213 Miles From Shea

I just don’t know today how baseball players are going to be able to concentrate. In addition to all of the questions surrounding the Marlins and baseball, MLB has announced a hard to follow system for the short term. The Orioles and Yankees will now play each other while the Marlins and the Phillies sit. Then the Marlins will not play all weekend, meaning that the Nationals won’t play too. And if the Marlins have to isolate, rest and get healthy beyond Monday – which seems both inevitable and the right thing to do, the Mets could face game cancellations too.

So somehow, with all of that going on in the background, the Mets and Red Sox will play baseball tonight. Plus, David Peterson, is going to make his major league debut tonight.

Anyway, last night the Mets played against the Red Sox and their bullpen and things went alright for the Mets. They scored early, they scored often, they scored enough to avoid a bullpen implosion at the end of the game. Pete Alonso hit a homer that left his bat at 116 mph. Dominic Smith reminded us all why he’s awesome. Wacha was impressive. It was a good night.

And now David Peterson will try to keep the good times in Boston going tonight. He made 24 starts in Binghmaton last year year totaling 116.0 innings with a 4.19 ERA, and 1.345 WHIP while striking out 122 batters. Then he pitched in the Arizona Fall League for 13.0 innings over 4 starts allowing 7 runs, 5 earned. He has a fastball in the low 90’s and according to Baseball America, the best slider in the system and projects to be a back of the rotation type pitcher (which honestly is what the Mets need right now).

The Red Sox will be going with Matt Hall today, who they acquired in a trade with the Tigers back in January. Over the last two seasons Hall has pitched in 21 games for the Tigers, logging 31.1 innings with a 9.48 ERA, 5.15 FIP, 2.074 WHIP and 51 ERA+. In the minors last season he saw time as a starter and a reliever, pitching in 25 games, 13 starts, totaling 86.2 innings with a 5.30 ERA and 1.535 WHIP. This was massive departure from the previous year (2018) when he had a 2.83 ERA over 10 starts and 57.1 innings in AAA Toledo (and a 1.58 ERA over 57.0 innings, mostly in relief in AA Erie).

Let’s Go Mets!

I went to sleep last night thinking that the Mets 14-1 loss was going to be the story dominating #MetsTwitter today. Then the Marlins news broke. First, 7 additional players and 2 coaches tested positive, bringing the total up to 13 people in recent days (could be 14, there was confusion earlier today if it was 7 or 8 players who tested positive). Then a story broke that the Miami players decided to play yesterday, despite having positive tests come back before the game – and – there was no mechanism in the MLB Covid19 response plan to counteract their decision. The game in Miami was cancelled tonight with the game in Philly but there have been rumors that the Marlins picked up the virus in Atlanta, and the Braves just played the Mets so both of those teams should probably not play tonight either. It seems like baseball’s plan is to allow the Marlins to play later this week with players mostly from their 60-man roster. I’m not sure how this ensures the competitive integrity of the sport but whatever. Anyway, baseball news has been chaotic all day, which doesn’t make me feel better about any other aspect of society returning to normal.

The prudent, responsible, safety-first thing to do would be to halt the season right now, probably until 2021. But, as of 2 PM, baseball is still happening today so on to the game preview:

The Mets have shipped up to Boston via a bus after a disappointing end of the series. After showing lots of hope and promise the first 17 innings of baseball this year, things have gone downhill in the last 11. Díaz blew a save, Hunter Strickland made the game out of reach and then last night Rick Porcello just imploded. The Mets lost 14-1 in a real clunker of a game and dropped a series they could have easily won.

The Mets pitching experiment continues tonight with Michael Wacha. Last year he pitched in 29 games, 24 starts, for the Cardinals pitchign 126.1 innings with a 4.76 ERA, 5.61 FIP, 1.563 WHIP and 90 ERA+. His FIP and WHIP were the worst in his career last year and his ERA+ was the second worst in his career. But, he did look good in one of his last Mets tuneups before the season. A few members of the Red Sox roster have seen him in action:

• Jonathan Lucroy 6-16, 2B, HR, B, K
• Jose Peraza 4-13, 2B, K
• Kevin Pillar 0-4, K
• J.D. Martinez 0-2

