213 Miles From Shea

Mets baseball is back!

For the first time in a while the Mets turned over their roster quite a bit as there are a number of players who could be making their orange and blue debuts today. The NL East is going to be competitive this year with 4 of 5 teams actively working towards a win now mindset. It’s difficult to say with a straight face that games in April matter, but 16 of the first 18 games the Mets play are against the NL East and the first 9 games are against the Nationals and the Marlins. This should feel familiar if you followed the Mets this spring: since 3/15 the Mets have faced the Marlins and Nationals 7 times.

Not only is it Opening Day, it’s also deGrom day! Jacob deGrom is coming off of one of the best seasons I’ve ever witness a pitcher have in a Mets uniform (I’m 30 if that helps you figure out who I’ve seen and haven’t seen). Last year he went 10-9 over 32 starts and 217.0 innings posting a 1.70 ERA (league leading), 216 ERA+ (league leading), 1.99 FIP (league leading) and a 0.912 WHIP. He also led the league in HR/9 at 0.4. Another fun fact: he ended last year at 269 strikeouts putting him at exactly 1000 K’s in his career. The newly extended deGrom faced the Nationals 3 times last year totaling 20.1 innings allowing 6 runs, 5 earned from 13 hits and 5 walks (2.21 ERA). The Nationals have the following numbers against Jacob:

• Anthony Rendon 2-23, 2B, 6 BB, 7 K
• Ryan Zimmerman 5-24, 2 HR, 8 K
• Howie Kendrick 2-26, 6 K
• Trea Turner 7-25, 2B, HR, BB, 10 K
• Michael A. Taylor 1-24, 13 K
• Adam Eaton 4-10, 2 2B, 2 BB, 3 K
• Matt Adams 3-10, 3B, 4 K
• Juan Soto 1-3

Jacob deGrom last year beat Max Scherzer for the Cy Young Award, and Max will be looking for his revenge today. Max was 18-7 (league leading in wins) over 33 games and 220.2 innings (lead leaguing) striking out 300 (league leading). He posted a 2.53 ERA, 168 ERA+, 2.65 FIP and a 0.911 WHIP (league leading). Last year he faced the Mets twice, allowing 6 runs over 14.0 innings from 10 hits and 4 walks while striking out 18. The Mets posted the highest ERA (3.86) against Max than any other NL East team, but the Mets also faced him the least amount of times last year. The Mets have the following numbers against him:

• Michael Conforto 8-23, 4 HR, 3 BB, 8 K
• Robinson Cano 3-18, HR, 2 BB, 6 K
• Brandon Nimmo 2-13, HR, 2 BB, 8 K
• Juan Lagares 1-13, BB, 9 K
• Wilson Ramos 1-8
• Amed Rosario 2-6, 2B
• Jeff McNeil 1-3, 2B, 2 K
• Keon Broxton 1-1, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

Happy Opening Day! We’ll get to a game preview and everything else for the best of the day of the year a little bit later. Right now, we are still trying to finish our annual projection meta-analysis series where we look at 5 different projections for players on and not-on-yet the Mets roster this season.

Today we look at a new lefty in the Mets pen – Justin Wilson. Wilson made his debut with the Pirates at age 24 in 2012 and stayed with the Pirates until after the 2014 season where he was traded to the Yankees for Francisco Cervelli. The following year he was traded to the Tigers for Luis Cessa and Chad Green. He was traded again on the 2017 trade deadline to the Chicago Cubs where he played last season.

2018: 54.2 IP, 3.46 ERA, 3.64 FIP, 1.427 WHIP, 11.4 K/9, 0.7 WAR, 4.65 DRA
Career: 3.33 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 1.268 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 3.91 DRA

Wilson was signed as lefty veteran for the Mets pen. When he signed the only lefty on the Mets roster was Daniel Zamora (who gets his projection tomorrow). Now the Mets flex both Wilson and Luis Avilan who made the team on an NRI (his projection the day after tomorrow).

Here’s how Wilson is projected for 2019:

(Citations: Baseball Prospectus (BP) projections are from the Baseball Prospectus annual which can you can get here. It’s highly recommended. ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )

With the exception of ZiPS and ESPN, most projections have him regressing from his career numbers. That makes sense for ESPN who generally overproject veteran stats. ZiPS has a good track record though so maybe they see something in Wilson that everyone else is missing. ZiPS and Steamer are rarely this far apart. At the end of the season, this profile will be an interesting one to go back to to see a difference in the ZiPS and Steamer projection engines. Finally, it’s not surprising at all to see the regression on BP and BR, as they tend to be the most conservative of the projection programs.

