213 Miles From Shea

One of the best surprises in Spring Training has been Dom Smith. He’s slimmed down, working on his sleep schedule and making solid contact with the ball. In a perfect world, he hits so well that the Mets have a solid reason to delay Pete Alonso‘s arrival to Queens. But with the injuries to Frazier and Lowrie, Alonso’s time may be at the start of the season, which could spell trouble for Smith.

2018: 149 PA, 143 AB, 5 HR, .224/.255/.420, -0.6 WAR, 77 DRC+
Career: .210/.259/.406, 79 DRC+

Dom had an opportunity last year and squandered it. He’s playing right now like he knows he squandered it and has something to prove. The computers think he’ll put up the following in 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. )

The best projection for him by far is ZiPS. Remember, ZiPS does not try to predict playing time which is going to be the most difficult thing to prodect for Smith this season. ZiPS has him getting on base at a clip about 35 points higher than his career numbers, and in a small sample size in spring training, this is what we have been seeing.

Dom Smith was never going to be a power bat, contact was his game. Now that he’s in much better shape, his better contact could be turning into him reaching base safely more often.

We have always loved and still love Dom Smith here. Hoping this is the season he figures it out!

Amed Amd Amed Amed Amed Rosarioooooooo.

Whenever the Mets have a surprisingly good year, there’s at least one player who breaks out. 2015? Michael Conforto. 2019? Maybe Amed Rosario? If Rosario starts to really hit the ball well, it would be a huge boost to the infield.

2018: 592 PA, 554 AB, 9 HR, .256/.295/.381, 0.2 WAR, 83 DRC+
Career: .255/.290/.384, 80 DRC+

From August 10th on last year Rosario hit .303/.335/.444. While I don’t think that Rosario will hit that for an entire season, if he could produce a line that somewhere between that and his overall season numbers, it would be a massive improvement. Here’s hows projected right now:

(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. )

THe 92 DRC+ from Baseball Prospectus is still pretty far under the average baseball player (and right now near the bottom for projected DRC+’s in the Mets starting lineup), but a 92 DRC+ is a huge improvement over last year’s 83 and his career mark of 80.

My gut tells me that most of these projections are a bit low for Amed. I think he ends up somewhere between Steamer and ZiPS. BP/ESPN don’t show him growing much at all and it feels like he’s still in the upswing phase of his career.

I know the ending of Spring Training games shouldn’t matter, but yesterday was a very Mets way to end a game. The Mets loaded the bases to the start the inning and were able to trade an out for a run. Then, the Mets grounded into what should have been a game ending double play, but an errant throw led to the runner being called safe first and the tying run to score except the Mets were called for runner’s interference at 2nd (the correct call) and the game ended just like that.

Mets Lineup:

1. Juan Lagares (CF)
2. Luis Guillorme (SS)
3. Travis d’Arnaud (DH)
4. Dominic Smith (DH)
5. Devin Mesoraco (C)
6. Rymer Liriano (RF)
7. Adeiny Hechavarria (3B)
8. Dilson Herrera (2B)
9. Rajai Davis (LF)

Starting Pitcher – Zack Wheeler

Travis d’Arnaud makes his spring debut today as a DH. Essentially d’Arnaud is in an open competition with Devin Mesoraco for a roster spot. Working against d’Arnaud – will he even be ready by the start of the season? He has to compete with his own health in addition to Mesoraco who makes the ace of the staff feel quite comfortable. The advantage that d’Arnaud has is his bat. When he is healthy, his bat is intriguing, and a more entertaining, albeit riskier, option over Mesoraco.

Other Things To Watch For:

1. In Wheeler’s first start of the spring, he allowed 2 unearned runs over one inning. I would expect that he goes between 2-3 innings today.
2. Smith went hit-less yesterday so his spring slashline “dropped” to a .417/.533/.417
3. Mesoraco – competing with d’Arnaud, has had only 6 PA’s in spring so far. His one hit was a homer, he also grounded into a double play.
4. The Mets are really giving Rajai Davis, Gregor Blanco and Rymer Liriano a long look, which is exactly what they should be doing. Rymer has hit .214/.267/.429 over 15 PAs. Davis has hit .400/.455/.900 over 11 PA’s
5. Hechavarria has recorded 8 PA’s in spring and has two walks. He’s still searching for his first hit.

Let’s Go Mets!

T.J. Rivera may be one of the more difficult players to project on the Mets this year. In 2017 he performed so well, there was thought that after Cabrera, he could be the future second basemen of the Mets. Then he go injured and needed Tommy John surgery, which opened the door for McNeil who made phenomenal use of the opportunity to play everyday.

2017 Stats: 231 PA, 214 AB, 5 HR, .290/.330/.430, 0.4 WAR, 101 DRC+
Career: .302/.334/.445, 102 DRC+

As a replacement player for the Mets in in 2017, he did quite well. To put his 101 DRC+ in perspective, the Orioles in 2019 have one batter that is projected to have a DRC+ better than 100, so 2017 TJ Rivera would be the second best hitter on the 2019 Orioles.

