The Diamondbacks got to Steven Matz and the Mets early, and handed the Mets yet another rubber-game loss this Sunday afternoon.
Surely the team will be happy to have a day off tomorrow, their first in three weeks, as well as happy to be back in New York after a rough road trip to the West where they went 2-5.
Today’s game saw an end to a productive run for Matz, who gave up five earned in six innings. The scoring started in the first inning with Ketel Marte hitting a home run and Eduardo Escobar following two batters later. The next play was an error by J.D. Davis, but fortunately outs started to finally come. Some positives were that Matz settled until there were two outs in the fifth inning when another Diamondbacks rally was started. Another positive was that the back-end of the Mets’ bullpen was given a day of rest. That’s about where the positives end.
Oh except for that the Mets can’t lose tomorrow!
Another lost year. Time to blow it up and start all over.
For some time Ive been a big advocate of a proper rebuild. We were poised with real assets to make this happen, but instead were sold the same bill of fare the this is essentially a 90 win team with the proper adds, and really in “go for it” mode. Year after year, its the same old tired story, where the team cannot pair pitching, hitting, and defense at the same time. As a result, this is pretty much a .500 team plus or minus a couple wins. What if the deGrom we have now, is the deGrom for the future? Will the desperate need to sign him still feel like the right move? What about Noah, the perpetual almost guy? Two months into the season, I don’t think you could get much for either of them, whereas 8 months ago it could have landed a haul. Andwed still have Kelenick.
The senseless acquisition of Cano and the unnecessary rush to extend deGrom mean there’s no rebuild coming on the horizon, either.
I thought going for it was the right move this past offseason but the Cano move lit $100 million on fire that could have been spent better elsewhere. Although with how this season’s free agents have produced to date, it may be wishful thinking that anyone else BVW imported would have been any good.
Yes, you are right that the leveraged money means no rebuild is coming. The Wilpon’s have decided that perpetual purgatory with the delusion of getting to the promise-land is sufficient enough of a success path. I’d rather win, and if it means losing to get there, so be it. We lose enough anyway.
As Ive stated a million times, I see no difference between winning 67 or 77 games in a season, except that you get a much higher draft pick with 67 wins. Both records categorically suck, especially in a town where the Yankees B squad is 10x better than the Mets A squad.
So here the team is, with huge failed, failing, or soon to be failing contracts that prevent the team from rebuilding in a way that puts players in the positions they belong, gets overall younger, and gets more athletic. No worries though, “ya gotta believe” this is a 90 win ensemble cast with just a pen arm and a decent hitting streak separating them from being the Dodgers.
I’ll return back to the thing Ive been saying for a month. The problem is two-fold, a completely delusional ownership group who thinks the team is “close” and a disastrous hire for GM, who makes Callaway look like Casey in his Yankee days. BVW fed the Wilpon’s exactly what they *wanted* to hear, not what they *needed* to hear. Consequently, the team rather predictable finds itself in the exact same position as it does annually.
The Mets remind me of the movie Groundhog Day, and not in a good way. Even in the last “good” season, 2015, the majority of the season was one of turmoil and disappointment. Really, since 2006, the majority of each season was underperformance/overexpectation, and bad baseball. Despite BVW and his bravado, the negativity and blah around the franchise is very high and trending in the wrong direction.
There are many disappointments so far in 2019, but I consider the terrible performances to date of four players – Syndergaard, Familia, Cano, and Rosario, to be the biggest detriments. Every year there are players that underperform and overperform, and in this season there are other negative contributors, but these four are critical. Even if two of these four were performing to expectations, they would be much more competitive.
I don’t hold Callaway responsible for the performances, but in a business demanding winning, in a win now season, it hasn’t worked. Unless they shock us and bring in a Kimbrel rifght now, highly unlikely, why should we expect a change? The Braves and Phillies clearly have better lineups, and may have better pitching. The Dodgers, well, we all saw what they did to the NL East teams this week.
BVW was Jeff’s idea, and to date it has been a failure. Yes, there is still a ton of baseball to be played, but if this team fizzles and is out by the ASG, saddled with a ton of dead money going into 2020, geez, that is quite depressing to ponder.
Wow… Rosario is 23…. his bb are up. He’s over 700 OPS, and he’s paced at 50-60 Xbh
You want young players or not?!
I love you players like everyone else. I also love patience. My point is not to trash Rosario, or write him off at 23. But, the ownership/management sold this team as win now and division favorite. That means former top prospect 23 year olds in the 3rd season have to either be in a complimentary role or play at all star level. To be division favorites, those guys need to dominate and they haven’t.
Preseason OPS projections for Rosario:
ZiPS – .705 OPS
Steamer – .695
ATC – .697
The Bat – .661
Joura – .705
Actual – .709
If anyone forecasted him to be significantly better than this, their expectations were the problem.
Four of the five starting pitchers are performing worse than expected and just about the entire bullpen with the exception of Lugo. Cano and Nimmo have been issues but there’s the possibility that Nimmo’s decline has been injury related.
It’s kind of remarkable that they’re not completely buried at this point.
Personally, I can’t give up on a season on June 2nd. Though, I can’t expect anything to improve without change. Seems the changes that are the most obvious ruffle the biggest feathers. In every business we must balance reality with feelings. There’s usually some feelings to protect but to keep protecting them all doesn’t allow for progress. When does the time to “crap or get off the pot” come? I’m thinking it’s pretty much here.
The Mets are only four games of a wild card slot, but there are seven teams ahead of them. Yes, I get excited about trades, but after a while, buyers remorse sets it. Look at the money tied up in Cano, Cespedes and Lowerie. That hurts.
Why is it that in many years, Tampa Bay has a roster, which includes a roster of non-stars and not very familiar players, is a competitive team? For years, their farm team has been consistent in producing good players.
I dont think we will see Keuchel or Kimbrel. We may see Wheeler get jettisoned. My feeling is that the Mets do nothing. Think they can compete, but not make any moves.
Because the Rays know you don’t trade for 36 year old guys who were good three years ago, like the Mets did with Cano. They don’t keep guys who have great name value but whose production has tailed off, as they sent homegrown hero Evan Longoria out of town when it was obvious he was no longer a star. And they don’t keep guys on their roster who suck, just because they make a lot of money. Tampa’s the team that cut James Loney when he was the second-highest paid player on the team. They recognized he was a sunk cost and that it made no sense to compound the mistake by continuing to play him, too.
It’s why so many of us preferred the Mets to hire Chaim Bloom – Tampa’s VP of Baseball Operations – as the team’s GM. Instead they hired Van Wagenen and we’re left wondering why guys in their mid 30s get hurt a lot and stink.
Thanks Brian, well stated. Tampa also cut ties with Carl Crawford and BJ Upton. How many older free agent player contracts worked out ? I cant think of too many, maybe Paul Molitor.
Gut reaction: Matz pitched a strong game from the beginning of Davis error to the point of getting two outs in the fifth inning. That’s 5 and 2/3 innings. Unfortunately there were three batters before the error and four more batters after the second out in the fifth inning. When Matz loses it, he really loses it and it is fast! You say that he was in the enigma would be an understatement because he had a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth. It is not the first time that Matz pitched this way. Matz and the coaching staff and the catchers should the video and see what went wrong and try to correct it.
Loses it and loses it fast reminds me of another southpaw we had—-Jon Neise. He could pitch lights out for a few innings and within a 5 minute period we would be trailing 5-0.