213 Miles From Shea

Only two more projection reviews in this almost month long journey! Today we’ll look at Jacob deGrom, who will be the first pitcher in a while in this series whose projections probably make sense to look at.

2017 Stats:
15-10, 31 G, 201.1 IP, 3.53 ERA, 59 BB, 239 K, 1.187 WHIP

Jacob crossed 190 innings for the second time in his career and cruised through the 200 K mark for the second time of his career. The models had deGrom with a slight regression off the 2016 numbers, but deGrom slid more than that. He still was the best starter the Mets had last year although some projections, like Baseball America, were way off.

I was dismayed last year when I read the Baseball Prospectus projection. It’s the one I trust the most and it was the one that had deGrom struggling the most. It also was the closest to correct for the starter.

Hey. Remember when we did a projection review for Matt Harvey yesterday? And he wasn’t even close? Well get ready for part two! Steven Matz!

2017 Stats:
2-7, 13 G, 6.08 ERA, 66.2 IP, 19 BB, 48 K, 1.530 WHIP

I would be so incredibly happy if Matz pitched his projected like for last year, this upcoming year. 151 Innings? I’ll take it. I was upset and didn’t want to believe he would only toss 151 innings last year. A 3.29 ERA? a 1.1997 WHIP. Yes Please.

Unlike the Harvey projections, a few projections saw him regressing a hair, they ended up being the closest to reality for Matz.

All in all, with his injuries last, looking at last years projections for these two doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

This series or articles was way more fun to write back when we were covering pitchers. If a hitter didn’t match the projection, they typically performed better. The pitchers on the other hand have done way worse. Anyway, here’s Matt Harvey. I wonder how he did compared to projections (sarcasm).

2o17 Stats:
5-7, 19 G, 92.2 IP, 6.70 IP, 47 BB, 67 K, 1.694 WHIP

Well. That was fun.

Harvey struggled. A lot.

Here’s what I’m taking from this projection review. Every projection, and there were a lot of them, all had Harvey bouncing back from his tough 2016 campaign. They were all wrong.

I was wrong.

The universe was wrong.

Robert Gsellman had to pitch way more than projected last year. The projections also completely missed his struggles in a way similar to Lugo.

2017 Stats:
8-7, 5.19 ERA, 25 G, 119.2 IP. 42 BB, 82 K, 1.504 WHIP

Amazingly, the projections got the amount of pitching Gsellman down almost exactly on average. Not as amazing, they were way off on his season. There was a wide variance as good as 2.69 ERA and as high as 4.40 for Gsellman but he struggled 0.8 runs more than that with a WHIP a couple hundred points higher than projected too. Like Lugo, both Gsellman struggled with injuries. Second season pitchers are difficult for projection programs to track.

I love baseball. I love food. I love eating at ballparks.

If you remember last week, you also know I love nachos.
If you remember that than:
1) You’re my Mom. Hi Mom.
2) You remember my eating habits. I guess that’s flattering. Or weird.
3) You made an assumption that I’m human (mostly safe bet) and that I love nachos (even safer bet)

Nachos are great. Tachos are even better. Here’s a pic of some tachos I ate in Seattle:

Look cheese on food is great. Fried potatoes are great. Banana peppers are great. Everything about this great. Now I want tachos. It’s 9:30 in the morning. I’m ok with my life decisions*

*Actually its 9:39 PM on 1/15 when I wrote this but whatever.

Hey! Guess who actually pitched in 2017? Zack Wheeler! Was he the Wheeler we were always promised?

2017 Stats:
3-7, 17 G, 86.1 IP, 5.21 ERA, 40 BB, 81 K, 1.587 WHIP

Look the projections said he would pitch again, and he did. Amazingly the computers actually did a good job projecting the amount Wheeler would actually pitch although they were way off as Wheeler struggled a lot before he got knocked out for the season. ZiPS and Rotowire were the closest regarding stats and ZiPS and MLB.com were the closest to actual total amount of innings.

Seth Lugo was the back up plan going into 2017. Then everything fell apart quickly and the Mets needed Lugo. Except he also went down. 2017 was a mess. Let’s take a look at what the computers saw going into the season:

2017 Stats:
7-5, 19 G, 18 GS, 4.71 ERA, 101.1 IP, 25 BB, 85 K, 1.372 WHIP

The optimism around him and his curveball was shot down by the computer programs going into 2017. And it turns out the projections were more correct than fans. He did worse than the projections but not by much, especially in WHIP. Baseball Prospectus, ZiPS and Steamer all did a good job figuring out his numbers. Also the average of the projections nailed down his innings of work well, which was much higher than anticipated going into the 2017 season.

2017 was a rough year to project pitchers in the Mets bullpen whether it was due to injury or misuse by a manager. Familia falls into multiple categories. he lead the league in games finished in 2015 and 2016 and came into 2017 injured and suspended. Ultimately he would under-perform compared to projections.

2017 Stats:
1-1, 26 G, 24.2 IP, 4.38 ERA, 15 BB, 25 K, 1.459 WHIP

The computers assumed that Familia was going to pitch a whole season, which we already knew would be wrong thanks to the suspension. Even with that, he fell back more than any computer thought he would. When I read the Steamer projection, I thought they were way off base but they ended up being the closest to reality.

Hopefully 2018 will be better.

Earlier this month we posted two articles here and here reviewing all of the Mets options at 2nd and 3rd for the upcoming season including Cabrera, Reyes, Nunez, Walker, Harrison, Frazier, Phillips and Escobar.

Our conclusion back then was the best move for the Mets would be to trade for Harrison, sign Frazier and then move Cabrera. These articles were written before I attended the QBC, heard Nimmo talk and now I never want to get rid of him. That would nix any trade with the Pirates for Harrison.

With Harrison off the table, the best move for the Mets was signing Frazier and moving Cabrera over. Cabrera is not good at third base (1 DRS last year, but -2.6 UZR), Nunez is even worse at second (-4 DRS, -1.8 UZR). Frazier has a 10 DRS and 6.7 UZR last year which makes up for Cabrera’s poor play at second base (plus each of the alternatives for second are terrible outside of Harrison, click the top links).

Frazier isn’t a knockout, blockbuster type signing, but he is the signing the Mets need. There is too much focus on the lack of stolen bases on this team. The jury is still out on the advantage of having a team that steal bases (considering Keith Law’s Smart Baseball, the jury may have already decided and the answer is no, they don’t work).  The advantage that Nunez had compared to other players (Reyes, Walker, etc) was not wearing a Mets jersey in the last three years. That’s the Nunez appeal.

The ToddFather solves a need for the Mets and the Mets got him for a great price and a relative good length of contract.

Now that the Mets have a bargain contract for Frazier, they should do 1-2 more moves. Sign Alex Cobb and Tony Watson. If the the Mets sign both of them they can put together a strong squad going into the season.

Addison Reed was the savior of the Mets pen last year before he was traded to the Red Sox where he did not nearly have the success than in Queens. Reed is now a Twin but his time in New York was fantastic. Let’s see how the computers handled his 2017:

2017 Stats:
2-3, 2.84 ERA, 77 G, 76.0 IP, 15 BB, 76 K, 1.053 WHIP

The projections did understand that Reed wouldn’t be able to put up the insane line he did in 2016 again, but they still underestimated Reed. He performed better in both ERA and WHIP.

Shockingly, Baseball Prospectus was so wrong about Reed expecting a complete regression with a 4.16 ERA and 1.24 WHIP. Maybe they thought Reed was Salas or Robles. (Insert smiley face emoji).