The Mets had their seven-game winning streak snapped last night, dropping their record to 13-5 in their last 18 games. For the most part, the Mets have been clicking on offense in these past 18 games, even with Wednesday night’s three runs on five hits. And they’ve done that with a collective group effort, rather than relying on three or four players to carry the load. We can all recall times where it seemed like no one on the team was hitting. So, we should celebrate this span where it seems almost everyone is contributing on offense. Here’s how all of the players have done since May 30:
| Name | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luis Torrens | 26 | 7.70% | 19.20% | .417 | .313 | .333 | .385 | .750 | .479 | 220 |
| J.D. Martinez | 82 | 14.60% | 18.30% | .313 | .319 | .299 | .420 | .612 | .441 | 194 |
| Francisco Lindor | 81 | 8.60% | 11.10% | .254 | .322 | .324 | .395 | .577 | .417 | 177 |
| Starling Marte | 54 | 9.30% | 18.50% | .184 | .421 | .347 | .407 | .531 | .407 | 170 |
| Brett Baty | 4 | 25.00% | 0.00% | .000 | .333 | .333 | .500 | .333 | .395 | 163 |
| Pete Alonso | 81 | 9.90% | 22.20% | .264 | .320 | .278 | .358 | .542 | .388 | 158 |
| Jose Iglesias | 30 | 6.70% | 16.70% | .074 | .455 | .370 | .433 | .444 | .381 | 153 |
| Tyrone Taylor | 28 | 7.10% | 17.90% | .167 | .368 | .292 | .393 | .458 | .376 | 150 |
| Brandon Nimmo | 76 | 3.90% | 25.00% | .183 | .400 | .310 | .355 | .493 | .369 | 145 |
| Mark Vientos | 72 | 8.30% | 22.20% | .169 | .362 | .308 | .361 | .477 | .365 | 142 |
| Francisco Alvarez | 27 | 0.00% | 18.50% | .037 | .409 | .333 | .333 | .370 | .310 | 105 |
| Harrison Bader | 53 | 3.80% | 15.10% | .229 | .244 | .250 | .264 | .479 | .308 | 103 |
| Tomás Nido | 11 | 9.10% | 18.20% | .100 | .250 | .200 | .273 | .300 | .259 | 70 |
| DJ Stewart | 26 | 15.40% | 34.60% | .136 | .167 | .136 | .269 | .273 | .255 | 67 |
| Jeff McNeil | 43 | 4.70% | 14.00% | .024 | .200 | .171 | .209 | .195 | .186 | 20 |
| Omar Narváez | 2 | 0.00% | 0.00% | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | -100 |
How good has this stretch been? Vientos has a 142 wRC+ yet that’s only the 10th-best mark on the team in this span. As a group, the Mets have scored 110 runs in this stretch, an average of 6.1 runs per game. The entire team has a .291/.357/.490 slash mark in 696 PA. That’s essentially a full season’s worth of playing time for an individual.
The team, including two backup catchers no longer on the roster and a third baseman who was demoted to Triple-A, has a combined 144 wRC+ and a 5.8 fWAR. The Mets have essentially been 2023 Bryce Harper (142 wRC+) at the plate. And they’ve been better than Harper overall, as he had a 3.5 fWAR a season ago.
The Mets have a .331 BABIP in this stretch. With MLB as a whole producing a .288 BABIP this year, it’s obvious the hits are falling in here the last 18 games. But it’s more than that. The club has a .199 ISO in this span, which is 50 points above the average for MLB. Even last night, when they had just five hits, three of them went for extra-bases, including Alonso’s 16th HR of the season.
Another indication of how good the offense has been is how it’s boosted mediocre pitching to great results. David Peterson and Luis Severino have made a combined seven starts in these last 18 games and they have a 5-0 record. But they’ve allowed 20 ER in 43.1 IP for a 4.15 ERA. MLB as a whole has a 4.00 ERA this year.
And it’s not just those two pitchers. The Mets’ staff has a 4.14 ERA in these last 18 games and has allowed 80 runs overall, which is a 4.4 runs per game average. Those ERAs listed above for Peterson and Severino are the best ones for the five starters currently in the rotation. Jose Quintana sits with a 4.61 ERA, Tylor Megill has a 5.52 and Sean Manaea has a 6.75 mark.
While currently in Triple-A, Christian Scott pitched in one game in these last 18 and his 3.60 ERA is the best for any SP.
