Just because people say something over and over and over again – it doesn’t make it true. In politics, we see people lie consistently not necessarily because you’ll believe any particular lie; but rather so you don’t believe anything. But does that carry over to sports? That doesn’t sound right to me. Instead, it seems like a case where we want easy answers in a complex world. So, we latch on to narrative and don’t bother to see if the narrative makes sense because it “feels right.” In the end, maybe that’s no different than politics, too.
Eliminating politics and getting specifically to the Mets, perhaps nowhere has narrative trumped reality than with the oft-stated idea that “the Marlins always play the Mets tough.” You’ll hear Keith Hernandez say this on the broadcast regularly and even Gary Cohen has uttered it a time or two over the years. With Hernandez, it’s just another example of his laziness. We know Cohen isn’t lazy. Perhaps it’s just hearing Hernadez say it a dozen times a year – year after year after year – just wears him down at times.
Let’s run some numbers for the Mets and Braves. Since the start of the 2021 season, The Mets are 26-35 against the Braves and the two teams have played 28 games that were decided by one or two runs. The Braves are a combined 358-250 (.589) while the Mets are 317-292 (.521) in this span. The Mets have a .426 winning percentage against the Braves since the beginning of ‘21. The rest of MLB has a .393 winning percentage against the Braves. But not one person on earth has ever uttered the phrase, the Mets always play the Braves tough – despite the better winning percentage than the rest of the league and all of the close games.
Now let’s look at the Mets and the Marlins.
Since Brandon Nimmo established himself as an MLB player in 2018, the Mets are 64-41 against the Marlins. The Mets are 506-487 (.510) in this span, while the Marlins are 416-576 (.419) in this stretch. The Mets have a .610 winning percentage against the Marlins since the beginning of ’18. The rest of MLB has a .603 winning percentage. Yet, somehow, the Marlins always play us tough is a thing that people who get paid to talk about the Mets say on a regular basis.
In the last seven years, the Mets have a winning percentage 100 points higher against the Marlins than their overall winning percentage. If we subtract out their results against the Marlins, the Mets are 442-446 (.498) – which is 168 points lower than what they do against the Marlins. Finally, the Mets have a better winning percentage against the Marlins than the rest of MLB.
We should celebrate whenever the schedule has the Mets playing the Marlins because the Mets beat them far more often than they defeat the rest of the teams in MLB. The idea that “the Marlins always play us tough” is something that just isn’t true in any meaningful way. The Braves are more likely to blow out the Mets than the Mets are to blow out the Marlins. But at the end of the day that 7-0 Braves win counts the same as that 4-0 Mets win.
Undoubtedly, the lower-scoring, Mets-Marlins games are what makes “the Marlins always play us tough” feel right to Hernandez and others. But this is why you need to look beyond feelings, both in baseball and other areas of life.
It “feels” like Wilmer Flores was a great clutch hitter, because you can recite a half dozen game-winning hits he had. But Flores had a negative Clutch rating all six years he played for the Mets.
It “feels” like Juan Lagares was a great defensive player. And while he was legitimately great early in his career, in the 2017-2020 portion, he was no better than Nimmo in center field in terms of putouts. And no one was calling Nimmo a great defensive player in this stretch.
It “feels” like the Marlins always play us tough. But give me a .610 winning percentage any day.
No doubt in the validity of your assertion, Brian.
I’d like to offer an explanation for this observation that “the Marlins always play the Mets tough.”
It might have been due to an incident near the very end of the 2007 (I think) season. Reyes and Milledge were, with silly childishness, carrying on and managed to provoke the Marlins, who subsequently went out and kicked the collective Mets butts thereby ending their season
As Jose above, I was thinking of 2007 as the Marlin Myth origin.
But it does seem like Lagares was a pretty good fielder. I had major angst in Cesoedes in CF & Confirto n left for F1 of the KC WS. Legates subbed for somebody as DH later in the game and got 2(?) hits. With Conforto DH & Lagares in CF it’s a different series.
It seems I’m still pissed at that, maybe I shouldn’t be.
They definitely played the Mets tough this year relative to the rest of the nl east. Might be the difference between playoffs and not when all is said and done.
I think you can make an argument that the Marlins play the Mets tough in important circumstances where the Mets winning would be super valuable. No doubt from high altitude, the Mets win a lot v the Marlins, and I dont think the overall sentiment is equivalent to the Braves for example. Yet there have been plenty of times, like one could envision for ol Cement Boots, that the Marlins come through when you least hoped for it, leaving a pretty crappy feeling. It’s something even Recker, who was on the call today, mentioned in game. And he should know as he lived it.
The numbers speak for themselves as you show. It just seems like a lot of the times the Marlins beat us it matters.