213 Miles From Shea

The Mets play the Astros again today. How surprising.

Anyway, the Mets finally picked up their second win of Spring yesterday as they rounded out their first full week playing baseball this year. Highlights so far have included two positive starts by Porcello, Brad Brach looking good in outings so far, Gimenez showing hitting skills in addition to flashing leather and Brandon Nimmo exclaiming to the camera “sun ball double!”.

Yesterday’s Reacap:

As mentioned earlier, the Mets actually won a game yesterday! It was the second straight game for the Mets where no one collected two hits. Gimenez had the biggest hit of the game, a homer that would end up being the deciding run. This is after he roped a double the night before – really positive signs. Mazeika who came in to DH after Cano went 1-2 with a double, his third double of the spring as he continues to have a quiet, strong start to 2020. His small sample size OPS is 1.570 right now.

On the mound Stroman gave up a homer, his only real blemish in 2.0 innings of work. He was followed up by a clean inning of relief from Blackham, a Familia inning of no runs but a hit and a walk (so in character), a clean inning with two strikeouts from from Zamora, a clean inning from Sewald and a shutout inning for Gilliam. Gilliam has had a rough week so it was nice to see him successful.

On the Mound Today:

Steven Matz makes his second start this spring. He’s competing with Michael Wacha and Rick Porcello for a roster spot. Porcello has already had 2 starts where he has allowed 1 run over 3.0 innings and Wacha was also impressive in his Spring debut. Matz allowed a solo homer and that’s it in his first inning of work last weekend. We expect to see him out there for about 2.0 innings today.

After Matz today is a prospect lover’s dream lineup. David Peterson, Franklyn Kilome and Jordan Humphreys are all scheduled to pitch today. Peterson allowed a hit and nothing in else in his spring training debut this week. Kilome’s did not got as well, allowed two runs off two hits, including a homer in his first inning of work. Humphreys allowed 1 run off two hits in his first spring inning also.

There’s a lot to watch for today! Let’s Go Mets!

Each year at 213 we look through the Non-Roster Invitees to spring training and get to know them a bit. Are they in camp to get a look at big league hitting/pitching to aid their development? Are the Mets just trying to get a better look at a future rookie? Are they a veteran trying to get back to the major league level? What can we expect from them this season?

Yesterday we previewed Jake Hager, who has already been assigned to Syracuse and hasn’t made it to the majors yet. He plays up the middle and at third base. Today’s NRI, Max Moroff, plays the same position with slightly more major league playing experience, getting into 56 games back in 2017 and about 20 or so games each year since. Tomorrow’s NRI preview for Eduardo Nunez is more the typical NRI-veteran trying to get back into the game.

Moroff was drafted by the Pirates in the 16th round in 2012, made his debut with the Pirates and stayed with them until after the 2012 season when he was traded with Jordan Luplow to the Indians for Erik Gonzalez and two minor league players. Max Moroff has not yet found success with his bat at the major league level:

2017 Pirates: 56 G, 140 PA, 120 AB, 3 HR, .200/.302/.325
2018 Pirates: 26 G, 67 PA, 59 AB, 3 HR, .186/.284/.356
2019 Indians: 20 G, 35 PA, 32 AB, 1 HR, .125/.176/.250

Max Moroff hasn’t found much hitting success in AAA either hitting .231/.364/.394 across four seasons. Unlike Hager who’s troubles in AAA bounced him between AAA/AA, Moroff has pretty much stayed in AAA since after he passed AA ball, his last really successful hitting season at .293/.374/.409.

Max Moroff is in camp to round out Syracuse’s roster so the Mets don’t have to rush any infielders lower in the system. His experience with major league hitting makes him an interesting, although not appealing option, if the Mets really need to dig for a player in their system for a roster spot. Most likely he and Hager will slot behind Eduardo Nunez in the depth list.

You know it’s Spring Training for the Mets if they’re playing the Cardinals, Astros, Nationals and Marlins ad nauseam. The Cardinals come to St. Lucie this afternoon and the Mets are still looking for their second (meaningless) win of Spring.

About Last Night:

The Marlins beat the Mets last night in the Mets first night game of Spring Training, improving the Marlins record to 6-0. For the Mets bats it was a pretty forgettable game. The Mets sprayed 6 hits with no player gathering two. That being said Alonso, Nunez and Gimenez all hit doubles in yesterday’s game. Gimenez’s left his hat at over 100 mph, so that’s always nice to see.