While the starters have been borderline horrific, the relievers have done a solid job, especially given all of the innings they’ve had to cover. The pen has delivered a 2.94 ERA over 64.1 IP in these last 18 games. Adrian Houser and Dedniel Nunez have combined for 19.1 IP and have allowed just 2 ER. They’ve helped compensate for the rotten performances from lefties Jake Diekman and Josh Walker, who’ve allowed a combined 7 ER in 8 IP.
For a while now, all of the talk around the Mets has been about how they should handle things at the trade deadline. Three weeks ago, they looked like sellers. Now, with the offense exploding and the bullpen pitching in, they’re back to being in Wild Card contention. It’s far from certain that the Mets should be buyers. However, if they decide to add pieces, it’s pretty clear that they need to address the pitching. More specifically, the rotation and a lefty reliever.
It’s my belief that the Mets should try to thread the needle and be both buyers and sellers at the deadline. To be clear, that’s a really tough thing to do. My opinion is that Bader, Quintana and Severino should all be dealt if they have any value at all. All three are impeding free agents and they can be replaced with internal options, allowing the Mets to deal them for prospects.
Then the question becomes: Do you trade away prospect capital for a starter or do you roll with Jose Butto, Scott and Kodai Senga? David Stearns will have to kick the tires on whichever SP are out there. And the same goes for lefty relievers, though the hope is that one of those won’t be as expensive for the Mets as a starter would be.
But the only reason we can imagine such scenarios is because of the way the offense is performing. Earlier, some tried to paint the offense as the problem area. But anyone who watched the games or looked at the numbers knew that the offense was doing fine on the road and was being held back by Citi Field performing as an extreme pitcher’s park for at least the first one-third of the season.
Is Citi Field still suppressing offense? Given how the Mets’ hitters are performing here lately, let’s look to the pitchers and what they’ve allowed home and away here in June:
H: 33 runs in 8 games for a 4.1 rpg
A: 36 runs in 8 games for a 4.5 rpg
This counts both games in London as away games, although technically one goes as a home game. But it wasn’t played at Citi Field. It looks like the gap has shrunk considerably but one of the games in Citi Field the Mets allowed 10 runs. Take away that game and it’s 26 runs in seven games for a 3.7 rpg.
Without a doubt, the expectation should be that Citi Field won’t be such an extreme pitcher’s park going forward. But that’s all the more reason to shake up the rotation as it currently stands. Without the boost from their home park that the pitchers enjoyed earlier this year, how bad will their numbers be?
And that goes both ways. If Citi Field is no longer suppressing offense to an extreme degree, how good will the hitters look? We can’t expect eight of the nine hitters in the lineup to be clicking on all cylinders like they have in the last 18 games. But if we can expect something closer to the 5.7 rpg the offense has delivered this year in 32 road games, that will do nicely.
It’s a shame that Raley is done for the season. He would have been a huge asset and, had he performed, would have parlayed that into a nice payday. That Nate Lavender is also lost for the season is a real blow. He would have had an opportunity to demonstrate what he can do in the bigs. He’ll get more chances.
Josh Walker will get some more innings, no doubt. I don’t see other lefties in Syracuse and it’s difficult to identify LRPs in Bing and below. I wonder if there’s an up and coming young arm who may get their shot this summer at Citi.
Danny Young and Tyler Jay are both lefties who have gotten good results both in Syracuse and with the Mets this year. Jay is currently not on the 40-man.
Daniel Juarez is a lefty in Binghamton who looked very strong last year and some were picking as a fast riser. He has regressed some this year, but with half a season to go, you never know when things might turn around. Wilkin Ramos is not a lefty. But he’s been very strong in Bingo since moving there last July. With almost a full year of excellence at that level, I’m surprised he hasn’t moved up to AAA yet.
Update: Wilkin Ramos was promoted to Syracuse today.
I agree with being both buyers and sellers at the deadline. If they are still in the thick by the end of July they still need to add a solid end of the game reliever to the mix and an infielder other than Iglesias to replace McNeil in the starting lineup. Other than that, if they were to move Severino and Quintana, I would not be unhappy, putting Scott, Butto or Lucchesi into the rotation. Those guys are the future of the rotation anyway.
Sorry for a last comment off-topic, but The Athletic ran a great article about Willie Mays today and all of his unbelievable career statistics. Worth a read.
