213 Miles From Shea

This time last year the Mets weren’t sure that Brandon Nimmo was a starter. The fans were pretty sure, but the Mets had him tagged as a 4th outfielder. As the Mets got more an more injured, Nimmo’s playing time increased and he turned into a player that challenged Judge most of the season in OPS.

For Nimmo, the massive change last year was how often he walked and just got in base in general. It lead to a 123 DRC+, a leader on the Mets:

2018: 535 PA, 433 AB, 17 HR, .26w3/.404/.483, 4.8 WAR, 123 DRC+
Career: .264/.391/.449, 111 DRC+

Nimmo got on base more and hit for more pop and suddenly he became one of the most consistent, important pieces in the Mets lineup. By DRC+, Nimmo definitely broke out last year having a 92 and 84 DRC+ the previous seasons.

So where does Nimmo go from here?

(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. )

For the most part, the computers have Nimmo taking a step back. Despite his average last year being close to his career mark, they having hitting on average 15 points lower and getting on base almost 30 points lower than his average clip. They still have contributing solidly to WAR, even if it’s much less and his DRC+ still puts him above average, but it’s a significant step down.

To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of this because I’m so enamored by Nimmo the person. My gut wants to say that all of these projections, with the exception of Baseball Reference are underestimating him, but it may be because I so deeply want him to succeed that it’s clouding my vision.

Conforto needs to have a big season, almost MVP like for the Mets to win the division this year. If Nimmo makes it tough to determine who the MVP of the team is, then the Mets will be in a very good place come September.

Here’s the good news about yesterday’s 10-3 loss to the Red Sox: several key Mets hit solo homers. Cano hit his first homer in a Mets uniform. McNeil finally got his first hit this Spring and it was a long homer. Gimenez, ranked as the #1 prospect in the Mets farm system by most prospect ranking outlets hit his first spring homer showing everyone his potential. Good day for those three. (And Avilan who is trying to get on the roster. He added another scoreless inning of work keeping his ERA to 0.00 this spring).

It just wasn’t a good day for almost everyone else. Syndergaard allowed 4 runs, 3 earned over 4.0 innings (but still struck out 8). Lugo allowed 4 runs, only 1 earned over 1.2 innings. Gsellman allowed 2 runs, 1 earned over an inning of work. Dominic Smith who had been doing very well this spring had his first o-for day adding 2 strikeouts to boot.

The Mets will look to move past yesterday as they head to the Red Sox this afternoon.

Mets Lineup:

1. Brandon Nimmo (CF)
2. Keon Broxton (LF)
3. Danny Espinosa (2B)
4. Pete Alonso (1B)
5. JD Davis (3B)
6. Tomas Nido (C)
7. Rymer Liriano (DH)
8. Luis Guillorme (SS)
9. Rajai Davis (RF)

Staring Pitcher: Zack Wheeler

Things To Watch For Today:

1. There was a common theme in going through the pitching lines from yesterday: unearned runs were not equal to earned runs. The Mets have committed 28 errors in 15 games so far. While it’s spring and that doesn’t matter for results, it does matter for pitcher preparedness. They are getting less clean inning opportunities because they are reaching their pitch totals for the day full innings before they were expected to, thanks to extra outs.
2. Wheeler will be making his third start of spring today. So far in 2.2 innings he has allowed 5 runs, 3 earned over 2.2 innings with a 2.625 WHIP. While he’s the victim of some bad defense, the WHIP lets us know that this line is his fault too. The Mets are hoping, I assume, to get him 3-4 innings today.
3. Injuries around the Mets infield have created opportunities for NRI guys and low depth chart roster players. Espinosa, in the former, has had 18 PA’s so far and has hit .071/.278/.286. Guillorme, in the latter, has had 22 PA’s so far and has hit .368/.455/.579. Both are starting today.
4. Rymer Liriano and Rajai Davis continue their competition this spring today with both getting starting spots in the in the lineup. Liriano, DHing, is hitting .130/.160/.261 in 25 PA’s. Davis is hitting .267/.389/.600 in 18 PA’s.
5. JD Davis is coming back down to Earth a bit the more he plays but he is still putting up a better spring line than expected, now hitting .267/.333/.433 in 33 PA’s.

Let’s Go Mets!

This post has taken a different turn since we had it originally planned before spring training. Before spring training, Juan Lagares was going to be the 4th outfielder, his projections were going to be seen through that lens and then the Mets would have some tough decisions to make about playing time once Cespedes got back and McNeil would end up being knocked around.

