Mark Canha was the latest player buoyed by a six-week hot stretch

What gets lost because of the final series of the year against the Braves, where the Mets neither hit nor pitched well, was how good the offense was in September/October. In all, 16 times in their last 31 games the Mets scored at least five runs. They went 16-0 in those games. You’d think they’d do a little better than 2-13 when they scored between 0-4 runs. In August, they were 3-10 while scoring four or fewer runs and in July they were 7-8 in those games where the offense did not carry the day.

It’s hard to win games when your starters are struggling. In the final 31 games of the season, Chris Bassitt, Jacob deGrom and Taijuan Walker went 7-7 and allowed 42 ER in 96 IP for a 3.94 ERA. It would be curious to know how much those September struggles contributed to the Mets letting Bassitt and Walker leave without putting up much of a fight, at least not publicly.

But let’s focus on the offense.

Six players for the Mets received at least 100 PA in the final month of the season and five of them had really strong Septembers. Francisco Lindor was 22% above average in OPS+ compared to the rest of MLB in the month. Jeff McNeil was 53% better, Pete Alonso was 62% better, Brandon Nimmo was 64% better and Eduardo Escobar was a whopping 76% better.

Daniel Vogelbach did not meet our PA threshold but in 77 trips to the plate, he was 31% better. And in the tiny sample of 14 PA, Francisco Alvarez was 20% better.

Among the top six hitters in PA for the Mets the final month of the season, the only one who didn’t excel was Mark Canha, who was essentially league-average, with his 99 sOPS+. It was a strange year for Canha, who started off the year with every bloop and bleeder finding a hole but with virtually no power whatsoever. Then, in a six-week period from late July to late August, Canha had a .258 ISO over 104 PA, as 15 of his 28 hits went for extra-bases.

It prompts the question – As fans, how should we treat that hot streak by Canha? Before the hot streak, he had a .110 ISO in 308 PA and in 130 PA after the streak, he had a .101 ISO. MLB hitters had a .142 ISO in 2022 and the league’s left fielders had a .152 ISO.

For the year, Canha had a .133 ISO. He was below-average in power production and really below average for nearly five months, as his season-long rate was propped up by a 38-day stretch. We can’t expect a hitter to perform in a narrow range each week or each month of the season. But when a player packs most of his production in a little over a month, is that a cause for worry? And does the fact that happened in his age-33 season make it more troublesome?

In 2021, Canha was strong thru the end of July but in the final two months of the season, he had a .191/.314/.309 line in his final 242 PA of the year. In 2019, he did not have a bad month all season. So, he doesn’t have anything in his recent past like what happened in 2022.

Some thought when the Mets signed him that perhaps he was suited to a fourth-outfielder role. It’s possible that’s his destiny for 2023. But it seems unlikely that the Mets will sign someone to supplant him now. And it’s not that he would be a guy to turn into a platoon player, like Vogelbach. The righty-hitting Canha had a 67-point OPS advantage against RHP compared to lefties.

If the Mets were truly committed to breaking in youngsters, this might be an area to utilize Mark Vientos, having him play some outfield on days when the Mets faced a LHP to give Canha some days off. But you shouldn’t hold your breath on that happening.

Buck Showalter rested Canha frequently in the first half of the season. But with his hot stretch in July/August, Canha started 38 of the club’s final 41 games and came on as a sub in the first inning when Nimmo had to leave the game early on Sept. 21 in Milwaukee. For a comparison, Canha started 36 of the club’s first 51 games.

It’s hard to blame Showalter for playing Canha more given what he did in that hot stretch. But with an entire offseason to reflect on matters, hopefully Showalter recognizes the need for more consistent days off for Canha. And perhaps we should hope that Billy Eppler recalls the six-week hot streak phenomenon and looks for a player that pushes Canha to the bench.

Following the 2018 season, we detailed a dozen cases of guys on the Mets having a six-week hot stretch that was completely out of line with what they had done recently and what they would do subsequently. From that article:

All players have streaks, stretches where the hits fall in as well as periods where they simply can’t buy a hit. But even knowing that, we still find players whose final numbers are propped up by a stretch that was completely out of whack with what they did previously or subsequently.

In rough terms, these unusual streaks comprise six weeks or 30 games or 120 PA. Now, maybe it’s 37 games or maybe it’s 98 PA. But this is the general ballpark and there are enough examples of it in the recent past. This list is not exhaustive; it’s merely the players that jumped immediately to mind.

And here were the players and their six-week hot stretches:

2010 Rod Barajas – 33 games, 124 PA, .892 OPS
2012 Kirk Nieuwenhuis – 31 games, 119 PA, .823 OPS
2013 Juan Lagares – 35 games, 121 PA, .880 OPS
2013 John Buck – 25 games, 102 PA, .905 OPS
2013 Josh Satin – 23 games, 82 PA, 1.033 OPS
2014 Eric Campbell – 40 games, 107 PA, .852 OPS
2014 Matt den Dekker – 36 games, 125 PA, .766 OPS
2015 Travis d’Arnaud – 32 games, 133 PA, 1.100 OPS
2016 James Loney – 38 games, 148 PA, .848 OPS
2018 Adrian Gonzalez – 26 games, 94 PA, .793 OPS
2018 Jose Bautista – 35 games, 105 PA, .944 OPS
2018 Austin Jackson – 31 games, 124 PA, .814 OPS

You can click on the linked article to see what the players did immediately before and after their hot streak. Spoiler alert – Satin didn’t keep up his four-digit OPS pace and never became a full-season regular. And that’s not meant to pick on Satin. Only d’Arnaud from this grouping has come remotely close to being a productive player after his hot streak. Of course, we have to take that with a giant grain of salt, given d’Arnaud’s injury history. In seven seasons since then, he’s only topped 100 games played three times, with his high in games played at 112. In his last four years, d’Arnaud has a .774 OPS and a 107 OPS+ in 1,230 PA, which is good for a catcher. It’s just 326 points below his hot streak.

In case you forgot, Canha’s streak was 30 games, 104 PA and a .977 OPS.

If the Mets could have traded each of the dozen players above at the height of their hot streak, they wouldn’t have missed out on much. Allegedly, they’re looking to move Carlos Carrasco and James McCann now. But that would be selling low on those players. Imagine what they might get now for Canha. OK, it still probably wouldn’t be much. But they could look to replace him with a similarly salaried guy and likely end up with better production.