213 Miles From Shea

Every spring at 213 we gather a whole bunch of projections for players and average them together to see what a conglomerate of baseball sources think a given player will perform over the year. It’s wholly unscientific – averaging averages and not weighting them for previous accuracy or amount of playing time they feel a player will see.

The Mets have one of the best pitchers in baseball in Jacob deGrom, he can be made even better with a strong season from Noah Syndergaard. There was an open discussion among fans last year if the changes to the ball were impacting Syndergaard (both Noah and Diaz throw a hard slider, so maybe there was a connection there?). We’re not going to go down that rabbit hole here. For Noah his main problem last year was homers, he allowed 24 of them. In his only comparable season in terms of starts, 2016 (All-Star year), he allowed 11.

Last year the following projections were posted for Syndergaard:

And here are Noah’s 2019 stats:

2019: 197.2 IP, 4.28 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 1.234 WHIP, 8.8 K/9, 2.3 WAR, 3.40 DRA

Now if you just look at ERA, it looks like Syndergaard massively under performed last season. And if you look at other stats, like FIP, you’ll see slight under performance. What’s interesting is how different his ERA and FIP are while his WHIP is basically the same from 2018. His DRA is even better than what was projected (but a full run worse than the previous year).

Syndergaard didn’t perform as well as he did in 2018, and he did under perform against models. Initially I thought when writing this article that it was going to be a tremendous gap and I would start mourning the 2020 season mid paragraph 2. Noah’s 2019 doesn’t seem so bad right now and hopefully he can become the secret weapon the team needs in 2020 to take back the division.

Every spring at 213 we gather a whole bunch of projections for players and average them together to see what a conglomerate of baseball sources think a given player will perform over the year. It’s wholly unscientific – averaging averages and not weighting them for previous accuracy or amount of playing time they feel a player will see.

Jason Vargas had a terrible first half of 2018 and then rebounded in the second half. As such we were trying to balance the two Jasons we saw in our preview article last year. Generally we were upset that he wasn’t replaced. As 2019 went on he actually became somewhat dependable and then was traded in a salary dump to the Phillies, to later be replaced by Marcus Stroman, who is apparently replacing Zack Wheeler so Porcello and Wacha are the new Vargas. That’s confusing.

Last year Jason had the following projections:

And in 2019 he put up the following line:
2019 Mets: 94.1 IP, 4.01 ERA, 4.70 FIP, 1.272 WHIP, 7.7 K/9, 1.6 WAR, 4.73 DRA
2019 Total: 149.2 IP, 4.51 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 1.363 WHIP, 7.5 K/9, 1.2 WAR, 5.25 DRA

As a Met he significantly outperformed projections with the exception of Baseball Prospectus (who nailed Wheeler’s projections last year too). But then as a Philly the pendulum swung the other way and he regressed closer to the average of all projections.

Essentially the Mets sold him while his value was the highest last year, which would be great except all the Mets got was a salary dump that wasn’t reinvested back in the team and a back up, double A catcher who went to college with one of the owner’s sons. It would be lying by omission if we didn’t address that while statistically, Vargas was the best he had been for a while, his off the field antics with reporters was tanking his reputation and the Mets locker room.

Every spring at 213 we gather a whole bunch of projections for players and average them together to see what a conglomerate of baseball sources think a given player will perform over the year. It’s wholly unscientific – averaging averages and not weighting them for previous accuracy or amount of playing time they feel a player will see.

This one is going to sting. Zack Wheeler became a consistent rock in the rotation for the Mets last season and the Mets repaid him by not making him an offer, letting him go to Philly with a chip on his shoulder on a mega deal that compared to amount that other pitchers are getting – he deserves.

Last season we had the following to say about Wheeler, and summed up his projections below:

In 2019 he posted the following stat line:

2019: 31 G, 195.1 IP, 3.96 ERA, 3.48 FIP, 1.259 WHIP, 9.0 K/9, 3.5 WAR, 3.80 DRA

First off, Baseball Prospectus pretty much nailed Wheeler’s projections with the exception of playing time which everyone missed. Partially why Wheeler was so good was he went out there every 5th day and was consistent. Overall, while he under performed in terms of ERA, he over performed or just about matched everywhere else including a much better WAR and DRA than projected.

This is why Wheeler is going to be difficult for the Mets to replace in the rotation next year. At 213, we have a very similar to take to the majority of Mets fans that Stroman can’t replace Wheeler if they were in the same rotation at the same time, that’s not a replacement. Inking Wheeler would have put the Mets over the top and now the Mets will have hope that Vargas’ replacements in Porcello and Wacha over perform.

