It’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that the Mets’ strengths include their defense and relief pitching while one of their weaknesses is their offense, particularly power. The old saying is this is why we watch because you never really know what’s going to happen. But, truth be told, it’s more fun to watch offense than it is to watch relief pitching and defense. At least it is for me.
Very few hitters get a pass for what’s been happening so far in 2021 but it’s hard not to focus on the healthy and active stars. So, a lot of attention gets placed on Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor. Their seasons to date have just been so odd and if we’re being honest, not exactly understood, either by the fans or the home broadcasters.
Things were more or less normal with Alonso thru games of June 9. Sure there was the IL stint but after the two-game series in Baltimore, Alonso stood with an .849 OPS with 10 HR in 186 PA. Alonso had a terrific two games in Charm City and everyone was excited for what was going to come next, figuring he was about to go on a hot streak.
Instead, Alonso has a .250/.333/.317 triple slash line in his last 18 games and 69 PA. The AVG and OBP seem more or less what we would expect but what on earth is going on with his SLG? It’s hard to imagine that there would be a lengthy streak of consecutive at-bats where Alonso would have a higher OBP than SLG.
Generally speaking, its good to see a player with at least one-third of his hits go for extra bases, along with delivering at least one extra-base hit for each 10 PA. Since the Baltimore series, Alonso has 15 hits, with one double and one homer in 69 PA. So, he’s missing badly on both rules of thumb about XBH. It’s gotten so bad that he’s now referred to as “Mr. Single” in the Game Chatters.
Alonso has hit safely in five of his last six games, with three multi-hit games in that span. He’s got nine hits in this stretch, with eight singles and a double. And the double wasn’t exactly a booming hit, either. His last homer came June 20th. Right now, Alonso seems content to hit the ball up the middle or to go the other way. A couple of those non-pulled balls have resulted in RBIs. But in his last 18 games, Alonso has driven in just five runs. Eighteen games is exactly 1/9 of a season, so if Alonso had this pace up for a full year in which he played every game, he’d have 45 RBIs for the year.
But we’re not hearing much from the broadcasters about Alonso’s power outage or weak production.
Meanwhile, Lindor gets harped on for his lack of production this year. It’s not hard to understand why, as his season-long OPS checks in at just .678, which no one imagined was on the table when they pulled the big trade to get him from Cleveland. But it’s important to realize both how Lindor got to this point and what he’s doing lately.
Lindor was absolutely horrible in his first 42 games as a Met. After taking the collar in the first game of a doubleheader, Lindor sat with a .555 OPS. It’s not a good thing when your production is much, much closer to Jackie Bradley Jr. than it is to Brandon Nimmo. Mallex Smith looks at that .555 OPS and says – “I could do that.” And he’d be right.
But in his last 30 games and 123 PA, Lindor has a .270/.336/.514 line. This is exactly who Lindor has been for the vast majority of his MLB career. Lifetime, he has an .821 OPS and the heart of his career, from 2015-2019, Lindor has an .840 OPS. What Lindor has been giving the Mets for the last month is exactly the production that we should expect. But it’s getting lost because of the lousy start to the year he had.
In those 30 games, Lindor has 30 hits with 13 XBH in 123 PA. Unlike Alonso, Lindor is meeting both of our rules of thumb in regards to extra-base hits. While Alonso is getting some singles and not much else, Lindor is hitting the ball with authority, including some upper-deck blasts. So why is it that people are giving a pass to Alonso and are still crucifying Lindor?
There’s no apparent answer for why Alonso is getting off without much criticism. But Lindor’s issue is that he puts a couple of good games together and then follows up with multiple days of going hitless. It’s not what we’re used to seeing, either from a good player or any player in a hot streak.
One thing we talk about – usually in regards to pitchers – is sequencing. If a pitcher gives up five hits in four innings, he can have all kinds of results, depending on the sequence of those hits. If he gives them all up in the same inning – his ERA is going to be a lot different than if he gave up two hits in one inning and one hit in the other frames.
And that’s been the second major contributing factor to Lindor’s perception. Along with digging himself a Mallex-sized hole at the beginning of the year, his sequence of hits has made it hard to recognize how he’s been performing now for a month. If a few of those hits from Lindor’s multi-hit games were redistributed to days where he took an 0-fer, people would more quickly recognize how productive he’s been lately
Right now, the guy that Mets fans should want to see at the plate in a clutch situation is Lindor. Yes, he gets a little anxious sometimes and swings at pitches outside of the strike zone that makes you want to tear your hair out. But let’s not pretend that Alonso doesn’t do the same exact thing. Lindor has an 18.7 K% in his last 30 games. Alonso has an 18.8 K% in his last 16 games, without delivering any power, as his SLG is nearly 200 points behind Lindor in their respective stretches.
