Is the Mets’ lineup better than last year’s?

So it seems that a lot of people doubt the Mets this season. However, their pitching staff is pretty much the same with the addition of (when he was healthy) one of the best pitchers in baseball. So with that, I say the pitching staff has improved. They lost a very solid closer in Francisco Rodriguez, but they’ve revamped their bullpen adding the arms of Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch and Ramon Ramirez, which takes some of the pressure off of Bobby Parnell, who doesn’t handle it well. So with that, their bullpen has improved.

Most of the concern centers around the team’s offense, which took a big blow when they lost Jose Reyes. But I think their starting lineup is going to make some noise in the National League this season, especially their two through six hitters. So now I’m on a mission to go and prove myself right. So I compiled all the Mets numbers for the 2011 starting line-up and compared them to what Bill James projects for the starting lineup for the 2012 Mets.

Player	HR	Runs	RBI	SB	Hits	Games
Reyes	7	101	44	39	181	126
Pagan	7	68	56	32	125	123
Beltran	22	78	84	4	156	142
Wright	14	60	61	13	99	102
Bay	12	59	57	11	109	123
Murphy	6	49	49	5	125	109
Turner	4	49	51	7	113	117
Thole	3	22	40	0	91	114
Total	75	486	442	111	999	956

Player	HR	Runs	RBI	SB	Hits	Games
Torres	8	54	31	16	90	119
Murphy	10	60	64	6	139	122
Wright	22	86	90	17	154	141
Davis	25	80	87	1	150	141
Bay	19	73	77	10	125	143
Duda	14	44	53	1	92	100
Tejada	1	24	20	4	57	84
Thole	3	33	42	1	107	114
Total	102	454	464	56	914	964

So when you compare the line-up between the 2011 Mets to the 2012 Mets you’ll see some interesting things. First off, for numbers sake, I just acted like Beltran stayed for the Mets for the full season, which inflates their numbers a bit.

Second off, I’m going to rip on James’ projections a little bit. Not sure why he is thinking Torres is going to drop in stolen base totals (19 in 2011, 16 in 2012) when he is now on a team that tends to steal more than most teams in the league. On top of that, now that Reyes is gone they are going to try to replace his stolen bases, and Torres is going to be the guy called upon. I believe he’ll be around 30, but that’s just me personally.

I think Duda’s home run totals, as well as games played are a little low. James projects him only to play 100 games which is strange because he has no injury history. With the extra games I’d put Duda easily around 20 homers, but again, we’re comparing James’ projections and not mine.

I guess James didn’t get the memo that Tejada is going to be the starting shortstop this season. He projects him to only play 84 games and get 243 at-bats. So, yeah, just about double that and that’s about right.

So let’s compare the 2011 team to the 2012 team.

Games:
2011 – 956
2012 – 964

Hits:
2011 – 999
2012 – 914

Runs:
2011 – 486
2012 – 454

RBI:
2011 – 442
2012 – 464

SB:
2011 – 111
2012 – 56

HR:
2011 – 75
2012 – 102

So 2012 expects to see slight more games played by this starting line-up, eight (2012’s number also only include Tejada’s ridiculous 84 which is sure to be around 120 at least).

2011 had 85 more hits than 2012, which is to be expected after the loss of Reyes and Tejada only projected to get 57. Runs is also a stat Reyes greatly increased, but I feel Torres’ projected 54 is way too low, especially if he is going to be in the leadoff spot for the Mets all season long. But nevertheless, 2011 beats 2012 in these two stats thoroughly.

The runs batted in stat is the one that really surprised me. Though the 2012 team is projected to get 32 fewer runs, they are projected to get 22 more RBIs than the 2011 team. Not sure how they figure that, but the 2011 team had more runs than RBIs, and the 2012 is projected to get more RBIs than runs… so that’s a good thing? I think?

Stolen bases is another Reyes/Pagan stat and with both of them gone there is a huge drop. But I think guys like Torres, Murphy, and Tejada will step up their stolen base efforts to compensate for the loss of the two of them. So I don’t think they are going to steal half as many bases, but there will be a drop from 2011 to 2012.

Now brings us to the last stat; home runs. The 2012 team is projected to get 27 more homers this season compared to the 2011 team. Now part of this is due to the fences being drawn in, but a lot of it depends on a healthy Wright and Davis. If they can both stay healthy I feel they have the ability to hit 30 at Citi Field, which is more than their projected numbers.

So the 2012 lineup is supposed to be much worse with the loss of Reyes, Beltran, and Pagan. And while the hits and runs are down, the home runs and runs driven in are up with the games plated being about the same. Now, do I think this lineup in 2012 is better than the one they had in 2011? No. But it’s not terribly worse.

For 2012 I believe offensively the Mets will be slightly worse. But I think Tejada and Duda are going to surprise a lot of people with their offensive production, and Wright and Bay are going to get back to their hammering home run ways. But then again I’m a very optimistic Mets fan. The main difference from the 2011 season to the 2012 season is the pitching. I feel their pitching has to improve greatly, and that is what is going to lead them to victories this season. Their offense should be able to put up just enough runs to help out what I think will be one of the better staffs in the NL. Again, this all depends upon a healthy John Santana, who is still a major question mark for the season.