Rivera has a couple of things in his way right now. Mainly, he’s still not 100%, and after a year of setbacks that’s the last thing he needs. The Mets also traded for JD Davis who is pushing for his bench spot. On top of that, Gavin Cecchini so far in spring has playing hard for a roster spot.

Here’s what computers think TJ will do this year:

(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. )

Ignore ZiPS for a moment, they don’t factor in estimated playing time. ESPN and Steamer see Rivera basically getting no playing time. BP was so down on playing time that they didn’t project him in the annual. All of the projections see Rivera hitting below his career numbers, but his career numbers are definitely affected by small-sample sizes over two seasons. His OPS isn’t great but is pretty good for the Mets bench, especially compared to last year.

The two questions for Rivera:

1. When will he be healthy enough to play?
2. When he is healthy, is there room for him on the active roster?

Happy Syndergaard day! Happy Edwin Diaz day!

Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s deGrom start! Jacob made quick work of the Tigers yesterday allowing 1 hit and striking out 4 over 3.0 innings. His impressive performance was followed by clean innings from both Gsellman and Lugo. Mesoraco, who deGrom credits success to last season, hit a home in the game and Amed Rosario led the game off with one. Rosario now has a 1.409 OPS in spring.

Mets Lineup:

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

Starting Pitcher: Noah Syndergaard

Today is one of the few times you’ll watch a Mets game that Syndergaard is starting and is not the main event. The main event today is the Spring debut of Edwin Diaz, the big (expensive in terms of prospects) piece from the Cano/Diaz trade this winter. Last year he finished a league leading 65 games (for a league leading 57 saves) totaling 73.1 innings over 73 games. He posted a 1.96 ERA, 1.61 FIP, 0.791 WHIP, 15.2 K/9 and a 208 ERA+. All just outstanding numbers. He was an All-Star, finished 8th in Cy Young voting and 18th in MVP voting.

Other things to watch in no particular order:

1. Jeff McNeil has had only 4 PA’s in spring over two games and is still searching for his first hit, but has scored a run.
2. In 9 PA’s so far, Robinson Cano has 4 hits, all singles, leading to a .444/.444/.444 slash line. Just really wanted to share that. Four is a great number.
3. JD Davis has had a ton of playing time this spring and has made the most of it. In 5 games in the last week and 16 AB’s, he has 5 hits including a double and a homer leading to a .313/.313/.565 line.
4. Dominic Smith already had a great early spring training batting line heading into yesterday’s game, and then he added two more hits. Now in 11 PA’s he has 5 hits and 3 walks leading to a .625/.727/.625 line.
5. In his first outing this week, Syndergaard allowed 2 hits while striking out 2 over 2.0 innings.
6. Today should be Hector Santiago‘s third game of spring. He has tossed 3.0 innings allowing a run (a homer), and two hits while while striking out 5.

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets won again! More importantly, Jason Vargas allowed only 1 run over 2 innings and Smith, Avilan, Bashlor, Rhame, David Peterson and Torres behind him all pitched one inning without allowing a run. Michael Conforto and Pete Alonso each collected a couple of hits and JD Davis knocked in a double. Today the Mets will travel to Lakeland and bring with them a good crop of pitchers to watch.

Mets Lineup

1. Amed Rosario (SS)
2. Andres Gimenez (DH)
3. Dominic Smith (1B)
4. Rymer Liriano (RF)
5. Devin Mesoraco (C)
6. Tim Tebox (LF)
7. Gregor Blanco (CF)
8. Gavin Cecchini (2B)
9. Arismedny Alcantara (3B)

Things to watch in no particular order:

1. Jacob deGrom is making his second spring training start today. In his last outing he pitched one inning and allowed one run over 2 hits. He’ll go at least two innings today
2. Lugo and Gsellman are both listed after deGrom today. The pair were important in the pen last year and look to be locked in the pen this year. Seth Lugo has pitched one inning this spring with a walk and nothing else. Gsellman has allowed 2 runs off 2 hits and a walk in one inning of work.
3. PJ Conlon will see work today! The Belfast native had a clean inning of work his last time out.
4. One roster start battle that is on going – a lefty spot out of the pen. At the start of spring there was one for Wilson and maybe one for Zamora. Zamora has to fight off Avilan and possibly Santiago. Avilan had a good inning of work yesterday. This will be Zamora’s second outing, in his first he allowed a walk and nothing else.
5. Tim Tebow gets the start for the first time in a couple of days. I’m on team “Tebow makes baseball fun if you don’t take him to seriously”, so I’m ok with this early on in Spring. I know that’s a divisive opinion.
6. Blanco is getting another start in the outfield today as he continues to get the long look in spring we expected him to get. In 11 PA’s this year he is hitting .222/.364/.586
7. Dominic Smith in 7 PAs has hit .600/.714/.600. He’s looked good so far but also small sample sizes.

After the Cabrera trade last year the Mets finally called Jeff McNeil, despite his numbers in the minors demanding to be called up weeks before that. Last year the Mets were concerned about not playing McNeil at his position (second base). This year, they’re going to play in him the outfield (and at one point this was the Mets retort against signing Bryce Harper).