The hope is that Lindor keeps doing what he’s been doing for the last month, while Alonso picks things up from where he’s been the last two-plus weeks. Neither one of those is an outrageous expectation. Likewise, everyone realizing that Lindor is producing and Alonso isn’t shouldn’t be an outrageous expectation, either.
There are several reasons why Lindor still gets booed. In big moments, he isn’t coming through and he got paid like he was the best SS in baseball. Fact is, six SS have a higher fWAR than Lindor, and a 7th plays for Cleveland and has the same fWAR as Lindor. On Saturday a clutch base hit tied the game; good job. However, he has consistent bobbles because he takes his eye off the ball at the end, and in the second game his was the first bobble that allowed the runner to cross over to third safely. Then, in the bottom of the inning before Conforto’s game winning sac fly, Lindor struck out on four pitches of which none of them were in the strike zone when just hitting the little round sphere was all he had to do. So, while he’s had five RBI games like in Washington, the little things are important and they stand out.
As for Alonso, 69 at bats is not enough to forget the 200 or so before that that were very productive. Plus, it’s fair to say less is expected of Alonso. It’s actually Smith that has weighed down the offense more.
Well, then you’re booing Lindor for what happened in April, which is just silly.
Why can we only cheer/boo for what the player has done most recently?
IE. Let’s say a player’s OPS is .500 in April, .500 in May, .500 in June, .500 in Aug, and then in September the player’s OPS is .990. Is it wrong for someone to boo this player in September because he’s turned it around for that particular month?
Lindor’s OPS by month has been .542, .643, and .820 for a season long average of .678
Is it wrong for a fan to wait until the negative has been cancelled out by enough positive before the boos turn into cheers?
A .990 OPS is great.
Certainly people have higher expectations for Lindor than Albert Almora. It just seems crazy to me to complain about what Lindor’s doing now because of what he did in April. It’s like going to an expensive restaurant in April and having a bad experience and then going back in June and having great service and great food and then writing a bad Yelp review. You write the bad review in April and not in June.
Ultimately, how we react in the moment can and probably should be different from how we react in the offseason and moving forward. It’s a possibility that how badly Lindor performed in April and most of May could keep him from being worth his salary this year. If that’s the case, then it’s fine to be disappointed with what he did as a whole.
But anyone who thought that Lindor was worth the money when they gave him the extension shouldn’t complain with what he’s done in the past 30 games because this is the guy that we should have expected.
I don’t believe there’s any magic point where booing is ok or where cheering should be expected. Alonso hasn’t been hitting as expected but I certainly wouldn’t boo him. I’m not morally opposed to booing guys but my personal threshold is more than 18 games. On top of that, I’m looking for reasons to be happy, not reasons to bitch and moan. As disappointed as I’ve been with Alonso here recently, I’m more than ready to celebrate him when he starts hitting with his expected power.
“But anyone who thought that Lindor was worth the money when they gave him the extension shouldn’t complain with what he’s done in the past 30 games because this is the guy that we should have expected.”
This still leaves a lot of open room for disgruntled fans. For some, the guy we should have expected is not good enough. For some, the bar for comparison isn’t what Lindor has done in the past, but rather what his fellow big contracts (ie. Tatis) is currently doing. Or what prior highly paid players have produced (ie. Wright)
It’s just based on each person’s own perspective and at some point you just have to agree to disagree when it comes to these types of opinions.
Salary I think. We expect abt 341 x more production from Lindor than we shoukd reasonably expect.
I can plead guilty to being a bit rough on Lindor in the comments area, and likely not pointing out that Alonso has hurt the offense badly in recent weeks. The main driver for me is the combination of financial commitment to Lindor, the lack of any day in day out history of viewing his at-bats, and his approach at the plate (especially in key spots). He is clearly extremely talented, and should be commended for not letting his offense ruin other parts of his game (not withstanding a bobble here and there). All players go through hot and cold streaks, but I frankly expected a more advanced approach in key spots by Lindor. Multiple times, when pitchers are in trouble, he has helped them greatly, and way way too much. At half a season of this, it is somewhat scary to me, and I can imagine how Uncle Steve feels. Now, Alonso has done the same thing recently. There are times when he and Lindor come up, and it just strikes me that they are going to swing regardless…the little league approach. And for Alonso, to the naked eye it looks like he is overswinging all the time, trying to hit is 700 feet, even on his singles. I am no hitting expert, but in both cases I am sure that opposing pitchers see this and more, and use it to their advantage. Right now, despite Lindor’s uptick, the Mets have a middle of the lineup that can be dealt with handily when the game is on the line. That needs to change, and it starts with making the pitchers throw strikes, and making the pitchers sweat through a big at bat.
