It’s past time for the Mets and their fans to have good things

One of the basic principles of building a team is that you can’t forecast everything to go right. Everyone knows that there are going to be injuries and people who simply don’t perform up to expectations, for whatever the reason. Having said that, it’s pretty remarkable how many things went wrong for the 2021 Mets. Let’s list a few:

Jacob deGrom was in the midst of perhaps the greatest pitching season ever but injuries caused him to miss half the year.
Noah Syndergaard was expected to join the team as early as mid-May. Instead, he pitched two meaningless innings at the end of the season.
Carlos Carrasco missed half the year and when he did get on the mound, he was terrible.
Joey Lucchesi rebounded from a bad start to post a 1.18 ERA in his last five starts. Then he was lost to a season-ending injury and didn’t pitch after June 18.
David Peterson didn’t pitch after June 30.
James McCann lost 253 points of OPS from the previous year.
Jeff McNeil lost 157 points of OPS.
J.D. Davis got off to a monster start then suffered at least three different injuries.
Francisco Lindor lost 99 points of OPS from his lifetime mark in Cleveland.
Dominic Smith lost 144 points of OPS from his lifetime MLB mark.
Brandon Nimmo missed two months with a mysterious hand injury and then didn’t hit for power the first two months he returned.
Michael Conforto lost 114 points of OPS from his lifetime MLB mark.

While you don’t expect everything to go right, you don’t expect this many things to go wrong, either. Meanwhile, the list of things that went right for the Mets last year is significantly shorter.

Marcus Stroman showed no ill effects from opting out of 2020 and turned in a fine performance.
Aaron Loup was just about perfect in 56.2 IP.
Javier Baez put up a 143 wRC+ in 186 PA after the trade to the Mets.

That’s it, that’s the sum of the unexpected good news. And in one of life’s funny coincidences, all three of the Mets’ 2021 overachievers are no longer on the team, having left for greener pastures in free agency. But don’t cry for the Mets. They were very busy in free agency, too, bringing in four big free agents, as well as trading for a 2021 All-Star pitcher.

It’s been a good offseason for the Mets. How good? Even the mayor of Panic City seems optimistic. Let’s see how long that lasts…

It’s fair to say that most people would view me as an optimistic Mets fan and not just this year. If you can’t be optimistic in Spring Training, when can you? The idea of rushing out to panic has always struck me as odd. There’s nothing wrong with being skeptical. But it’s not rational to expect every single thing to break right for other teams and every single thing to break wrong for the Mets.

Be that as it may, the rest of this piece will be the ultimate optimistic take. You have been warned.

After everything that went wrong last year, what if the gods decided to smile on the Mets this year? What if each of the main guys on the team not only stayed healthy but they matched their career-high in fWAR. What would that team look like?

To make things easier, let’s consider 13 pitchers and nine hitters. But before we get to the numbers, let’s talk a little bit about WAR. The “R” in the acronym stands for replacement, so when we talk about a player’s WAR, it’s how much better he is than a replacement player. Whenever we talk about WAR on a team level, we have to add in what a team comprised solely of replacement-level players would do. And the FanGraphs glossary says that mythical team would be expected to win 47-48 games.

So, you add hitter fWAR + pitcherer fWAR + 47 for replacement to get the team wins. If you expect perfection, you really need to adjust your expectations. Much like comparing a team’s Pythagorean record to its actual record, you’ll see discrepancies in both directions, along with some that are right on target. Let’s look at the top three teams in hitting fWAR, along with the Mets, and see the results:

Astros – 33.9 hitting + 16.9 pitching + 47 replacement = 97.8 wins. Actual, 95
Blue Jays – 30.5 hitting + 14.6 pitching + 47 replacement = 92.1 wins. Actual, 91
Giants – 30.0 hitting + 21.9 pitching + 47 replacement = 98.9 wins. Actual, 107
Mets – 18.2 hitting + 16.4 pitching + 47 replacement = 81.6 wins. Actual, 77

So, let’s see how our 22 players for the Mets would do if they matched their career-high fWAR:

Player	Year	fWAR
deGrom	2018	9
Scherzer	2018	7.5
Bassitt	2021	3.3
Carrasco	2016	5.4
Walker	2017	2.5
Diaz	2018	3.5
Lugo	2019	2.2
May	2019	0.9
Castro	2019	0.5
Williams
Shreve	2014	0.3
Smith	2018	0.3
Ottavino	2018	1.9
McCann	2019	2.2
Alonso	2019	4.9
McNeil	2019	4.6
Escobar	2019	3.6
Lindor	2018	7.7
Canha	2019	4
Nimmo	2018	4.5
Marte	2021	5.5
Smith	2020	1.8
Total		76.1

A few things to explain. Trevor Williams has never had a season in the majors with more relief appearances than starts. So, to keep his outings as a starter from inflating what he would do as a reliever, we’ll assume a 0.0 fWAR for him. Also, Trevor May had a 2.5 fWAR in 2015 but he had 16 starts that season. So, 2019 – with zero starts – was used, instead. Finally, Smith was used as a DH and his total was from the Covid year. But his output there was so above expected, there was no thought to extrapolate it out to a full season.

Without any reserves, a zero from Williams and a partial season from Smith, the “team” that matches (not exceeds) their career-best would total 76.1 fWAR. Add in 47 for replacement and this team would be expected to produce 123.1 wins.

FanGraphs projects the current Mets roster to produce 90 wins while PECOTA has them at 91.2 wins. This is the average projection. The absolutely everything-goes-right projection clears 123 wins and might reach 130 if we counted normal reserves. In reality, it would be a great year if the Mets topped 95 wins. But if the five starting pitchers named enjoy reasonable health – combine to make around 125 starts – and the age-20-something hitters rebound to produce at their lifetime averages, it should make for a great year.

The gods owe us after 2021, to say nothing of the years before that.