Tomorrow is Opening Day! We still have four 2019 projections to go through meaning we’ll keep our tradition of failing to wrap this series up by the time the season starts for another year.

For a third straight day we’ll be looking at projections for a starter in the rotation. Much of the success the Mets hope to have this year lies on Zack Wheeler continuing his pivot last year to stardom. He emerged last year as the pitcher we all thought he could be and now he turns into his contract year. Last year there were trade rumors swirling around him and there were a few over the off-season as well. Depending on how the Mets perform this season, there could be even more trade rumors later this summer.

2018: 182.1 IP, 3.31 ERA, 3.25 FIP, 1.124 WHIP, 8.8 K/9, 3.9 WAR, 3.01 DRA
Career: 3.70 ERA, 3.79 FIP, 1.307 WHIP, 8.6 K/9, 3.55 DRA

It was just so nice to see Wheeler pitch pretty much a whole season last year and become a consistent start every week. Here’s how computer projections are handling him this year:

(Citations: Baseball Prospectus (BP) projections are from the Baseball Prospectus annual which can you can get here. It’s highly recommended. ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )

Every major projection sees him regressing a bit, which is not surprising with his age, health history and having only one good season. We also see some normal projection biases coming out. This is a classic time for ESPN to over-project a starter more positively than everyone else. This is a classic time for BP to project a regression stronger than everyone else.

While there is a massive spread in ERA’s there is not a massive spread in WHIPs. If you remove ESPN, the most positive projection, the WHIPS are all pretty much identical although they are still better than his career WHIP. Let’s see how this translates into actual results this season!

Jason Vargas was a disaster for the Mets in the first half of last year and then he rebounded in the second half. He was injured in Spring Training and didn’t start rehabbing until around the start of the season. His first several starts were so bad. He could barely get anyone out, tons of runs scoring, complete lack of confidence of the Mets winning he pitched:

2018 Total: 92 IP, 5.77 ERA, 5.02 FIP, 1.413 WHIP, 8.2 K/9, -0.3 WAR, 4.11 DRA
2018 (Before Aug 7): 12 G, 47.1 IP, 8.75 ERA
2018 (After Aug 7): 8 G, 44.2 IP, 2.62 ERA
Career: 4.27 ERA, 4.40 FIP, 1.318 WHIP, 6.2 K/9, 4.60 DRA

The Mets are hoping in 2019 that he is more like his last 8 games than his first 12 games. The Mets had the opportunity to sign free agents that on paper had a better track record this off-season, but they didn’t. They are fully committed, for better or for worse to Vargas. Let’s take a peak as to what projection programs think he’ll do:

(Citations: Baseball Prospectus (BP) projections are from the Baseball Prospectus annual which can you can get here. It’s highly recommended. ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )

Even though Vargas is a well established veteran, after a year as dichotomous as his 2018, the projections are split on how he’ll do. ZiPS and ESPN see a trend with keeping him regressing. Steamer and BR have him slightly worse than his average numbers, which would be instep with age. BP, generally the most conservative source has Vargas performing better than his career numbers.

The NL East is going to be a slog all season long. For the Mets to win, they are going to need Jason Vargas to be like that BP projection. Maybe there’s hope for Jason in a Mets uniform! We’ll find out in about a week when he makes his 2019 debut.

The Mets drafted Zach Rheams out of Texas Tech last year in the 27th round. He hasn’t popped up on any major sites top 30 prospect lists yet and wasn’t on my radar at all until I got a copy of Baseball America’s 2019 Prospect Handbook.

Rheams is listed as the best power hitter int eh Mets organization. He had 17 homers in his senior season in college. In Columbia last year he hit 8 homers in 176 PAs (45 games). The part that caught my eye – according to BA, his exit velocities are close to Pete Alonso. He was also listed as a Best Late Round pick (with Adolph who has since been traded and Jaylen Palmer).

The concern, as a minor league OF/DH – where will he play and will he hit consistently enough or just be a homer hitting machine? Between his 45 games in Columbia and 6 in Kingsport last year, Rheams hit .223/.307/.402 in his pro-debut. In his senior year he slashed .341/.461/.713.