Speaking of Jason Vargas, we’ll do his projection step back tomorrow!

Every spring at 213 we gather a whole bunch of projections for players and average them together to see what a conglomerate of baseball sources think a given player will perform over the year. It’s wholly unscientific – averaging averages and not weighting them for previous accuracy or amount of playing time they feel a player will see.

Going into last year’s off-season the Mets needed to rework their bullpen (like this year and pretty much every year in this decade). Last season, the only lefty on the 40-man roster was Daniel Zamora (who we reviewed his projections last year) since the Mets traded Jerry Blevins (and were not going to resign him) during the season. So Justin Wilson seemed like a good pick up.

But it’s the Mets and Wilson had an on/off year with injuries which impacted his projections. We previewed Wilson here last year and summarized his projections in the following table:

In 2019, Wilson put up the following stat line:

2019: 45 G, 39.0 IP, 2.54 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 1.333 WHIP, 10.2 K/9, 1.3 WAR, 3.51 DRA

The concerning part of Wilson’s stat line, outside of his playing time, is the difference between his FIP and his ERA. His FIP is the only stat line significantly worse than projections, everything else is either significantly better or right around projected values. I’m not terribly concerned because his WHIP isn’t crazy.

So Wilson outperformed his projection Wilson also pitched about 20% less than originally thought, thanks to injuries. This is a positive sign for the bullpen heading into 2020. Will Wilson posting this line over an entire season save the pen? Absolutely not. But maybe with a manager who can better manage the bullpen and not over tax some players while under utilizing others, Wilson could bring some balance back.

Every spring at 213 we gather a whole bunch of projections for players and average them together to see what a conglomerate of baseball sources think a given player will perform over the year. It’s wholly unscientific – averaging averages and not weighting them for previous accuracy or amount of playing time they feel a player will see.

Going into 2019, Daniel Zamora was the only lefty in the pen. The Mets signed a few lefties (Justin Wilson on a Major League deal, Luis Avilan on a minors deal) which then moved Zamora back down a bit in the depth chart. He made his way to Citi Field by the end of April, stuck around for a month, got a cup of coffee in June and then returned when rosters expanded in September.

Back at the start of the year, we wrote this preview about Zamora and pulled the following projections together:

And in 2019, Zamora posted the following stat line:

2019: 17 G, 8.2 IP, 5.19 ERA, 4.94 FIP, 1.731 WHIP, 8.3 K/9, 0.0 WAR, 7.63 DRA

So the main issue here is playing time. Some of the projection programs essentially give a base line of playing time so players can be easily compared to each others. The projections that don’t do that still saw Zamora getting a lot more action because they were probably run before the Mets signed multiple lefties for the pen. When combined with the Mets horrible bullpen management you get very little playing time and a stat line that we can’t compare too. Zamora struggled in the majors but after May he saw inconsistent to no playing time in the majors.

Normally at the end of these articles I try make a statement along the lines of the computers got this correct or they didn’t. For example, yesterday, computers missed Luis Avilan’s fall. There is no conclusion that can be made for Zamora. We’ll try again next year.

Every spring at 213 we gather a whole bunch of projections for players and average them together to see what a conglomerate of baseball sources think a given player will perform over the year. It’s wholly unscientific – averaging averages and not weighting them for previous accuracy or amount of playing time they feel a player will see.

The Mets some how got Luis Avilan on a minor league deal and we, as other places, noted that he had a good chance of making the major league club due to our lack of lefties. He pitched about the first six weeks of the year, got injured, came back around July and finished out the season.

Back in March we previewed his projections here, with the summary below:

Avilan in 2019 posted the following stat line:

45 G, 32.0 IP, 5.06 ERA, 4.96 FIP, 1.469 WHIP, 8.4 K/9, 0.1 WAR, 5.10 DRA

Initially some projections were a little low on playing time for Avilan because of roster situation, in end, it turned out to be his injury that prevented a full season of bullpen work. He performed much worse than anyone projected failing to meet any projections across any platform with the exception of WAR but that might be due more to how WAR is calculated than anything else.

Luis Avilan is a free agent right now and is probably looking to join a team the same way he did last year, except unlike last year, his performance doesn’t merit a major league contract right now.

Earlier this week the Mets signed Michael Wacha and Rick Porcello. BVW made news by stating that Marcus Stroman was a replacement for Zack Wheeler (despite Wheeler and Stroman being in the same rotation for about half a season) and that Porcello/Wacha give the Mets so much starting pitching depth that it’s a boon to the bullpen by locking Lugo/Gsellman out of the rotation (which was an even odder statement to make, but whatever).