Josh Osich is slated to make his first major league start tonight. In his first game experience of the season, he pitched one inning and allowed 1 hit. Last year he pitched in 57 games totaling 67.2 innings with a 4.66 ERA, 1.138 WHIP, 4.96 FIP and 99 ERA+. Just looking at his numbers, its safe to assume that Josh will go 1-2 innings tonight. Maybe three innings if the Mets go down quietly and quickly. He pitched 1.2 innings against the Mets last year allowing 2 runs off two hits, both homers, and a walk while striking out one. The Mets have the following numbers against Josh:

• Jeff McNeil 1-1, HR, BB
• Michael Confortio 1-4, HR, BB, K
• Brandon Nimmo 0-0, BB
• J.D. Davis 0-0, BB
• Robinson Cano 1-3
• Yoenis Cespedes 0-2
• Pete Alonso 0-2, K

Let’s Go Mets!

We are only a few days into the new season and I’m going to offer my controversial Hot Take from yesterday: I think Díaz threw a good pitch, and sometimes you get beat. It’s hard saying that in the backdrop of what happened last year and his performance this spring/summer. As you know by now, Díaz allowed the tying run in the ninth and the Mets went into extras with Hunter Strickland who performed exactly like his numbers suggested he would and the Mets couldn’t recover. Heartbreaking losses are now 2.7x more heartbreaking in 2020, and I don’t know about you but I forgot how to lose so it was a rough night.

But now we’re back. The Mets have one of the Sunday night games as they finish off their series with the Braves. Since teams are essentially playing in geographic divisions, Sunday night baseball is now a double header, moving the Mets to a much more normal 7 PM start rather than 8 PM start.

And Rick Porcello will make his Mets debut tonight! Porcello is coming off an awful year, pitching 174.1 innings over 32 starts with a 5.52 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 87 ERA+ and 1.394 WHIP. The only time his FIP has ever been higher was in rookie year where he posted a much better 114 ERA+ (his ERA+ has been above 100 four times in eleven seasons). The last time he faced the Braves was in 2018 and it was a good start, allowing only 1 run on 2 hits over 5.0 innings. The Braves have the following numbers against him:

• Freddie Freeman 5-11, BB, K
• Adam Duvall 3-4
• Matt Adams 1-3, K
• Adeiny Hechavarria 4-22, 2B, HR, 2 K
• Charlie Culberson 1-4, 2 K
• Ender Inciarte 0-3
• Ozzie Albies 0-2, K
• Ronald Acuna Jr. 0-3, K
• Johan Camargo 0-2, K

Sean Newcomb returns to the rotation for the Atlanta Braves. He made his debut in 2017 at 24 years old and made 19 starts over 100 innings with a 4.32 ERA. The following year he made 30 starts and pitched 164.0 innings with a 3.90 ERA. Last year the Braves moved him mostly to the bullpen and pitched in 55 games with 4 starts totaling 68.1 innings with a 3.16 ERA, 4.24 FIP, 1.317 WHIP and 144 ERA+. Last year was his best in ERA+, ERA and WHIP and his worst in FIP. His numbers against the Mets were not good last year. He logged only 6.1 innings despite pitching in relief for 6 games and starting 1, allowing 8 runs from 9 hits and 3 walks. Despite that stat line, for the most part, the Mets numbers against him are not that scary:

• Robinson Cano 1-2
• Pete Alonso 1-2, 2B, K
• Amed Rosario 5-10, 2 2B, BB, 3 K
• Rene Rivera 4-6, 2 2B, 2 BB,2 K
• J.D. Davis 0-2, 2 BB
• Jeff McNeil 2-6, 2B, K
• Dominic Smith 1-5, 2B, BB, 3 K
• Yoenis Cespedes 1-8, 2B, BB, 3 K
• Michael Conforto 0-7, 3 BB, 3 K
• Brandon Nimmo 0-7, 2 BB, 3 K

Let’s Go Mets!

If there is one day I’m not worried about Mets baseball, it’s Opening Day. The Mets continued to build on their strong Opening Day record yesterday with a 1-0 win. Jacob deGrom was fantastic over 5.0 innings, but the Mets didn’t score for him, keeping the tradition of teaching Mets fans that wins aren’t an important stat. Yoenis Cespedes, playing his first baseball game in two years hit a homer for the only run. Edwin Diaz looked good. It was an all around great day in Queens!