As for fielding, his results leave something to be desired. Overall in the outfield he had a .957 Fielding percentage in 128.2 innings with 1 error in 23 chances. As far as I could find in regular season games in Texas Tech he was the DH almost every game between his junior and senior year.

I’m writing this article to remind myself to constantly check in on how Rheams is doing. If he starts get on base more often, or improves at all defensively, he’ll appear on top 30 lists by the end of the season. His burst of power in Columbia was eye-popping, let’s see what he does next!

It’s the end of Spring Training! In some technical sense, the Mets broke camp yesterday as they are going to Syracuse directly after today’s game and then to DC. We’re not expecting many big stars to play today and as of this morning there are still some roster moves not completely resolved yet (for example, who will be the last arm in the pen?).

Yesterday the Mets beat the Nationals 8-4 in game played mostly by regular hitters and then bullpen/minor league pitchers. Cano and Conforto each had two hit days and Jeff McNeil had a bases clearing double that broke the game open. Tim Peterson had a clean two innings and over the last week pitched himself back into the conversation for the bullpen.

Mets Lineup:

1. Brandon Nimmo (LF)
2. Pete Alonso (1B)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. Michael Conforto (RF)
5. Wilson Ramos (C)
6. Jeff McNeil (3B)
7. Amed Rosario (SS)
8. Dominic Smith (DH)
9. Juan Lagares (CF)

Starting Pitcher: Zack Wheeler

Game Notes:

1. Wheeler gets the last start of Spring Training and he has been good in his 4 major league spring training starts this year allowing 5 runs, 3 earned over 12.0 innings which is a 2.25 ERA.
2. There are a ton of players listed for today’s game, I’m guessing it’s a sign that a lot of people will get a little bit of playing time round out the spring. 14 hitters are available off the bench and 9 pitchers in the bullpen.
3. Of note, Edwin Diaz is listed as available. His last outing was less than ideal (3 runs over 0.1 innings) so it would be nice to end him on a strong note.
4. Also, Plaia is listed as available on the bench. We haven’t seen him in a major league game in while. The Mets had a scare with Wilson’s hand this weekend. Nido is next on the depth chart and then after that, Plaia.

Let’s Go Mets!

Originally I was going to write today’s article yesterday at 8:00 AM. In the universe I did that, this Syndergaard article gets buried thanks to his on the record conversation making the rounds on every Mets media site. As an aside: I largely agree with him. When you’re employer asks you to do something, most of the time you have to do it, but what the Mets are asking the players to do seems detrimental to their state of mind going into one of the few games of the year everyone is nervous to play.

Anyway, this article isn’t about that. This article is about what projections programs think Syndergaard will do this year. The Mets success is contingent on it’s starting pitching (which has been a true statement since 1962, but really since 2015) and Noah Syndergaard is a big reason for that.

2018: 154.1 IP, 3.03 ERA, 2.80 FIP, 1.212 WHIP, 9.0 K/9, 4 WAR, 2.47 DRA
Career: 2.93 ERA, 2.66 FIP, 1.132 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 2.45 DRA

He had an uptick in a bunch of his career numbers last year in the wrong direction, but coming off of a season where he pitched 3/4ths of April and the second half of September (kinda), his 2018 was pretty great. The problem is, every projection sees him taking a step back (or basically the same but just slightly a step back):

(Citations: Baseball Prospectus (BP) projections are from the Baseball Prospectus annual which can you can get here. It’s highly recommended. ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )

BP, ZiPS and ESPN are all close to each other. Which is weird because BP is always the most conservative and projections regressions and ESPN is generally the opposite. It’s not surprising that BR is a little more conservative than the rest, they tend to also go that way.

What is interesting is how close everyone is in WHIP with the exception of BR. Those WHIPs are an improvement over last year (and BR would be a disappointing regression). It’s his WHIP makes him feel so dominate, hopefully that is a positive sign heading into Saturday when he makes his first start.

We are so close to the regular season! The Mets have two spring training games left, one today against the Nationals and one tomorrow against the Orioles. But today is the last home game which means the line up, minus the pitching, will look a lot like the players that will see the Nationals on Thursday to open the season!

