arbitration increases of $25-$30 million are not major increase, this is about 15-20% of the 2018 starting payroll, which was middle third in MLB.
We can debate for hours the resources and finances of the Wilpons. Jon Heyman is the latest to come out and say they have plenty of money. Money is not their problem. Their financial problem is two-fold, first being how much they choose to spend on payroll, and maybe more importantly, who they choose to spend on. Never forget that these guys are billionaires in an industry flush with cash in the biggest market in the country with a TV network that they have majority control.
The 4 players you listed add 9 million to 2019 payroll (backloaded). That’s a bit more than the 5 million wash you stated
TJ that’s exactly my point. The resources are there. But the Wilpons are not exactly lighting it up when it comes to spending. Why else would they continue their frugal dumpster shopping? Gonzalez, Reyes, Bautista are all cheap but what are their contributions for the betterment of this team? Just look at last years payroll dump when the FO deemed they were out of the playoffs and the low level minor league players they got in return because the team didn’t want to pay the remainder of the contracts they were shedding.
Given a choice, I’d prefer Bautista to Flo—- and I’d prefer neither.
Wilmer is not a big enough Gorilla to out gun his deficiencies…and it;s well beyond things he cannot do. He is a one man vortex of bad baseball…. an horrendous baserunner and fielder.
” If you;re tired of the Same Old Story…Turn some Pages”…REO Speedwagon
You can’t win when six of eight of your starting players are hitting under .235. And now, Bautista has joined Reyes sub Mendoza.
Bautista and Reyes are both completely done and a complete waste.
It’s not really a “dead cat bounce” if you can explain it, however.
Bats was zoning pitches and taking everything he wasn’t guessing at. It’s a common, smart old player’s strategy, a last gasp, which inflates walks and power until pitchers realize they can blow fastballs by him.
Look at Willie Mays’s 1971, where he set a career high in OBP, at age 40. It’s not as if pitchers were still terrified of him.
Crouch, guess, take.
This is a distinction in search of a difference.
He may have a little left to give,,,throwing him out there every day beyond a couple of weeks may have worn and dinged him. Pitchers who had a book about blowing fastballs by him may have seen that he was Jumping at Fastballs…so they began mixing him pitches. He can’t hit the heat without an early start—he can’t react to off speed with the early start.
I’ll ignore the “interested in bringing him back” talk as polite and kind blather—-and I wouldn’t put it by them to do something that dumb!