I’m not sure how you believe they can sell on Severino an still go anywhere in the playoffs. Scott and Butto may very well be the future. But even if Senga comes back, are they already legitimate, playoff-caliber #2 and 3 pitchers? Perhaps, but that is highly speculative.
Lucchesi, not much of a future right now. He’s 31 and, four months since spring training started, has still not has regained the moderate (92-93 MPH) fastball velocity he had last year. Since his spot start with the Mets, he’s given up 19 earned runs in 27 innings after being hammered in 3 of his 5 starts.
Ouch on Lucchesi. Severino is certainly their ace until Senga comes back someday soon hopefully. He is also prone to breakdown and has thrown almost as many innings as he did last year and only about 16 innings less than he did the previous year. You would have to go back to 2018 to see any serious innings out of him. So I say sell before he’s on the shelf. Clearly, they only get five or maybe six innings out of their starters, so in order to be competitive in the playoffs they need to bolster their pen. It would also be nice if everyone in the lineup continued to hit like they are hitting, but they always seem to have dips and hopefully they won’t all come at the same time. Lots to decide these next 3-4 weeks.
A team is never as good a a hitting streak makes them look, an never as bad as a losing streak makes them look. The problem with these Mets is that we haven’t seen much non-streaky playing from them for us to know what they really are. An I do have to acknowledge that this roster, at least from the position playing side, is not the same as it was a month ago. The removals of of Narvaez, Wendle, and Baty eliminated liabilities. And that was before Alvarez came back. All told, they’ve replaced two holes in the lineup (catching and 3B) with players who are not merely adequate, but are actually highly productive. That said, there are a lot of other streaky hitters on the team who could go south at any time and for any length of time. And even if Alvarez and Vientos do keep hitting, they might not quite hit at the levels that they have been.
Easy, because Severino isn’t that good. He’s out-pitching his peripherals and his numbers have been boosted by Citi Field. His road ERA this year is 4.86, which is a better indication of his stuff.
He has a 6.51 K/9 and odds are stacked against a pitcher with that K rate having a sub-4 ERA by the end of the season. From 2021-23 there were only 11 pitchers who had enough innings to qualify for the leaderboards with a K/9 of 6.51 or worse and eight of them had an ERA above 4.00 and another was at 3.98
A pitcher succeeding with that type of K rate is doing it with mirrors and the bottom can and will fall out at any time.
I believe the Mets have a rather soft schedule from now to the ASG break. That’s a long way off, and as we know a lot can happen. There is a decent chance they can put to .500 or a little better, which could see them in a playoff spot or right on the end. And, if Senga is coming back, I don’t see any way they’ll sell. The bigger question will be just how much Stearns is willing to part with for a team that isn’t a true WS contender. I hope he favors the long game, which doesn’t mean standing pat, it just means spending judiciously.
Stearns has said in at least three different interviews that the ultimate goal is sustainable long term competitiveness. He does agree that the goal should be to compete in each and every season, but not at the expense of sustainable competitiveness. So we know where his priorities lie. We just don’t know how much Mr. Cohen may force the issue in pursuing his own impulsive fanboy whims.
Stearns has also used the term “threading a needle” on several occasions. And thats exactly what he’s tasked with in this scenario.
Im confused by this statement:
“But anyone who watched the games or looked at the numbers knew that the offense was doing fine on the road and was being held back by Citi Field performing as an extreme pitcher’s park for at least the first one-third of the season.”
The CitiField from the low offense stretch is the exact same CitiField now they are hitting. It seems hard to blame the field for poor offense on the left hand and several weeks later, essentially in need of praising it as a hitters park. The park has not changed in the least bit.
Perhaps the weather has changed? Or maybe the players figured out how to be more complete players. I just dont think the exact same field can be both at the same time. There are other factors at play.
It would be interesting to see a plot of park factor v OPS to see if there is any real correlation.
You’re over thinking this.
We may not be able to identify the exact cause of why offense was down in Citi Field in March/April/May. It would be nice if we knew the “why” yet at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the “what.” And in this case, runs per game for the pitchers were about two runs lower in home games for the Mets than road games. And the hitters showed extreme splits, too, even if not quite to that extent. Past performance is not indicative of future results. And we’ve seen that with the one big outing on June 1 that the home and road run numbers are nearly identical so far this month. Does the park play closer to neutral going forward? That is certainly a possibility.
And if it does, that will be good news for the hitters and bad news for the pitchers.