I’m generally disappointed with Lindor, but I’m ready to forgive his first two “adjustment” months if he can reach and maintain a decent level of productivity. I think we might all agree that he isn’t in the Tatis, Machado, Harper, Betts class, even though his salary is. What I need from him now is .280/.350/.400 and solid, solid defense. Steve Cohen got abused, but I can live with those numbers.
Alonso meanwhile has to be given credit for being the only offensive player this season who hasn’t completely checked out. There were times when he was the only player consistently hitting the ball hard. Yes, his ups and downs are perplexing and fascinating, and he’s always had them. At least this season he is not striking out as often. I noticed he tends to get jammed a lot, hitting the ball on the label way more. Many fly balls he has hit this season, an inch further down the barrel, would be HRs in past seasons.
Perhaps future articles from Brian might concern McNeil, who is teetering on being benched. He just is not the hitter we hoped he was. I think his problem is that he thinks he has more power than he does… he has never hit an opposite field HR, yet he keeps flying out to medium left-center. Go back to hitting the ball on the ground, Jeff… and take the 20 HRs that will come to you naturally each season.
Wobbit, I agree that I will forgive Lindor’s start up time with the Mets and chalk it up to an adjustment period. You’re not asking enough of him though if you are OK with a .280/.350/.400 line. The slugging needs to be much closer to .500 than .400. A .750 OPS is pretty average, and even with gold glove caliber defense, I want to see better than average offense from someone who should be a franchise player.
While Lindor’s April/May was disappointing, I certainly can’t “hold” that against him…but it is on the record and he’ll need to continue the OPS trend to put up a decent season overall.
He is a career .820 OPS guy with a high level defense (maybe a notch below gold glove) and good baserunning. There is no excuse for him not to replicate that more or less over these next 5 seasons aged 27-31…the so-called “prime years”. He does need to improve his approach a bit in order to get back to that performance with the bat, as he has allowed the pitchers to baffle him with off speed stuff and get him jumpy in big spots. And, ditto for Big Pete on the approach.
Lindor has been doing fine in the last 30 days. I would take that production for the rest of the year. Alonso power outage is more concerning. He should produce a slugging percentage of over 500 and he’s not. In fact, this team was constructed to hit homeruns with 8 players capable of 17+ homeruns a season of which 3 of them are 30+ homeruns guys. When a team outnumbered their opponents in homeruns they win 73% of the time. This is who they are. When the Mets start hitting homeruns, like they’re supposed to do, then they will run away from their division.
While I expect better performance over a full season, I’m happy with Lindor. He’s facing impossibly high expectations due to his contract, but that’s a matter for Steve Cohen. On both sides of the ball, he’s a huge upgrade at SS which has been a black hole ever since Reyes left in his 2011 hey day. For what it’s worth, Lindor’s bWAR is the highest among Mets position players at 1.6. That’s likely driven by his defense. It is gratifying finally to see a plus defender at SS for the Mets. And now he’s coming around with the bat. Good signing.
Alonso gets a pass because he didn’t sign a record-setting contract for the franchise or his position. I’m sure fans would be booing Pete now if he broke the 1B record for a contract. Again, performance is what should matter to fans. The size of contracts is ownership’s concern. Over the course of the season, Alonso will probably revert to his usual 250/350/530, or a little lower due to the Second Year of the Pitcher.
I am not worried about Lindor. I am really worried about Alonso. 11 home runs in 70+ for a slugger is really weak. He is just not killing the ball like he did in 2019. Didnt kill it last year either.
Lets see what Alonso does the rest of the year. If he continues for the rest of the year and hits 25 home runs, then we have a problem at first next year.
Even more than Lindor or Degrom, Alonso is the face of the franchise now, so good luck thinking anyone is going to ever trade him. Plus he is a remarkable talent, and will put up huge numbers over the course of his career.
Like it or not, so so defense or not, Alonso will be a mainstay, and he will continue to develop in the next few years… we have not seen his best… maybe far from it.