Of the Mets’ eight primary starters, three check in with an OPS of .850 or better while five are at .710 and below. Three of the five hitters who are struggling can point to the hits not falling in. Which brings us to Michael Conforto and James McCann. Conforto has a lifetime .305 BABIP and so far this year it’s at .302 while the numbers for McCann are .312 and .306, respectively. Yet Conforto has a .710 OPS and McCann has a .609 mark,
The Mets as a team are suffering from a severe power outage and these two guys are no exception. Since we can’t expect any positive regression with BABIP, they better start delivering hits for extra-bases. So far, Conforto has 6 XBH in 70 PA while McCann has just 1 XBH in 55 PA.
Let’s check in on the other three hitters who are struggling:
Francisco Lindor – His walks are up, his strikeouts are down and his HardHit% is right in line with what he’s done the last three years. All of those are good signs. But his Launch Angle is about half of what he’s done recently, meaning he’s hitting a lot more grounders. And to compound matters, while grounders have a higher BABIP than fly balls, Lindor has just a .224 mark in the category.
Jeff McNeil – It’s tough to be successful with a .182 BABIP.
Dominic Smith – He started off the year with good power numbers but he has just 1 XBH in his last 43 PA. He’s swinging at more pitches than ever before and making contact at a career-worst percentage, which is a terrible combination. On top of that, his HardHit% is down over 13 points from a season ago.
It feels like McCann is an upgrade defensively from what the Mets have had behind the plate recently and Lindor certainly is. But the other three guys aren’t helping with their defense. The Mets don’t have much choice except to be patient with these five and hope that three of them – at least – come around.
All I ask of McCann is to stay healthy and hit above .250. The rest should take care of itself.
Conforto looks like he’s coming around, but he cannot afford these prolonged cold streaks which have characterized his previous seasons.
McNeil will probably heat up some, but I’m not sure that opposing pitchers have not learned his weaknesses… so it gets tougher to get to .320.
Lindor… oh, geez. He has to prove that he can hit. Otherwise he hits 7th and continues anchoring the defense… what else can we do?
Dom Smith is a real dilemma. After two shortened seasons of decent success, this is his big chance to prove his value… something has him down.
I’m not sure that Pillar is worth the effort offensively.
I’d like to see Almora get at least half the reps that Pillar gets, or we’ll never know. Better defender, more speed, maybe some pop in the bat… why not?
Did you notice how put out Pete was with Barnes’s quick pitch? Really got to him… he’s like a kid who finds out somebody is not very nice… hurts his feelings…
McNeil,Smith and Lindor are all good hitters. You just gotta shake your head,cross your fingers and hope that they come around soon. If they don’t it will be a long season.
Holy rat snot!
The ineptisaurus hitters just pinned a 1-0 loss on JdG!!!!!!
I had no idea that the Bosox have Cy Young, Bob Gibson and Tom Seaver on their pitching staff
JdG’s ERA just went up from 0.31 to 0.51
Let I be the first to emphatically and directly say, among this group of overly optimistic/pessimistic pundits (depending on the direction of the wind), they need some serious help before they psychologically implode upon themselves and prematurely end their hopes for this season
It will be a long season.
Red Sox clearly a better team than the Mets. Why will they win their division? Javier Vasquez. That guy just will just not let anyone beat him… a strong and perfect presence behind the plate. The closer is great too, and they have decent starting pitching and will get better as the season progresses.
I’m happy to see that the Yankees will have to play them 19 times.
Mets looking very ordinary… maybe worse than ordinary… they can be pitched to…
BTW – some noteworthy people born on April 28th:
James Monroe (5th president)
Jay Leno (famous TV schlub)
Saddam Hussein (popular personality)
and the owner of the currently best YouTube channel in its genre
(Hint: it has to do with original remixes of Miles Davis’ favorite popular music band)
Hey Mr. Math… I’m a huge Miles listener.
[email protected]
(Hope sharing email address is ok… if not, sorry, Brian.)