Whenever Porcello pitches, he’s the story. The back end of the rotation is the only true position battle the Mets have this year and he followed up his debut last weekend (1 run on 2 hits in an inning) with two shutout innings, while striking out 2 and allowing 2 hits. Brad Brach and Robert Gsellman followed up with perfect innings of relief each. The former with a bullpen spot locked up and the latter trying to break back in. Oswalt allowed a run on 3 hits in in 2.0 innings, he’s also competing for a spot on the depth chart for long relief/emergency starter.

On the Mound Today:

The Mets will open the game today with two regulars trying to get their work in – Marcus Stroman and Jeurys Familia. Stroman allowed 1 run on 2 hits in 1.2 innings with a walk and 2 strikeouts in his debut last weekend. Familia, coming off of an awful 2019, had a good start to spring allowing a hit and a run but not allowing anyone to score in his 1.0 inning of work.

Stroman and Familia will be followed by Matt Blackham, Paul Sewald, Pedro Payano, Erasimo Ramirez and Daniel Zamora. Sewald and Zamora both have roster spots currently but are both competing to be the last pitcher in the bullpen. Everyone else listed is in camp as a Non-Roster Invitee.

Mets Lineup:

1. Jeff McNeil
2. Brandon Nimmo
3. Robinson Cano
4. Wilson Ramos
5. Dominic Smith
6. Amed Rosario
7. Ryan Cordell
8. Jake Hager
9. Tim Tebow

Brandon Nimmo is back in the lineup! He’s been out for a few days with some additional medical screening that his wife went to Twitter to explain that nothing was actually wrong (reassuring because the Mets have no idea how control a narrative). It’s interesting to note that this is the third time in the first week of games that McNeil is hitting before Nimmo in the lineup.

Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.

So this article was written on 2/21 and hopefully Dominic Smith is still a Met at that point. You have to feel bad for Dominic Smith last season. He had a tremendous spring training last year, but Pete Alonso had a better one. He had a great season until he broke his leg. He then comes back and has the last Mets AB of the season, launching a walk off homer into the night to send the Mets into 2020.

Does it seem like Dominic Smith was better than the average player last year? Well according to Baseball Prospectus, he was! By 12%. The question going into this season is how can the Mets get him more playing time. There are five outfielders fighting for 3 spots plus third base and he’s blocked by Alonso. If I had to pick one player in particular that is blocking Smith at this point, I would go with Robinson Cano. If Cano is not on the team, then Jeff McNeil is starting at 2nd, Davis at 3rd. and now Smith can get consistent time in the outfield.

2019 Stats: 197 PA, 177 AB, 11 HR, .282/.355/.525, 0.7 WAR, 112 DRC+

(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)

The projection programs have Dominic Smith having another solid year. They don’t think his .500+ slugging is sustainable, and they are all over the place when it comes to playing time, but they see him as have a successful season even with regression. What I do find surprising is the range of WAR. They have him from a negative WAR to the same WAR he had last year.

We support Smith here and hope he gets gets more playing time, somehow.

Each year at 213 we look through the Non-Roster Invitees to spring training and get to know them a bit. Are they in camp to get a look at big league hitting/pitching to aid their development? Are the Mets just trying to get a better look at a future rookie? Are they a veteran trying to get back to the major league level? What can we expect from them this season?

As we start to wind down the NRI list, it looks like the Mets went for a different type of player this year. In years past they went for experienced veterans at the end of their careers (and there is still some of that) Jake Hager joins other players on this list on an NRI who never made the majors with their former teams who are still youngish. Whether this is intentional to try to find something in these players that their original club lost, less veteran players on the market or players staying away from the Mets because of the Mesoraco situation last year is still an unknown.

Hager plays middle infield and third base for the Mets, an area where they could use a little more upper minors depth. Hopefully Hager on an NRI here paints a picture that Luis Guillorme, in camp as a member of the roster finally, has an inside track to the bench, but we won’t know that for a couple more weeks.

Hager is a former first round pick by the Rays (32nd pick) in the 2011 draft of Sierra Vista High School in Las Vegas. He has played in and out of AAA ball since 2016. After the 2017 season he elected free agency and signed with the Brewers and continued this AA/AAA dance for another two seasons. When you look at his slash lines you can see why. In three seasons in AA ball he’s hit .270/.323/.406 and in four seasons at AAA he’s hit .237/.286/.361. He just hasn’t made the next step at the AAA level, which has blocked him from the majors.

