A guide on handling injured and ineffective players moving forward

In 2019, Brandon Nimmo injured his neck. He tried to play thru the injury but ultimately went on the then-called DL and missed three months. The Mets used several different players in center field but the guy who got the most playing time was Juan Lagares. In 285 PA that season, Lagares put up a 62 OPS+, which is horrible.

In 2021, Nimmo missed two moths with a nerve injury in his hand. He missed two months and it took an additional two months before his power returned. Just like in 2019, the Mets used several players in center field while Nimmo was out. The player with the most playing time in center was Kevin Pillar, who in 347 PA put up an 88 OPS+. That’s an improvement on what Lagares gave the club yet still a significant drop from what a healthy Nimmo would produce.

There are always players who are going to come up and get a handful of PA and pretty much stink, whether you root for the best team or the worst. Albert Almora got 54 PA last year and produced a (-12) OPS+. We all knew he couldn’t hit but probably none of us felt like it would be that bad. But it was in a relatively small dose of playing time.

The issue is when you have players getting significant playing time who are underperforming. But how do you define those terms? There’s no one right answer. The ones that popped into my mind was at least 100 PA and an OPS+ below 90. Pillar last year didn’t kill the Mets with his numbers but he wasn’t really pushing them towards a playoff appearance, either. If Pillar was your worst player, you could advance to the postseason. Unfortunately, he had a lot of company on the 2021 Mets.

Last year’s team featured six players to meet my PA/OPS+ thresholds, which is kind of scary given that only 15 players reached 100 PA. In addition to Pillar, there was Dominic Smith (493 PA/84 OPS+), Jeff McNeil (426/88), James McCann (412/77), Tomas Nido (161/61) and Jose Peraza (154/76). Those six players combined for 1,993 PA with an OPS+ below our threshold of 90. Is that a lot of players? Is that a lot of PA?

Last year, there were 86 players who met these thresholds, for an average of 5.73 per team. So, the Mets’ total of six players is pretty much what you would expect. Our 86 players combined for 23,595 PA for an average of 1,573 PA per team, if these were distributed evenly. The 2021 Mets had 420 extra PA than what an “average” team would be expected to have.

Everyone knows the disappointing seasons McNeil and Smith produced. The rest of our group comes from Nimmo’s injury replacement, a backup middle infielder and two catchers. No one should be surprised that backups make the list. Plenty of starting catchers make the list, too, but the Mets were expecting more from their free agent acquisition that they gave out a four-year deal to acquire.

It’s all well and good to talk about “average” teams in this regard. But let’s talk about real teams, specifically the other four squads in the NL East. Here’s how they fared in amount of players/number of PA in our target group:

ATL – five players, 1,070 PA
MIA – eight players, 1,857 PA
PHI – six players, 1,556 PA
WSN – six players, 1,312 PA

If there is any kind of statistic – whether real or a made-up one like this – you should wager on the Braves having smelly fingers. They end up with both the fewest players and the fewest total PA from their group. The Marlins had the most players while the Mets had the most PA. The Phillies were just about average in both categories. The Nationals were average in players but had a below average number of PA.

The Mets had three players with at least 400 PA while the other four teams in the division combined for two, both of whom were on the Phillies. Here’s a case where we should praise the Braves. Faced with guys in starting positions who were falling into our target group, they went out and made moves to try and improve.

The Braves imported Jorge Soler, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson and Eddie Rosario. Here are their numbers before and after joining the Braves:

Soler – 76 OPS+ with Royals, 128 OPS+ with Braves
Duvall – 100 OPS+ with Marlins, 104 OPS+ with Braves
Pederson – 91 OPS+ with Cubs, 96 OPS+ with Braves
Rosario – 86 OPS+ with Indians, 131 OPS+ with Braves

Duvall and Peterson both performed pretty much like they had earlier in the season, with both being slightly better on the Braves. Soler and Rosario were the ones that were sprinkled with magic fairy dust, performing significantly better than anyone should have reasonably expected.