The Braves will already look different than yesterday’s team. About two hours before the first pitch, they acquired Scott Schebler for cash from the Reds to give them another bat off the bench. In the Game Preview yesterday, we also didn’t discuss how the catching corps were completely depleted due to d’Arnaud and Flowers having Covid symptoms. It’s an early reminder that rosters are going to be fluid this season.

Remember that point during Spring Training when the Mets brass made it seem like Steven Matz and Michael Wacha were competing for the 5th rotation spot? Welcome to the Mets current starting pitching situation with our #2 flamethrower – Matz! Steven pitched in 32 games and made 30 starts last year totaling 160.1 innings with a 4.21 ERA, 4.60 FIP, 1.341 WHIP and 96 ERA+. In his last 14 games (after his small stint in the bullpen), he pitched 79.1 innings with a 3.52 ERA. Within those 14 games, there is a 9 game stretch from the end of July to the middle of September where Matz had a 2.32 ERA over 54.1 innings.

Matz made more starts last year against the Braves than any other team, totaling 31.0 innings against them. He allowed 11 runs (3.19 ERA) from 19 hits and 12 walks while striking out 31. The Braves have the following numbers against Matz:

• Adam Duvall 3-7, 2B, 3B, BB, 2 K
• Austin Riley 1-3, 2B, BB
• Johan Camargo 3-9, HR, 2 K
• Ender Inciarte 3-9, 2B, BB, K
• Freddie Freeman 8-30, 2 2B, HR, 2 BB, 5 K
• Ronald Acuna Jr.3-12, 3B, BB, 3 K
• Marcell Ozuna 5-18, 2B, 2 BB, 4 K
• Dansby Swanson 3-12, 2B, 3 K
• Ozzie Albies 3-18, 3 K
• Matt Adams 0-3

Max Fried makes his 2020 debut for the Braves today following his first full season. Last year he pitched in 33 games, 30 starts with a 4.02 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 1.334 WHIP and 113 ERA+ over 165.2 innings. Five games and four starts came against the Mets where he allowed 11 runs over 25.2 innings (3.86 ERA) from 30 hits, 6 walks and 26 K’s. The Mets have the following numbers against Fried:

• Jeff McNeil 5-11, 2 2B, 4 K
• Brandon Nimmo 2-6, 2B, 2 BB, 3 K
• Robinson Cano 2-4
• Wilson Ramos 3-8, BB, 2 K
• J.D. Davis 4-11, BB, 3 K
• Amed Rosario 5-15, 5 K
• Pete Alonso 1-10, HR, 3 BB, 4 K
• Michael Conforto 1-13, 2 BB, 6 K

Let’s Go Mets!

Opening Day is all about optimism. Every team has the same record. Every team has a mathematical chance to make the playoffs. Teams are coming out of spring training, still boasting about how individual players are in the best shape of their lives. Anything is possible.

And this year, it seemed like today was impossible. In some ways, today feels irresponsible. Optimism has been replaced with trepidation.

But we made it. For better or worse baseball is happening tonight. 60 players and dozens of coaches between two teams tonight will risk their health at Citi Field so we can escape from reality for a few hours.

And we are so lucky. We’ll get to escape the pandemic tonight with another Opening Day start by Jacob deGrom, fresh off back to back Cy Young awards. Last year deGrom posted a 2.43 ERA, 0.971 WHIP, 2.67 FIP and 167 ERA+ over 32 starts and 204.0 innings. He struck out a league leading 255 batters in 2019. He faced the Braves 4 times, pitching 26.1 innings allowing 9 runs (3.08 ERA) from 20 hits and 7 walks while striking out 39 batters. The only team that he struck out more batters from last year was the Marlins (46) but he also made 6 starts against the Marlins. The Braves have the following numbers against deGrom:

• Austin Riley 2-5, HR
• Freddie Freeman 15-64, 2 2B, 3 HR, 7 BB, 14 K
• Tyler Flowers 4-16, HR, 3 BB, 7 K
• Johan Camargo 7-24, 2B, HR, 2 BB, 8 K
• Dansby Swanson 4-16, 2 2B, 3 BB, 8 K
• Matt Adams 5-18, 3B, 9 K
• Marcell Ozuna 9-36, 2 2B, HR, BB, 12 K
• Ronald Acuna Jr.5-20, 2B, 2 BB, 5 K
• Ozzie Albies 5-32, 2B, BB, 7 K
• Charlie Culberson 0-8, 5 K