But with Lowrie and Frazier still injured, and the Mets without signing a big name outfielder, McNeil might have to spend more time in the infield than originally thought, meaning that Lagares and Broxton will spend more time starting in the outfield than originally thought.

As injury seasons go for Lagares 2018 was even worse than usual:

2018: 64 PA, 59 AB, 0 HR, .339/.375/.390, 1.0 WAR, 88 DRC+
Career: .260/.300/.367, 78 DRC+

Although it was a small sample size, it looked like Lagares, who spent the spring before last year retooling his swing, finally turned a corner and was turning into one of the more consistent hitters in the Mets lineup. But then he got hurt, again and this year the Mets actively prepared for him to get hurt again by bringing in Keon Broxton as back up.

Here are what computers think Juan will do 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. )

For the most part, the computers are not down with the idea of Juan Lagares coming back better than ever, with the exception of of ESPN. They think Juan is going to perform way above his average year numbers. Everyone else is peering into and weighing his injury history a lot.

Out of the Mets outfield options: Broxton, Rajai Davis, Liriano, Blanco and now Carlos Gomez, Juan Lagares is clearly the best option. This has never been the question this off-season. The question does he play well enough to be in the starting lineup when an outfielder needs a day off or early in the season when McNeil is needed in the infield. Only time will tell.

The 6-7 Mets continue their spring campaign against Miami today. If this feels like deja vu, well it sorta is. The Mets traveled to the Marlins spring training facility on Tuesday before the off-day and as there are fewer teams on the east coast then the west coast, we do see a lot of repeat match ups.

Just as a quick recap of yesterday: the Mets have had better games. Zamora, the only lefty in the bullpen on the roster, allowed 2 runs off 3 hits in 0.2 innings, taking his Spring ERA to 9.82 (on the heals of a great performance by Avilan a lefty trying to make the roster on the previous day). Caminero continued to struggle this spring as well, allowing a run off a hit and 2 walks in his inning, blowing up his Spring ERA to 16.20. Both of these taken with small sample size salt.

There were a couple of interesting batting notes from yesterday. Broxton, went 0-1 at the plate but he walked 3 times so his batting average fell to .214 but OPS raised to .690 (thus becoming another interesting stat against batting average). Alonso collected 2 hits in 5 trips and JD Davis went 0-3 but walked twice (and then got called out going 1st to 3rd on a Tebow hit).

Mets Lineup:

1. Jeff McNeil (LF)
2. Michael Conforto (RF)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. Wilson Ramos (DH)
5. Dominic Smith (1B)
6. Devin Mesoraco (C)
7. Juan Lagares (CF)
8. Andres Gimenez (SS)
9. Dilson Herrera (3B)

Starting Pitcher: Noah Syndergaard

Things To Watch For:

1. Dominic Smith is continuting to make the most out of Spring Training. In 23 PA’s he has a .500/.565/.700 slash line.
2. Yesterday d’Arnaud continued his rehab journey catching the B game. His main competition Devin Mesoraco, is getting the start today. in 12 PAs over 5 games he’s hitting .167/.167/.417
3. Who will play third when the season opens with Frazier and Lowrie still out injured? Dilson Herrera is hoping the answer involves him pushing his way onto the bench and the team is giving him enough chances at the plate. In 25 PA’s he has a .200/.360/.250 line.
4. Thor gets the start today! So far in two games and 4.2 innings he’s allowed 1 unearned run off 2 hits. The good news is he has struck out 6, the bad news is he has 5 walks.
5. Listed as available today: Luis Avilan, Edwin Diaz, Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo. This could be very close to the actual bullpen the Mets roll with in April with Familia.

The 6-6-1 Mets are back in action today after their first off-day of the Spring. Back on Tuesday the Mets fell to the Marlins behind good pitching for the most part and a lackluster offense. The game saw Jason Vargas hold the Marlins to 4 hits and a walk with no runs over 2.1 innings, Luis Avilan going 1.2 innings striking out 4 with no runs and Edwin Diaz allowing a hit striking out 2 over an inning. We also saw Brandon Nimmo go 0-4 (dropping his batting average to 0.83 in spring), Conforto go 0-4 and Mesoraco go 0-3 with 2 strikeouts.

But today is a spring training deGrom day. While not as exciting as it’s regular season counterparts, we are ready to see one of our favorites get after it on the mound.