Hager has already been assigned to Syracuse and is fairly down the depth chart for the Mets. If push comes to shove this season the Mets will essentially have to decide on pulling Hager or Eduardo Nunez to the 40 man and the active roster or calling up someone like Gimenez. We assume this will come down to how much regular playing time will be needed by the player. If it’s regular, it’s Andres Gimenez time in Queens. If it’s not, then maybe it’s Guillorme’s show with Hager or Nunez backing him up.

The Mets are still on the hunt for their second win this spring as they travel to Jupiter to take on the Marlins in the ultra-rare night Spring Training Game during the first full week of Spring Training games.

What Happened Yesterday?

The Mets dropped their first of several games against the Astros. Noah Syndergaard got the Mets off to a good start in his first Spring outing, allowing just a hit in 2.0 innings of work where he struck out two. Justin Wilson followed him with a clean inning and then things fell apart for the highly anticipated debut of Edwin Diaz. Diaz allowed 2 runs off 3 hits in 1.0 innings. He had a tough spring last year as well with a 8+ ERA so hopefully he can get a clean inning together his next time out.

Ryan Cordell who made a spot start for Brandon Nimmo made the most of his opportunity yesterday, going 2-4 with a homer, bringing his spring batting average to .364 and OPS to 1.090. He was the only Met to have two hits yesterday and the only Met to hit an extra base hit.

Battle For the Rotation Continues

I’ve been under the impression that Matz had the 4th spot in the rotation locked down and Porcello and Wacha were battling for the 5th spot. Michael Wacha when talking to reporters says he expects to spot. The Mets in general have leaked this idea of letting Matz and Wacha flip in and out of the rotation depending on match-ups, which makes Porcello the #4 starter. Porcello will make his second start of Spring Training. In his first start he allowed 1 run off two hits in 1 inning of work. We assume he’ll get between 2-3 innings today.

Mets Lineup:

1. Eduardo Nunez
2. Michael Conforto
3. Pete Alonso (DH)
4. Matt Adams
5. Jake Marisnick
6. Luis Guillorme
7. Tomas Nido
8. Jarrett Parker
9. Max Moroff

Eduardo Nunez is seeing quite a bit of playing time as he tries to break camp on the Mets roster. The main player in his way is Luis Guillorme who has had a fantastic spring with the glove (and just so you know my biases, whenever I try to make a roster for the Mets in 2020, Guillorme is on it). The combination of this being a road and night game severely limits the amount of major league regulars that are on this trip, so we’ll get a good look today at members of the 40-man roster not yet slated for an active roster spot and non-roster invitees tonight.

Let’s Go Mets!

Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.

Amed Rosario took a massive step forward last year. At the start of the season his defense was horrible, but as the season went on he got better and better, the same thing happened with his bat. If use DRC+ as metric of Rosario compared to the rest of the league, he started off 31% worse than the average player, then 17% and last year only 4%. Hopefully next year is the year that he pushes forward into better than average, so let’s take a look.

2019 Stats: 655 PA, 616 AB, 15 HR, .287/.323/.432, 1.8 WAR, 96 DRC+

(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)

If you are more into WAR than DRC+, he has gone 0.2, 0.5 and then 1.8. The projections that handle WAR seem to think he will have as good or better season than he did last year. Steamer is super into him putting him at 2.4 WAR. Both Steamer and Baseball Reference (more notable for their conservative nature in projections) have him slugging above .420. ZiPS sees him getting on base at the same pace as he has.

The Mets have a good amount of sluggers on the team. They also have a good amount of people who get on base a lot. What they need is someone who is a decent hitter (Rosario is that) who fields consistently (hopefully working towards that). So lets see what Rosario can do! There are several short stop prospects waiting in the wings, immediately with Andres Gimenez, but there’s no evidence that they will, right now in 2020, hit better than Rosario.

Each year at 213 we look through the Non-Roster Invitees to spring training and get to know them a bit. Are they in camp to get a look at big league hitting/pitching to aid their development? Are the Mets just trying to get a better look at a future rookie? Are they a veteran trying to get back to the major league level? What can we expect from them this season?

The Matt Adams signing this off-season was the strongest signal yet that somewhere in the Mets organization, people are worried about Jed Lowrie‘s health. In a team where Lowrie is healthy, Adams provides amazing depth. But a player who could be on a major league roster else where on a (probably tanking team), wanted to sign with the Mets means that Adams sees a path to the majors in Queens.

2019 Nationals: 333 PA, 310 AB, 20 HR, .226/.276/.465
Career: .261/.309/.469

So over his career, Adams has been a solid hitter. There is no path for him to first base with the Mets with Pete Alonso and Dominic Smith so maybe the Mets are thinking corner outfield. This is linked to Lowrie through Jeff McNeil and J.D. Davis. The more time that McNeil and Davis have to play in the infield opens up a spot for Adams in the outfield.

