There was an article today in The Athletic talking about how much better the Dodgers’ depth is than the Mets’. And it’s true, even if not to the extent that the article portrayed it. The Dodgers have an insane amount of pitching depth, which is necessary given all of the time their hurlers spend on the IL. But even with all of that depth, they still had to throw Heath Hembree and Jake Reed in last night’s one-run game.
The one area where the Dodgers are just plain better is at catcher. We knew the Mets had a major sinkhole in the lineup at the catcher’s slot but they chose to do nothing at the trade deadline to address that weakness. In the month of August, Mets catchers have the following line:
.200/.232/.242 in 103 PA
That’s worse than Jacob deGrom‘s lifetime .488 OPS. We’re going to have to come up with a new phrase to replace sub-Plaweckian to describe just how bad the catchers are right now.
Meanwhile, Willson Contreras has an .833 OPS in the month of August. He’s also the RHB this lineup needs, as he has an .873 OPS versus LHP this season. People will go on and on about how as long as the catchers do a good job handling the pitchers that whatever offense they give is a plus.
But it’s hard to watch the games on a nightly basis and feel this is true.
Right now, my belief is that when rosters expand, the Mets need to go to three catchers just so they can pinch-hit earlier in the game. Last night, there was a spot in the sixth inning where James McCann came up with two on and two out. He struck out, with two swings where he did not make contact. They ended up pinch-hitting for him in the ninth. McCann finished the game 0-3, with three strikeouts, including six swings-and-misses.
McCann stranded three runners and the only reason it wasn’t more was because he led off the inning in his second plate appearance. It’s so ugly it feels like the Mets should tell the rehabbing Luis Guillorme to put on the tools of ignorance and become a catcher. His .614 OPS since June 5 would be a massive upgrade from what the catchers have given the Mets this season.
Tonight closes out the last game of the month and the last game of the two most competitive months of baseball for the Mets, June and August.
June had 25 games, and the Mets went 13-12, just eeking out staying above .500. August has 30 games. At the start of the month, I thought winning 18 of the 30 would be a success, which would give them a .600 record for the month. The team has secured a winning record for the month, guaranteeing they will have an above .500 for every month of the year. That is a lot to be happy with. Still, it would be great to get that 18th win tonight by beating the Dodgers.
In these two months the record against the top of the top teams (Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, Braves) is: 2 Ws and 6 Ls in June and 5 Ws and 7 Ls in August up to tonight. I hate to say it, but a 7-13 record against those we will play in October simply wont get the job done. An 8th win would be great to end at 8-13, but that is only a .381 winning percentage. If you include the 2 Yankee games in July, which were wins, the record would be 10-13, or .434 winning percentage.
September brings in what could be considered the easiest month of the year and hopefully ring in getting the team clicking again for October. We certainly will need to get back to timely hits, HR, scoring runs, and staying out of bonehead mistakes.
The catchers hitting has been really bad. McCann seems like he can’t even hit the ball. It’s like having a pitcher hit.
Alonso looked terrible last night. Another bat broken over his knee. He has had a real power outage in the second half.
We really need to win the division and get that first round bye.
Mcantanidoitis
Unfortunately they should carry three catchers in September.
Alvarez should have been promoted to AAA sooner. He would have been their solution to the catching problem. Now he hurt and they have to settle for Perez. But that won’t settle the problem for the post season.
The Mets were 10-1 vs the Dodgers in 1988 and we know what happened in the NLCS. The post season is a different sort of animal.
In a similar vein the Mets had a horrible record in 2015 against the Dodgers. Horrible that is until the NLDS when they beat the heavily favored Dodgers 3 games to 2 as the Mets worked their way toward the pennant.
I hope Joely is sent somewhere else this Winter.
Brett Baty was diagnosed with a torn UCL in his right thumb and will undergo surgery on Thursday.
And it’s season ending.
The Mets ended up in August with a 19-11 record Which was nice. It exceeded my expectations of a 18-12 record. Now the calendar turns the page to September and a pennant race. I expect the Mets to have a 17- 9 and reach a 100 win season this month. A 18-8 would be nice. 19-7 would elite. More importantly, when they arrive in Atlanta they will have a 4 game lead and one win will clinch the division by virtue of taking the season series.
Governor of Optimize ( formerly the Mayor of Panic) predicts a 20-6 record !!! That a campaign promise that will be hard to keep.
^ Governor of Optimism