Mets Linuep:

1. Brandon Nimmo (LF)
2. Keon Broxton (CF)
3. Michael Conforto (RF)
4. Wilson Ramos (C)
5. Pete Alonso (3B)
6. JD Davis (3B)
7. Tim Tebow (DH)
8. Luis Guillorme (SS)
9. Dilson Herrera (2B)

Starting Pitcher: Jacob deGrom

As stated earlier, deGrom is getting his 3rd spring start today. He’s pitched 4.0 innings in his first two games, going 1 inning and then 3 innings, allowing 3 hits and a run while striking out 5 leading to a spring ERA of 2.25 and a WHIP of 0.750.

Things to watch for in no particular order:

1. Luis Guillorme has been getting a lot of looks this spring as he competes for a roster spot and he has been making the most of it with a .400/.471/.667 line.
2. We haven’t written one of these for Tebow in a while. In 10 PAs he has a .222/.300/.222 line. Not good but also not the worst in the lineup by a long shot.
3. The longer Lowrie and Frazier sit out, the more prominent JD Davis will be on the Mets early on in the season. In 27 PAs (27!!!!! A lot to have at this point) he is hitting .308/.333/.500. This is a development to watch.
4. Daniel Zamora will be available out of the pen today. As noted earlier, Luis Avilan had a great day yesterday so the pressure is on Zamora. In 3.0 innings he has allowed 2 runs off 4 hits and walk while striking out 3.
5. In general the Mets are bringing a lot of interesting players on the bench today. Toffey, Gimenez, Mauricio, Uriarte, etc. The late innings may be fun to watch.

Let’s Go Mets!

The most important bat the Mets have this year is Michael Conforto. He could break out and become an MVP candidate. He could struggle like he did early in the season last year and the Mets get off to a rocky start. However he plays will be how the Mets go.

2018: 638 PA, 543 AB, 28 HR, .243/.350/.448, 2.9 WAR, 112 DRC+
From July 20th On: .273/.356/.539
Career: .251/.349/.476, 113 DRC+

The second half of the season Conforto turned a page and started to smack the cover off the baseball becoming the player we all expected him to be. If he puts a full season of hitting like that he could easily become an MVP. Let’s take a look at how computers expect him to perform 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. )

All of the projections that produce WAR stats see him becoming a top WAR player for the Mets. BP sees him increasing 10 points on DRC+ which is not common at all. ESPN has him breaking the 30 homer plateau.

He’s looked great so far in spring training (knock on wood) and seems incredibly confident. I don’t want to pontificate on the projection numbers too much because they are joy to comb through. Look through! Let your mind dream of what Conforto could mean for the team this year!

Towards the end of the off-season the Mets defense for why they weren’t going after marquee outfielders like Pollock and Harper was something along the lines of, “well, we’re getting Cespedes back!”. Which is true in theory I suppose.

Getting a healthy Yoenis Cespedes will be a huge boost to the roster but there’s a lot of questions. Does this mean early July or late August? Will he produce at the level he did? What other injuries will the Mets have at that point and what holes in their depth have been exposed? What does it even mean to be healthy?

The Mets seriously messed up Cespedes last year. I don’t blame him at all. It was clear that he was dealing with a pretty bad injury to both heals and when he became “healthy enough” to run again, the Mets sent him back out there despite knowing he needed a season ending surgery with a long recovery time. Fairly dehumanizing. Despite this pretty insane injury, he was an average to above average (depending on what you look at below) ball player last year:

2018: 157 PA, 141 AB, 9 HR, .262/.325/.496, 0.9 WAR, 99 DRC+
Career: .274/.328/.498, 123 DRC+

Projections, with the exception of ZiPS which does not care about playing time had balance his recovery with his tendency to get injured in developing these projections:

(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. )

For the most part, the projections see him coming back as an above average player with a bat the Mets lineup could use. Put this is all predicated on Cespedes coming back healthy which is not a guarantee at all.

The Mets played two yesterday, they’ll play one today and zero tomorrow as they get their first off-day in spring. Yesterday the Mets won on the road and lost at home. Highlights included d’Arnaud’s two hit day, including a double, Aloson’s second homer of the spring, Corey Oswalt allowing 1 run over 2.1 innings, O’Rourke striking out 3 in an inning of work, Cano’s two hit day, Tebow’s two hit day, Familia and Lugo’s clean inning of work. Lowlights include Matz allowing 4 runs off 5 hits in 2.2 innings and Nimmo’s 0-3 day at the plate with 3 K’s.