Now as a player off the bench, he brings quit a bit of pop. From his stats last year, thats unusual to have so much space between OBP and SLG, the gap exists to a lesser extent in his career line.

Matt Adams is an interesting player to bring in and his path to Queens is predicated first on Lowrie’s health and if the Mets are stressed injury wise elsewhere. He will still have to leap frog other players on the 40-man going for a bench spot as well. I think it’s a coinflip, entirely based on how many of last year’s injuries (Cespedes/Lowrie) still persist on the team at the end of Spring if Adams finds a way to the 40-man and the active roster by the end of Spring.

If he has an awesome spring but there’s no spot on the major league roster, it’s interesting to see what the Mets will do with him. Will they force him to Syracuse? Will they try to undo the fiasco with Mesoraco last year? I guess we’ll find out in 3.5 weeks!

The Mets and Astros meet for the first time in 2020 today in St. Lucie! The Mets and Astros generally play each other a lot in spring – their camps are physically located near each other and being in opposite leagues means there’s no feeling like you have to hide your pitchers from each other. Generally we think little of the Mets match-ups with the Astros except this year due to the Astros cheating scandal. The Mets and Astros also play each other in the regular season. If you thought the Mets would be able to just focus on themselves after the Carlos Beltran hiring/firing and former Astros on the Mets making apologies, it just probably won’t happen. Interesting note – four Astros have already been hit by a pitch in 3 games so far this Spring.

Recap of Yesterday’s Game:

After a four low scoring games to open the spring the Mets lost a high scoring affair 9-6 against the Tigers. Wacha, who is in a position battle, did well, pitching two scoreless innings to open up the game with a hit and walk while striking out 2. The damage was done against Gilliam, trying to break onto the roster who allowed 5 runs in 0.2 innings and Smith, a prospect who rocketed up the system, allowing 3 runs, 2 earned in one inning of relief.

The headline from the Mets offense was Tebow hitting a homer, his first hit this Spring. Jarrett Parker, trying to move up the depth chart, had a homer as well and is hitting .400 early on this year. Mazeika was the only Met with 2 hits on the day.

Who’s On The Mound:

The real story of today for the Mets are the arms. Noah Syndergaard and Edwin Diaz both make their spring debuts. Syndergaard had a 4.28 ERA, 1.234 WHIP, 3.60 FIP and 95 ERA+ in his most difficult year in the majors. But there was a stretch of 14 games and 88.0 innings from early June to the first week of September where he was himself, posting a 3.17 ERA.

Edwin Diaz had just a year to forget. In 58.0 innings he had a 5.59 ERA, 4.51 FIP, and a 1.379 WHIP – all career highs by a long shot. Worth noting though, using BP’s metrics, Diaz’s DRA last year was 2.95 which was better than Syndergaard’s last year at 3.40. Diaz looks to put all of last year behind him starting today.

Mets Lineup:

1. Jeff McNeil
2. Brandon Nimmo
3. Pete Alonso
4. Michael Conforto
5. Wilson Ramos
6. Amed Rosario
7. Dominic Smith
8. Eduardo Nunez (DH)
9. Luis Guillorme

With the exception of Nunez at DH, this is fairly close to a line up the Mets could use when Davis/Cano don’t play. It is also worth noting that this is the second time this spring the Mets have placed McNeil in the leadoff spot ahead of Nimmo.

Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.

The Mets catcher situation was a mess last year but Wilson Ramos put together an exactly average year and at the end of the day that’s fine. We are using DRC+ to measure average ness, and this happened to Ramos as recently as 2017. After that he was posted back to back seasons of 120 DRC+.

2019 Stats: 524 PA, 473 AB, 14 HR, .288/.351/.416, 2.0 WAR, 100 DRC+

(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)

The projection programs, maybe because of his age or his health last year, see him taking a step back in multiple ways next year. Drops across the board in average, OBP and WAR leading to a below average year in DRC+. But the Mets didn’t improve at all at catcher this off-season and Ramos with a bat is light years better than Nimmo, so this is what the Mets are stuck with.

Ultimately for Ramos, he needs to improve on defense. His stat projection line is much more helpful for the Mets if pitchers want to throw to him everyday, or most days during the week and there is reason to believe that he has been working on catching and framing this off-season. If that’s true then the Mets are in a better place compared to last year.