The 2022 Mets offense has good offensive players up and down the lineup

Many years ago in a Game Chatter, likely down the stretch in 2015, I made a little comment that Metsense likes to remind me of every now and then. My comment then was, “offense is fun!” If you’ve been following the Mets for any length of time, you can list a whole bunch of pitchers who were really good for multiple years in Queens. The same list for batters is significantly shorter.

One of the offensive metrics we cite often here is OPS+. It’s important to note that OPS is a stat that shouldn’t “work” but it does. A very simple calculation of adding two stats together gives you a very good idea of the offensive value of a player. And that stat is made even better by making it park and league neutral, what the “+” stands for in OPS+.

If a player has an OPS+ of 110, he’s 10% better than league average. Let’s look at an OPS+ of 120, or 20% better than league average, as being a really good offensive player. In their first seven years of existence, the Mets had a total of five players record an OPS+ of 120 in a season of at least 300 PA. Here in 2022, with 55 games still to play, the Mets have five guys with at least a 120 OPS+ and 300 PA. They are:

155 – Pete Alonso
130 – Starling Marte
125 – Francisco Lindor
124 – Jeff McNeil
121 – Brandon Nimmo

That ties for the second-most players in franchise history to have a 120 or greater OPS+ with at least 300 PA in a single season, trailing just the 1999 Mets, who had six players reach that threshold. Many of us have fonder memories of the ’99 team than the 2000 one which went to the World Series. The ’00 squad had just three players meet our offensive threshold. Perhaps that’s why the ’99 team holds the advantage in our hearts.

The only other teams to have five players reach the threshold in a single season were the 1988 Mets.

This year’s version also has two players with OPS+ marks in the 110s in Luis Guillorme (110) and Mark Canha (113) who if everything breaks right down the stretch might have a shot of joining the five names above. Even though Guillorme has a lower OPS+ he might have the better chance of the two in reaching our threshold. That’s because he has fewer PA, which should make it easier to increase his season-long output. Also, he should have the platoon advantage the rest of the way and his OPS is 145 points higher when facing RHP.

And while he won’t come anywhere close to 300 PA with the Mets, Daniel Vogelbach has a chance to post a 120 OPS+ for the team, too. In his 38 PA with the club so far, Vogelbach has a 205 OPS+, with four of his 10 hits going for extra-bases. In 316 PA total this season, Vogelbach has a 126 OPS+. And like with Guillorme, Vogelbach should have a better OPS+ going forward, as he’s not likely to face many lefties. So far this season, Vogelbach has a .934 OPS versus RHP and a .415 OPS versus LHP.

Both the 1999 and 1988 teams mentioned above with the most hitters with a 120 OPS+ reached the NLCS. The ’99 team played their hearts out and it’s tough to say they deserved to go any further than they did. The ’88 team should have won their second World Series in three years but didn’t.

Of course, offense is only part of the equation. The ’99 team did not have a single pitcher reach 100 IP and have a 120 ERA+ while the ’88 team had one – David Cone, who had a 145 ERA+. You look at the Mets teams to reach the World Series and here are their pitchers to reach a 120 ERA+:

2015 – Jacob deGrom (149) and Matt Harvey (140)
2000 – Mike Hampton (142) and Al Leiter (139)
1986 – Bobby Ojeda (140), Dwight Gooden (126) and Ron Darling (120)
1973 – Tom Seaver (175), George Stone (130) and Jerry Koosman (128)
1969 – Seaver (165), Tug McGraw (163), Koosman 160 and Don Cardwell (121)

Only one current Mets starter has reached our threshold and that’s Taijuan Walker and his 143 ERA+ in 103.1 IP. Two starts from now, he should be joined by Max Scherzer, who has a 187 ERA+. That’s probably the only two pitchers this year’s team will have, although Chris Bassitt has a Guillorme-like chance with his current 110 ERA+. But the hope is that Jacob deGrom easily clears the ERA+ part of the threshold. And while Edwin Diaz won’t sneak across the IP part like ’69 McGraw did, he currently sits with a 278 ERA+, which is not too shabby.

The 2022 Mets are shaping up to have pitching on par with the ’69 and ’86 squads and hitting like the ’88 and ’99 teams when we look at the top-end talent. And this is not a case like the current farm system, which is top heavy and then falls off. This year’s team has both hitting and pitching that is above-average and can support the top talent.

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Speaking of the Game Chatter – I’m shocked that more people aren’t dropping in with this crucial series against the Braves. And Woodrow, we were testing out a different version last night, which is why we weren’t in the main one. There should only be one active tonight.