But here’s the thing – even if Soler and Rosario repeated their first-half struggles and Duvall and Pederson were slightly worse, rather than slightly better, the latter two would have received the bulk of the playing time and they would have still avoided having a sink hole in the lineup at two positions. That’s the part where the Braves deserve credit – they gave themselves enough MLB-caliber options.

Soler and Rosario were just the latest small-sample flukes that performed out of their mind when they joined the Braves. After seeing career out-maker Adeiny Hechavarria put up a 158 OPS+ for Atlanta in 2019, nothing should surprise us when it comes to the Braves and good fortune.

If there’s a takeaway from this, it’s when things are going bad and you don’t have reasonable options on either your bench or in the minors – look to get guys who are competent. While preferably you get guys who are performing well in the current season – like the Mets did in 2015 when they picked up Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe – if that’s not an option, get guys who were good the year before, not three or more seasons ago – or never – before they were last worthwhile.

While Soler was horrible with the Royals, he had a 107 OPS+ in 2020. While Rosario was lousy with the Indians, he had a 116 OPS+ for the Twins in 2020. It wasn’t like the Braves got the 2021 version of Adrian Gonzalez, picking up a 36 year old and hoping he could perform like when he was 32. Soler and Rosario were both in their age-29 season in 2021.

The Mets did that with Javier Baez and he performed better than they had any right to expect. But the problem was two-fold. With Francisco Lindor being hurt when they got Baez, they were still playing both McNeil and Smith on an everyday basis. The second issue was that in the second half, the Mets had only two reliable SP.

The Braves imported four outfielders to solve their issues. The Mets needed to bring in three starting pitchers and they only acquired one – Rich Hill. And Hill was just what they needed. They just needed him to have two buddies to pitch equally well.

You don’t want to overreact when someone gets off to a slow start. Lindor was in the running as one of the worst hitters in baseball the first two months of the season. After that, he performed to his career average. But in June and July, the Mets were playing – when healthy – Michael Conforto, McNeil and Smith every day and all three of those were floundering.

Old baseball wisdom is that you spend the first two months figuring out what you need, the next two months getting what you need and you play the final two months with the team you want in the playoffs.

The 2021 Mets made two significant trades in June and July, getting Baez and Hill. They counted on injured players coming back and scuffling players to revert to career norms. Baez and Hill were both excellent additions. But Nimmo was the only injured player to return and make an impact and even that was a delayed one, as it took awhile for his power to return. But Jacob deGrom and Noah Synergaard both failed to pitch meaningful innings and Carlos Carrasco was a dud.

Conforto picked up the pace the last two months of the year but McNeil and Smith did not. Add it all up and you have a 77-win team.

It’s a tough thing to do, knowing when and how injured players are going to return, along with knowing when and how underperforming players will bounce back. At some point, the Mets should have known that deGrom and Syndergaard weren’t going to be the answers in 2021, to say nothing of Carrasco and Walker. Here’s how that quartet did in the first month after the All-Star break:

7/18 – TW, 0.1 IP, 5 ER
7/24 – TW 4.0 IP, 6 ER
7/29 – TW 5.0 IP, 5 ER
7/30 – CC 4.0 IP, 1 ER
8/3 – TW 5.2 IP, 4 ER
8/4 – CC 4.1 IP, 2 ER
8/8 – TW 6.0 IP, 3 ER
8/10 – CC 1.0 IP, 4 ER
8/14 – TW 6.1 IP, 2 ER
8/15 – CC 2.0 IP, 6 ER

That’s 38.2 IP and 38 ER over 10 starts. The Mets only added one starting pitcher – Trevor Williams – and they sent him to the minors. When he returned to the majors, Williams made three starts and allowed 3 ER in 13.2 IP. He should have gotten more starts.

All of this is incredibly easy to say with hindsight. Instead of bashing the Mets for what happened in 2021, let’s look for things to use going forward, to avoid making the same mistakes twice. Maybe if your position players have gone three months without signs of life, you need to have MLB-caliber players available to replace them. Maybe if guys with injury and/or durability concerns are floundering and/or unavailable in July and August, you don’t count on them to turn things around. And when you look for replacements, you’ve got to set the bar higher than Travis Blankenhorn and Mason Williams.