Mets provide the power in 2024 despite down years from big names

After three contests where the Mets totaled just one extra-base hit, it’s been nice to see the power return to the lineup the past two games. On Wednesday, the team notched a double and two home runs – all in the ninth inning – and Friday it was two doubles and four homers. In the last 10 innings, the Mets have three doubles and six homers. You’re going to win a lot of games with that type of production.

For the season, the Mets are tied for fifth with 188 HR and tied for third with 263 doubles. And given the slow start to the season, especially in home games in April and May, those are two very strong marks. And they’ve accomplished those despite some down offensive numbers on the year from Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo, among others. Now both players are definitely contributing in those categories. But they’re simply not having the type of years that we’ve seen previously.

It’s not fair to expect players to put up career years on a regular basis. And it’s not fair to compare a player’s best output to what he’s done with 15 games remaining in the season. But let’s go ahead and do it anyway, to see how close they are to a career year. Also, to give it a bit of balance, we’ll look at what the hitters did in 2023, too. Let’s look at the players who’ve amassed at least 400 PA this season and in a previous year in the majors:

Francisco Alvarez, Starling Marte and Mark Vientos all fall short of 400 PA this year. And Alvarez and Vientos don’t have the playing time previously, either. But let’s look at our six players who did qualify:

Alonso – The good news is that he’s tied his career-best in doubles, first established in his rookie season in 2019. The bad news is that he’s nowhere near his HR output from last season, to say nothing of his career mark.

Bader – He’s exceeded his power production from a year ago but that was an injury-marred season. He’s close to his career-best numbers, which is A. Good and B. Indicative that he hasn’t been a big power threat throughout his time in the majors.

Lindor – This year’s doubles output has already exceeded last year’s total and the HR are equal. And he’s reasonably close to his lifetime-best numbers. There’s a reason for the MVP chants. And for a touch of serendipity, as I typed this blurb, my Inbox beeped with this message from the Mets: “Lindor is the Mets nominee for the 2024 Roberto Clemente Award presented by Capital One. This annual award recognizes the player who best represents the game of Baseball through sportsmanship, community involvement and positive contributions, both on and off the field. Vote for Francisco today!”

Martinez – The playing time hasn’t been there for Martinez to compete with the rest of his career, although he has matched his doubles output from a season ago. Still, it’s disappointing that he hasn’t had more homers to date, regardless of his previous production there.

McNeil – The slow start and the season-ending injury prevent McNeil from showing better here. It surprised me how he topped last year’s numbers. But he was awful for four months in 2023, before turning it on the final two months off the year.

Nimmo – He had been a model of consistency the past three seasons, posting OPS+ numbers between 129-131. Nimmo’s going to fall short of that this year. That’s not a huge surprise. But what does stand out is in the first half of the season it appeared he was going to be better than the past three campaigns. But the second half he’s been an anchor. Hopefully last night’s homer propels him to first-half production over the final 15 games.

*****

So, Bader and Lindor are more or less producing like you’d hope they would, while the rest are not quite living up to expectations, one way or another. But the counter to that has been the production of Vientos, who has given the club a huge boost in production from what they’ve received from third base recently. Vientos’ 144 OPS+ is the third-best mark from a Mets’ 3B with at least 300 PA and the only two above him were David Wright seasons in 2007 and 2013.