The Mets’ offense has been very good, it’s Citi Field that’s the problem

Both the greybeards and the ones who are no longer with us understand/understood that the ballpark plays a big role in how the at-bats turn out. A fly ball in the friendly confines of Wrigley Field or the elevation of Coors Field could easily be a home run, one that would be an out in another park, like the Astrodome. It’s an easy thing to grasp with home runs but it’s more difficult to accept in other parts of the game.

Which brings us to Citi Field in 2024.

The Mets have hit 11 HR in 19 games at Citi Field, an average of .579 HR/game. They have 9 HR in 16 games on the road for an average of .563 HR/game. Citi Field has been a very, very slight positive to hitting homers for the Mets. But despite that tiny boost with dingers, the park has been just vicious in how it has curtailed overall offense.

In 19 home games, the Mets have scored 69 runs, for an average of 3.6 runs per game
In 16 road games, the Mets have scored 82 runs, for an average of 5.4 runs per game

That 1.8 runs per game difference is huge. For a comparison, the Rockies score 4.0 rpg at home this year, compared to 3.3 rpg on the road. The Braves score 5.2 rpg at home, compared to 5.0 on the road. The Phillies score 5.3 rpg at home, compared to 4.6 on the road.

If we look at slash lines for the Mets, here’s how it breaks down home and away:

H – .213/.295/.333
A – .264/.335/.413

That’s a .627 OPS at home, compared to a .748 mark on the road. If those were marks overall for a team, the Mets’ home OPS would be 27th in the majors, two points ahead of the Cardinals and Marlins. And their road OPS would be the third-best mark in MLB, behind only the Dodgers and Orioles.

People trip all over themselves to say the offense is rotten and the pitching has carried the team. But we see that this just isn’t true. The same splits that happen with hitters happen in reverse with the pitchers. They look great in home games and ugly in road ones.

Mets pitchers have a 2.68 ERA at home, compared to a 4.99 ERA on the road. If those marks were overall team totals, the home ERA would be the second-best in the majors and the road ERA would be 27th. Additionally, they allow the following slash lines:

H – .194/.284/.291
A – .252/.359/.377

The Mets have a better mark in each slash category as batters at home than the ones their pitchers have allowed. The team’s hitters have a .627 OPS at home, while their pitchers have allowed a .576 OPS. And on the road, Mets hitters do better in two of the three slash categories – the exception being OBP – and have a better OPS, .748 to .736

We’re not dealing with a big sample here and things could turn around by the end of the season. But in the 35 games played so far, the pitching has been worse than the hitting. It’s easy to blame the offense when you see 12 games where they’ve scored two runs or fewer. But the pitching has 14 games where they’ve allowed at least five runs, including eight games where they surrendered at least seven runs.

It’s not clear why Citi Field is playing as such an extreme pitcher’s park so far this year. It’s always been a slight pitcher’s park and that’s where it might end up once the season is over. But it simply hasn’t been that way up until now. It would be nice if we knew the reason why this was happening. Yet the “why” isn’t nearly as important as the “what” in this case.

And the “what” is that hitters for the Mets have an OPS 121 points lower at home than on the road and have scored 1.8 runs per game fewer at home, while the pitchers have an ERA 2.31 runs lower at home. If you ignore these things to claim that the hitting is the problem, you need to open your eyes and take in the full picture.