The Mets bats will get their first look at Mike Soroka today. Soroka is coming off his first full season of baseball where he pitched in 29 games and 174.2 innings with a 2.68 ERA, 3.45 FIP, 1.111 WHIP and 169 ERA+. The 2019 All-Star led the league in homers per 9 innings at 0.7 (for comparison deGrom was at 0.8 and in 2018 deGrom was at 0.4). Soroka finished 6th in Cy Young voting and second in rookie of the year (behind you know who!). He faced the Mets three times last year, pitching 17.1 innings allowing 8 runs (4.15 ERA) from 20 hits and 3 walks while striking out 13. The Mets have the following numbers against Soroka:

• Yoenis Cespedes 3-3, HR
• J.D. Davis 1-2, HR
• Tomas Nido 3-6, 2B, BB, 2 K
• Pete Alonso 4-9, HR, 3 K
• Robinson Cano 2-8, HR
• Amed Rosario 3-11, 2B, 2 K
• Michael Conforto 3-14, BB, K
• Brandon Nimmo 1-5, K
• Dominic Smith 1-5, 2 K
• Jeff McNeil 0-6, K
• Wilson Ramos 0-3

Let’s Go Mets!

Positives from last night: The Mets played baseball! For the first time since March 11th, the Mets suited up to play another professional baseball team. There were some differences. Gary, Keith and Ron were not all in the same booth. The dugouts extended into the stands with specific seats marked “Sit Here”. Some players and coaches had masks on in the dugout and bullpens, others didn’t. There was less throwing the ball around the infield after a strikeout. Things we’ll get used to in short order.

The real foe of the night for the Mets wasn’t the Yankees – it was their own defense. The Mets scattered 4 fielding and throwing errors throughout the night that led to things getting out of control in the 9th inning. Plenty of us, myself included, are probably reading too much into it because it’s the first real thing related to the Mets to start overreacting to in some time.

Nature is healing I guess.

Anyway, on to tonight. The Mets will send out Corey Oswalt, who is fighting his way up the depth chart. Oswalt saw a cup of coffee with the Mets last year logging 6.2 innings of work over 2 games while allowing 9 runs. In the minors however he started 18 games pitching 92.2 innings with a 2.82 ERA. Before the global pandemic upended all life as we knew it in the states, he pitched 3 games in spring training totaling 8.0 innings allowing 2 runs, 1 earned.

The Mets will also to roll with this lineup tonight:

1. Jeff McNeil 3B
2. Pete Alonso 1B
3. Robinsion Cano 2B
4. Yoenis Cespedes LF
5. Micael Conforto RF
6. J.D. Davis DH
7. Amed Rosario SS
8. Brandon Nimmo CF
9. Rene Rivera C

Outside of Wilson Ramos, who I thought was going to play tonight, this fairly close to normal starting lineup for the Mets. It’s nice to see McNeil start after sitting yesterday and Luis Rojas is giving Mets fans something to debate, rolling with Robinson batting third again. (We’ll see if this happens once the season starts also, I’m saving my complaints about it until then).

The obvious, glaring highlight in the lineup is Yoenis playing in the field. He’s going to primarily DH this year (at least that’s what the common perception is) but this is still nice to see.

This lineup will have to deal with Jordan Montgomery. During the 2019 season he pitched in 2 games, 4.0 innings he allowed 3 runs from 7 hits. He’s going to be rounding out the Yankees rotation as their 4th or 5th starter this year as he continues to work back from TJ back in 2018. Overall in Spring he allowed 5 runs off 7 hits and 4 homers over 11.0 innings of work.

Let’s Go Mets!

For the first time since March 11th, it’s gameday for the Mets! The Mets beat the Cardinals 7-3 a couple of months ago and then the world stopped. Despite rising Covid19 cases across the country, the MLB is still pushing forward with a 60 game season and now we have summer camp, which still just feels odd to say.

For the record, I’m still figuring out how I feel about baseball returning. But, selfishly (and I really have to stress that – selfishly), I’m excited to forget about 2020 for a few hours tonight while the Mets take on the Yankees in Citi Field.