To get a sense of what this all means, we are going to look at the 2019 Mets DRA, DRA- and WARP from Baseball Prospectus and then insert in the Mets new signings.

2019 Rotation:

• Jacob deGrom: 2.27 DRA, 46.5 DRA-, 7.8 WARP
• Noah Syndergaard: 3.40 DRA, 69.8 DRA-, 5.1 WARP
• Zack Wheeler: 3.80 DRA, 77.9 DRA-, 4.2 WARP
• Steven Matz: 4.39 DRA, 90.2 DRA-, 2.4 WARP
• Marcus Stroman: 3.79 DRA, 77.8 DRA-, 4.0 WARP
• Jason Vargas: 5.25 DRA, 107.8 DRA-, 0.8 WARP
• Walker Lockett: 4.96 DRA, 101.9 DRA-, 0.2 WARP (contains relief data)

2020 Additions in 2019:

• Rick Porcello: 6.06 DRA, 124.4 DRA-, -0.5 WARP
• Michael Wacha: 6.25 DRA, 128.1 DRA-, -0.7 WARP

2018 Data for New Additions:

• Rick Porcello: 4.02 DRA, 89.9 DRA-, 2.8 WARP
• Michael Wacha: 3.99 DRA, 89.0 DRA-, 1.3 WARP

Wacha tossed 84.1 innings in 2018, 126.2 innings in 2019 as he’s battled shoulder issues. The shoulder issues for Wacha should be a major asterisk when thinking – well in 2018 he put up better numbers than Matz did in 2019 (which is problematic in a different way – DRA looks at context for ABs, it’s not clear to me how much can be asserted as a claim of better or worst across the seasons, I included the 2018 data to show if you want to look at DRA that way, both Porcello and Wacha took major steps back lat year).

Here’s the main point – Stroman is essentially a replacement for Wheeler. But that statement is only true if Stroman was acquired this off-season. Wheeler leaving makes the rotation significantly weaker. Porcello and Wacha both performed significantly worse than Jason Vargas last year, and do you remember how you felt about him being a key piece of the rotation going into the season.

The good news for the Mets is Porcello and Wacha prevent Lockett from pitching every 5th day. The bad news for the Mets – since they can’t seem to keep prospects, it’s a question mark if anyone will be ready to take a spot in case two members of the rotation go down and the Mets don’t want to dip into Lockett. With Gagnon and Flexen gone to Japan the Mets have a lot less starting pitching depth than they are letting on.

Of course, Wacha and Porcello could pitch a lot better than last year. But they are trending overall downwards and wishing that they outperform what they are heading towards is the same hoping for the best that the Mets have entered each year for the last several years.

It’s that time of year when missing baseball starts to hit hard. So to fill my needs to see some relevant baseball stats, I started to make a list of Mets players and players I’m interested in as a Mets fan who are playing this winter.

Mets Players

• Juan Lagares (Beisbol Domicano – Aguilas Cibaenas)
• Harol Gonzalez: Binghamton 2019 (Beisbol Domincao – Gigantes de Cibao)
• Phil Regan – Former Pitching Coach (Beisbol Domincano – Toros del Este)
• Tyler Bashlor (Beisbol Domincano – Toros del Este)
• Chris Mazza (Beisbol Domincano – Toros del Este)
• Daniel Zamora (Beisbol Domincano – Toros del Este)
• Juan Uriarte (Mexicana del Pacifico – Caneros de los Mochis)

Players Mets Fans Would Be Interested In

• Dario Alvarez: 2014-15 Mets (Beisbol Domincano – Aguilas Cibaenas)
• Anderson Hernandez: 2005-2007, 2009 Mets (Beisbol Domicano – Estrellas de Oriente)
• Gabriel Ynoa: 2016 Mets (Beisbol Domincano – Gigantes de Cibao)
• Gerson Bautista: 2018 Mets (Beisbol Domincano – Leones del Escogido)
• Merandy Gonzalez: Traded for AJ Ramos (Beisbol Domincano – Toros del Este)
• Jordany Valdespin: Mets Legend (Beisbol Domincano – Toros del Este)
• Phillip Evans: 2017-18 Mets (Mexicana del Pacifico – Aguilas de Mexicali)
• Ryan O’Rourke: 2019 Mets (Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente – Cangrejeros de Santurce)
• T.J. Rivera (Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente – Indios de Mayaguez)

Like many people who watch baseball who have a heart, we have been dismayed at worker compensation for minor league baseball teams. For a league with profit margins as large as Major League Baseball and for a league where the most exciting players are not even arbritation elgible yet, it seems like a no brainer to treat the kids well.

