The Mets’ trip to Milwaukee showed all of their flaws in the early going here in 2023. The starting pitching was nothing special and didn’t provide length. The relievers were inconsistent. And in the first two games, the offense was non-existent. While the hitters put up six runs in the third game, thanks to big days from Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor, there hasn’t been a great start by their starting eight and designated hitter. Alonso, Lindor and Daniel Vogelbach are the only ones with an OPS+ of at least 100 and the latter two barely meet that threshold, each with a 105 mark.
Why is the offense struggling? In my opinion, it’s too many weak ground ball outs. People love to talk about how as long as you put the ball in play, there’s a chance for something good to happen. Jeff McNeil’s soft grounder, which he beat out for a hit and advanced to second on an error, a play which plated two run, is trotted out as an example.
Two runs did indeed score on that play, which wouldn’t have happened with a strikeout. But that’s an outlier in what has been a series of useless weak grounders hit by the team so far in the young season. The Mets don’t strike out very often. As a team, they have a 15.9 K%, which is the lowest mark in MLB. But if all they’re doing is trading strikeouts for weak ground ball outs – is that a good thing?
Ideally, you combine a low K% with a high SLG%, like the Rays have done so far this season. Tampa is 23rd in K% and 1st in SLG, which is outstanding. But it’s not uncommon for teams to finish high in both categories. The Orioles, Dodgers, Yankees and Reds are in the top 10 in highest K% and highest SLG. What you want to avoid is being a team that strikes out a lot but doesn’t have a lot of power. The Tigers have the third-highest K% and rank 29th in SLG – ouch.
What has the Mets’ MLB-best K% gotten them? They’re 27th in AVG, 19th in OBP and 27th in SLG. It will be next to impossible to win 101 games with those types of results.
Let’s look at batted balls. In 2022, Baseball-Reference has the following numbers for MLB for the three types of batted balls:
GB – .236/.236/.259
FB – .211/.207/.628
LD – .631/.623/.877
Since we’re only considering batted balls, players will have lower OBP marks than AVG due to sacrifice flies. But it’s pretty easy to see that the best outcome for a hitter is a line drive. Hitting grounders rather than fly balls will lead to a better AVG. But the power that comes with fly balls dwarfs that advantage. The OPS for a grounder last year was .495 compared to an .835 mark from fly balls.
Thru games of Wednesday, here are the MLB numbers on batted balls:
GB – .234/.234/.255
FB – .213/.208/.624
LD – .665/.657/.970
The line drive numbers are up from a season ago but the grounders and flies are nearly identical.
Meanwhile, the Mets are third in MLB with 87 grounders hit. That’s bad enough all by itself. What makes it even worse is that the Mets are performing way below average when they hit the ball on the ground. Which they do a lot. The Mets have a .092/.092/.092 triple slash line when they hit a ground ball. While the league average on grounders is a .489 OPS, the Mets have just a .184 mark.
It’s tough to have a good offense when you specialize in the worst batted ball outcome and then proceed to underperform in that category by 305 points of OPS.
Here’s how the Mets regulars do when hitting the ball on the ground:
McNeil – 13 PA, .462 OPS
Brandon Nimmo – 11 PA, .364 OPS
Alonso – 11 PA, .000 OPS
Starling Marte – 10 PA, .400 OPS
Luis Guillorme – 8 PA, .000 OPS
Vogelbach – 7 PA, .286 OPS
The rest of the team has hit 27 ground balls and have combined for a .000 OPS. Add in Alonso and Guillorme and the Mets have nine hitters who’ve combined for 46 ground ball outs without a hit. And the only RBIs the Mets have on balls hit on the ground are two by McNeil. Not one hitter is above average when they hit the ball on the ground, with McNeil and his 27-point deficit the best on the club.
The Mets are 24th in the majors with a 3.29 runs-per-game mark. If they were getting these results with a high K%, there would be no shortage of people claiming that the offensive strategy was to blame and they’d look to fire the hitting coach. But since it’s with a low K%, hardly anyone complains and if anyone does, well, we’ll hear about how it’s early and things will turn around.
After just seven games, patience is definitely the right answer, at least for the fans. My hope is that the hitting coaches and front office have a plan to help the team overcome its current rank of 25th in barrels and 29th in exit velocity. The Mets need to hit more balls in the air and they need to hit those balls harder than they do now. If the end result is an increase in K%, it’s likely to be a tradeoff worth making.
Very helpful analysis. Thanks, Brian.