Mets Lineup:

1. Brandon Nimmo CF
2. Pete Alonso 1B
3. Robinson Cano 2B
4. Yoenis Cespedes DH
5. Michael Conforto RF
6. J.D. Davis LF
7. Amed Rosario SS
8. Max Moroff 3B
9. Tomas Nido C

A good chunk of the starting lineup is playing tonight (just missing Jeff McNeil and Wilson Ramos). The highlight will be Cespedes, playing at Citi Field in a baseball game again! So far in summer camp / summer training (pick your preferred name) Cespedes has been hitting some absolute bombs.

Rick Porcello gets the start for the Mets today. When we left off in March, Porcello, Matz and Wacha were competing for the final two rotation spots. Then Noah Syndergaard got injured. Porcello was having a pretty good spring training. He had a 2.53 ERA over 4 starts and 10.2 innings, allowing 3 runs from 15 hits and only 1 walk while striking out 8. For Porcello, a former Red Sox pitcher, the Yankees are a familiar foe. The Yankees really had Rick’s number last year, he allowed 20 runs from 27 hits in 15.0 innings over 4 games. That includes 5 homers.

There are a bunch of pitchers coming in behind Porcello. Justin Wilson, Daniel Zamora, Hunter Strickland, Chasen Shreve, Jeurys Famila, Tyer Bashlor, Dellin Betances and Edwin Diaz are all available tonight. For the Mets this year, the combination of Familia – Betances – Diaz (not necessarily in that order) will be critical. All three of them pitching like we know they can + Seth Lugo can set up a dangerous combination for opponents.

The Mets will get a look at Mike King today, who pitched in one game last year, making his major league debut on 9/27/19. The 24 year old, drafted in 2016, pitched 2.0 innings allowed 2 hits and an unearned run while striking out 1. In 11 games and 8 starts in the minors last year he had a 5.48 ERA over 46.0 innings. In the previous year, he had a 1.79 ERA over 161.1 innings in 25 games (24 starts) across high A, AA and AAA ball). As you have probably guessed by looking at his 2019 and 2018 numbers, he was injured in 2019. He was dealing with elbow issues early in spring training that sidelined him for most of last season. He is trying to work his way into the rotation this season.

After Mike King, Zack Britton, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino, Ben Heller and Tony Zych are all traveling witht he team today. There are enough regular Yankee relievers getting some work in today that the Mets should get a good luck at a team they are playing a disproportionate number of times in a 60 game season.

Let’s Go Mets!

Few Mets have played with the team for such a short period of time but have left a lasting impression like Paul Lo Duca.

Today’s card comes from the beautiful 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter’s set. I started paying attention to baseball cards around 2005 and some point around them Allen & Ginter was re-released with Topps Turkey Red. Both sets were going for an old card fell. Both sets were works of art.

If you are a long time reader of this site, you know that pretty much every spring, in a very unscientific way, we collect the projections for Mets players from a variety of sources, average them together and create a conglomerate projection for the upcoming season (which we then return to at the end of the season).

Rather than doing that again for every player, we are going to go through some players a group at a time and look at their data. I’ve restricted it to players I’m anticipating seeing a larger portion of play time.

So far we’ve gone through hitters (part 1, part 2) and the first set of pitchers (part 1), today we continue with the second set with Seth Lugo, Steven Matz, Rick Porcello and Marcus Stroman:

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)

Seth Lugo’s numbers are helpful as we try to predict “what does bullpen usage look like in 60 games”. We would expect Lugo to see action every 2-3 games (closer to every three games) so 26 or so innings seems about right.

You have to take Porcello’s numbers with a grain of salt. Projection programs in the winter were trying to predict how much playing time he would see in a regular season. Since they were produced, Syndergaard had TJ, thus pretty much cementing full time roles for both Porcello and Wacha as their role to lose, rather than to fight to gain.

Out of the four pitchers listed – Stroman is the most important for the season. He was arguably the #2 starter when Wheeler and Syndergaard were still on the team. He is now the clear #2 starter. He’s also quickly becoming fan favorite (or at least, this fan’s favorite).

One of the first sets of baseball cards I was obsessed with was the Topps Turkey Red set. I loved that the cards looked like faux paintings. (My Mom had one card signed by a player at Orioles Fan Fest, we think it was Brian Roberts, it may have been Nick Markakis who commented on how cool the cards looked).

So first off, this card is a blast from the past, remember Mike Pelfrey? This was also a parallel card, the normal border for the card is grey. Red borders are the most common parallel, one per pack. Anyway, hope this card brought you back to a simpler time.