And by well we mean – a living wage, housing a meals to essentially not quite adult yet bseball players who are trying to become fit whiel surving on whatever they can get. While MLB players at the minimum make salaries 10x the average first year teaching salary in New Jersey, minor league players are lucky if they can break 10k over the course of the year.

This issue was made worse by Baseball baking into the Tax Code the “Protect America’s Past Time Act” which allows baseball to pay MiLB’ers as apprentices to avoid lawsuits overwages.

Now the MLB is taking another drastic step. Manfred is planning on eliminating 42 minor league teams, including entire short season leagues. Two Mets teams are on the chopping block – Binghamton and Kingsports. So in addition hurting individual players, the league is now going to hurt cities and taxpayers.

Not all MiLB teams are profitable but cities have poured tax breaks into stadiums and deals that are now threatened by this move. Teams also support dozens of local jobs in their individual townships.

To get more specific, I’ve been to 6 teams that are set to be eliminated: Binghamton, Vermont Lake Monsters (Burlington), Bristol (TN/VA), Frederick, Hagerstown and Mahoning Valley. The new ownership in Binghamton has spent the last couple of years spending a lot of money to upgrade the ballpark and it looks great. I’ve been there three times now in the last decade and the last time was by far the best and the most packed. Frederick has been part of the Maryland community for years. Hagerstown even longer, playing in an incredibly historic stadium. Bristol uses a high school stadium. Burlington uses a college stadium that has also been around for forever. For Bristol and Burlington – they do the rare thing in sports where a field is being used by multiple teams to make it worth upkeeping.

I’m already bracing myself for this elimination to happen. It’s a shame though, driving around to different cities to watch Minor League Baseball is the best and now dozens of cities are in jeopardy of having abandoned stadiums as monuments to major league baseball’s greed.

The 2019 season is finally over. A season marred with trades that didn’t pan out, a bullpen that under performed and an offense that went missing for a better part of the month. A season that saw a team go from 11 games under .500 to almost getting a post-season berth via the Wild Card. A season that saw new rookie home run record holder in Pete Alonso. A season that saw another dominant, possibly Cy Young level, campaign from Jacob deGrom. Personally, this may be one of the more memorable Mets seasons in my lifetime. Today they put on the cleats one more time and then we’ll just have to wait for next year.

Noah Syndergaard takes the mound for what could be, but most likely won’t be, his last start as a Met. He is 10-8 over 31 starts and 190.2 innings with a 4.30 ERA, 3.61 FIP, 1.243 WHIP and a 94 ERA+. He pitched more innings this year than he ever has and stats are generally the worst in his career. For four consecutive starts he has allowed 4 earned runs over 5.0 to 5.2 innings from 6-10 hits per start raising his ERA from 3.97 to 4.30. In his one start against the Braves this year he allowed 3 runs over 5.2 innings in a game the Mets won 8-5. The Braves have the following numbers against Noah:

• Nick Markakis 7-20, 2B, 2 BB, 4 K
• Freddie Freeman 9-20, 3 2B, 3B, HR, BB, 4 K
• Ender Inciarte 4-14, BB, 2 K
• Dansby Swanson 7-14, 3 K
• Ronald Acuna Jr. 4-10, 2B, HR, 3 K
• Ozzie Albies 2-9, HR, K
• Josh Donaldson 2-8, 2 2B, BB, 2 K
• Adeiny Hechavarria 2-8, 2 K

The Mets bats will end the season against the young stud pitcher for the Braves, Mike Soroka who is 13-4 over 28 games and 169.2 innings making his last warm-up for the post-season. He has a 2.60 ERA, 3.44 FIP, 1.090 WHIP and 177 ERA+ this season. His 0.7 HR/9 is the lowest in the league. That being said, he’s been more human the last two months posting an ERA of 3.46 over his last 7 starts and 41.2 innings of work. And although he beat the Mets both times he played them, he didn’t dominate them like he has to other teams. He first beat the Mets after allowing 3 runs over 6.0 innings, a game that rose his ERA from 1.92 to 2.12 in the middle of June. A week later he beat the Mets despite allowing 2 runs from 7 hits over 6.1 innings. In both games the Mets homered. The Mets have the following numbers against Soroka:

• Michael Conforto 2-12
• Todd Frazier 2-11, 2 K
• Amed Rosario 2-9, 2B, 2 K
• Pete Alonso 3-6, HR, K
• Robinson Cano 2-6, HR
• Tomas Nido 3-5, 2B, K

Let’s Go Mets!