After a disappointing Friday, the Mets stomped on the Braves yesterday 12-2 with three hit games from Alonso and Rosario, two hit games from Nido, Broxton, Krizan and most notably Mauricio. The latter has had a lot of success the last two days against major league hitting. He’s definitely the prospect to be watching right now. On the mound deGrom had a solid day with 3.0 clean innings (and then rocked all the back pages expressing his disappointment in not having an extension yet), Lugo had a clean inning and Dowdy had his best outing yet allowing 1 run over 4.0 innings as he tries to break through to the roster.

Mets Lineup:

1. Brandon Nimmo (LF)
2. Jeff McNeil (3B)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. Pete Alonso (DH)
5. Michael Conforto (RF)
6. Wilson Ramos (C)
7. Amed Rosario (SS)
8. Dominic Smith (1B)
9. Juan Lagares (CF)

Starting Pitcher: Tim Peterson

Things To Watch For:

1. The most exciting thing about today’s lineup card: Woods-Richardson who the Mets drafted in the 2nd round last year is listed as an available pitcher. Hopefully he gets some action today.
2. Today’s lineup is awfully close to what it could be opening day. Most likely Pete Alonso is at first, not Smith (barring some major roster thing the Mets do) and there is still a possibility that Broxton starts in center not Lagares.
3. The players in the lineup seem like the starting lineup, but is this going to be the order they are in? If so, I really don’t remember the last time I saw a player make their major league debut in the 4th spot. I’m not sure yet if I disagree with it (I generally go with the idea of putting your players who get on base the most as close to the top of the lineup as possible).
4. Tim Peterson has pitched 8.1 major league spring training innings over 9 games and has allowed 5 runs off 7 hits, and 2 walks. I’m hoping in our last look at him he ends on a high note as he is trying move himself up the arm-depth chart.

Let’s Go Mets!

I debated about writing this article, but decided to do what I do most years and write it anyway. Drew Smith had Tommy John surgery about 10 days ago and won’t pitch at all this season. I had already pulled all the numbers for Smith before the injury (I pull everyone’s numbers over the same 3-day span, it’s hectic).

Ultimately I decided to write this projection article because the Mets operated this off-season as if Drew Smith was going to be a part of this team, which informed the decisions they made on who to pursue and who to not pursue to some degree.

Drew Smith was acquired in the trade with the Rays that sent Lucas Duda south. Smith made his debut last year and unlike a lot of other pitchers who debuted out of the pen last season, Smith was successful:

2018: 28 IP, 3.54 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 1.429 WHIP, 5.8 K/9, 0.5 WAR, 3.62 DRA

He had an opposite K/9 for what you would expect in this era of baseball (but one that matched his WHIP) yet he was still able to get hitters out and keep the run damage low. Computers thought he would have done this in 2019:

(Citations: ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )

For the most part the projections saw a little regression, (outside of Steamer who saw more than a bit) which is normal. This would have been his second season so only a small amount of regression from projections, especially out of the pen, is unusual. Usually if a player has a cup of coffee and is successful, the next year stats project out much worse (which seems to be what happens to Lugo every year we do this article series).

Alas Smith won’t get a chance to show us his stuff this year. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope he comes back stronger in 2020 (and probably mid-2020 at that).

Mets spring training is winding down and so is our projection series (well – sorta. We still have like 10 players left to project). Jacob Rhame got another look in the majors last year and will be starting this year off in the minors. With the Mets triple A team now in Syracuse, and with two cups of coffee already, Rhame will be near the top of the list for when the Mets need an extra arm in the the pen.

2018: 32.1 IP, 5.85 ERA, 5.48 FIP, 1.423 WHIP, 7.8 K/9, -0.2 WAR, 4.84 DRA
Career: 6.53 ERA, 5.77 FIP, 1.573 WHIP, 7.6 K/9, 5.39 DRA

Last year was definitely an improvement over 2017 in every single category listed above. It just wasn’t enough to become a regular yet, which is why the Mets needed to rework the bullpen this off-season (obviously not just because of Rhame, but his situation is the same as so many other pitchers in the Mets organization).

Lets take a look as to what Mets computers think he will do next season:

(Citations: ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )

Not looking at ZiPS, since they don’t factor in playing time, there is a disagreement for how much time on the mound projections see Rhame getting. Baseball Reference thinks he’ll be up earlier or more often than last year, with making some major improvements. Everyone else agrees on improvements but sees him as a September call-up. If things go right for the Mets this year, or by the plan, he should be a September call-up.

No matter what, at least he’ll be closer this year if the Mets ever need him.