Mets Lineup:

1. Brandon Nimmo (DH)
2. Danny Espinosa (SS)
3. Keon Broxton (CF)
4. Michael Conforto (RF)
5. JD Davis (1B)
6. Devin Mesoraco (C)
7. Adeiny Hechavarria (2B)
8. Gregor Blanco (LF)
9. Dilson Herrera (2B)

Starting Pitcher: Jason Vargas

Jason Vargas returns for his second start in spring. His debut outing was decent, allowing 1 run over 2.0 innings off a hit and a walk while striking out 3. Although he struggled over the entirety of 2018, he ended the season strong posting a 2.43 ERA and .188 BA in his last 6 starts and 33.1 innings. If you expand it a bit, he has a 2.62 ERA over his last 8 starts and 44.2 innings. Could a proper spring training bring that Jason Vargas back?

Other Things To Watch For:

1. The Mets assigned a group of players, some who were getting regular playing time, to the minors today. There were no surprises in the group. Expect to see more AB’s for regulars now.
2. Let’s write off yesterday’s 0-3 performance from Nimmo as undercookedchickenrust. He’s back in there today at DH.
3. Keon Broxton (who we looked at 2019 projections for here). So far this spring he’s hitting .182/.357/.182 in 14 PA’s.
4. You know what’s great? Conforto is hitting .333/.368/.500 in 19 PA’s. Hope that warms your heart on this cold March day.
5. Adeiny Hechavarria gets another start today and needs to start doing something with bat if he wants to make the roster. So far in 15 PAs he’s hitting .077/.200/.308

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets acquired Keon Broxton in a trade this off-season for Bobby Wahl, who was the main piece in the trade for Familia last summer. Since then, Wahl may have torn his ACL and we all learned while watching SNY that Broxton has 16 dogs.

Keon Broxton was brought in for outfield defensive depth, meaning the Mets do not expect a tremendous amount at the plate. Ever nudge closer though Keon Broxton gets to being an average hitter then greatly raises his value since he’s already a gifted defender.

2018: 84 PA, 78 AB, 4 HR, .179/.281/.410, 1.6 WAR, 77 DRC+
Career: .221/.313/.421, 81 DRC+

This is what we already knew about Broxton, can he elevate these numbers though?

(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. )

Baseball Reference sees Broxton putting up right around average hitting numbers. ESPN has a dramatic increase over last year and his career numbers and both ZiPS and Steamer see Broxton improving over last year but not near his normal numbers. What we do see in the projections is Keon’s scouting report. He has pop, but not consistent contact, leading to low batting averages.

It’s still unknown how the Mets are going to balance playing time for Keon and Juan this upcoming season. If Broxton wants to play more, he will have to hit more.

The Mets are playing two today! Yesterday they traveled to Jupiter and beat the Cards 10-8 thanks to a powerful 3-run bomb by Dom Smith and a 2-run shot by Luis Guillorme. Both players are fighting for roster spots and have been crushing it so far this spring.

Mets Lineup @ Astros:

1. Rajai Davis (LF)
2. Juan Lagares (CF)
3. Travis d’Arnaud (DH)
4. Pete Alonso (1B)
5. Gregor Blanco (RF)
6. Adeiny Hechavarria (SS)
7. Tomas Nido (C)
8. Dilson Herrera (2B
9. David Thompson (3B)

Starting Pitcher: Corey Oswalt

Mets Lineup vs Red Sox:

1. Brandon Nimmo (DH)
2. Amed Rosario (SS)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. Michael Conforto (RF)
5. Wilson Ramos (C)
6. JD Davis (3B)
7. Dominic Smith (1B)
8. Keon Broxton (CF)
9. Tim Tebow (LF)

Starting Pitcher: Steven Matz

Things to watch for in no particular order:

1. Steven Matz will be making his second start in spring training today. Last week he tossed 2.0 innings allowing 1 run over 3 hits while striking out 3. The Mets are trying to get their starters through 3 innings the second time through.
2. A lot of long-man depth is happening today. Caminero, Oswalt, Locket and Sewald are all fighting for the same roster spot and are all pitching today. Caminero has allowed 6 runs, 5 earned over 2.0 innings. Oswalt has allowed no runs and no hits in 2.0 innings. Lockett has allowed 3 runs over 4 hits in 3.2 innings (with his second stint being much better than his first). Sewald has allowed 1 run over 2.0 innings.
3. Familia had a shakey outing on Saturday and in his overall Spring line he has allowed 4 runs, 2 earned off 4 hits and a walk in 2.0 innings with a strikeout. Let’s see how he responds on short rest today.
4. After an injury and food poisoning, Brandon Nimmo looks to get his spring underway today, starting off as a DH
5. On the whole, the home lineup 1-5 looks close to an opening day lineup. Depending on injuries and where Pete Alonso starts, the whole lineup minus Tebow could be a “B” squad / day game lineup.