While all of this was going on, Jeff just flat out hit and instantly became a fan favorite:

2018: 248 PA, 225 AB, 3 HR, .329/.381/.471, 2.4 WAR, 119 DRC+

His WAR and DRC+ were on the higher side for the team despite only playing the last two months of the season. Coming back for a second season, we should expect to see a dip in stats, but how much?

(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. )

While programs see a significant reduction in slash line stats, the average line of .278/.336/.432 still would have made McNeil one of the best hitters on the Mets last year. A DRC+110 in his sophomore year isn’t too bad either!

As a side note, Baseball Reference tends to be more conservative in their projections (similar to Baseball Prospectus), it’s interesting that its BR that has his OPS the highest, even more than ESPN which regularly over projects players.

If the Mets are successful this season it’s going to be because of Jeff McNeil. Let’s see what he can do in an encore performance!

After losing a couple of games badly over the few days the Mets were able to pounce all over the Marlins yesterday, 14-6. Amed Rosario had a nice 2 hit day, JD Davis at DH had a 3 hit day including a homer, Gavin Cecchini raised his small sample size OPS to 1.056 and Arquimedes bounced back on the mound with a scoreless, clean inning of work. Today the Mets will travel to the Cardinals.

Mets Lineup:

1. Rajai Davis (LF)
2. Michael Conforto (RF)
3. Wilson Ramos (C)
4. Pete Alonso (1B)
5. JD Davis (3B)
6. Juan Lagares (CF)
7. Danny Espinosa (DH)
8. Adeiny Hechavarria (SS)
9. Dilson Herrera (2B)

Jason Vargas will make his spring debut today. His 2018 campaign was pretty awful and he ended with a 7-9 record over 20 starts and 92.0 innings with a 5.77 ERA, 5.02 FIP, 1.413 WHIP and a 64 ERA+. His career ERA is 4.27, FIP is 4.40, WHIP is 1.318 and ERA+ is 93. 2018 was the lowest ERA+ since 2006 and his first since 2013 that wasn’t over 100. So, he had a bad year. One hope: last year he didn’t have spring training to get himself going as he was injured, hopefully this year he get himself back to being himself.

Things to watch for in no particular order:

1. Ryder Ryan is available to pitch today. He looked good in his first inning of work this spring. Since being traded to the Mets he has become a different type of pitcher (stat changes here) and could make a lot of us, myself included, eat crow about complaining about the Bruce trade
2. Drew Smith is also set to mak/e his second appearance in Spring today. Last time out he allowed 2 hits and a walk in an inning, but got out of it unscathed. He has a live arm that did well in 28.0 innings and 27 games in the Majors.
3. Also making his second spring appearance is Luis Avilan who is trying to break into the Mets roster (preview of Avilan here). In his first game he allowed a hit and that’s it.
4. JD Davis will get another attempt to show off his bat! After his great day yesterday, he’ll have another opportunity to see some more quality pitching early in a spring training game.
5. All the outfielders competing from an NRI are on the bus today! Rajai Davis is starting, Gregor Blanco and Rymer Liriano are on the bus.

Let’s Go Mets!

Well this might be awkward to write.

Part of the Mets success plan in 2019 was a redundancy of bats in the infield. Now the depth is being tested with Todd Frazier out with a quad and and Jed Lowrie being out all of spring training so far. When Lowrie returns, he figures to be slotted at third or where-ever makes sense for him to play. He’s coming off a career year and the Mets need his bat:

2018: 680 PA, 596 AB, 23 HR, .267/.353/.448, 4.8 WAR, 126 DRC+
Career: .262/.335/.414, 111 DRC+

Lowrie got on base at a clip almost 20 points higher than the previous year and slugged over 30 points higher as well both raising his DRC. A 126 DRC+ in the Mets lineup last year would have made him one of the best hitters. Here’s what the computers 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. )

For the most part, the computers see him coming down to Earth this season, hitting a bit less than his career, getting on base at about the slam clip and slugging a bit less than his career. Thus, he see’s his WAR drop in half. But BP still sees him posting a DRC+ over his career number and a 113 would still put him in the top half of hitters on the Mets last year, easily.

Hopefully he heals quickly but also takes his time to do the work he needs to in Spring. If he’s cleared for baseball activities the last week of March, then take the extra week to rehab before coming North. The Mets don’t need a lingering injury issue this year.

Good thing the win/loss record doesn’t matter in Spring Training because the Mets lost both games yesterday. On the road they fell 4-3 against the Braves and at home they were crushed 14-4 as three key players for the season (Wheeler, Familia Gsellman) all gave up 2 runs in their inning of work.

Today we will finally see some pitchers make their second appearance while others are still making their spring debut’s.

Mets Lineup:

1. Jeff McNeil (LF)
2. Amed Rosario (SS)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. JD Davis (DH)
5. Keon Broxton (CF)
6. Rajai Davis (RF)
7. Tomas Nido (C)
8. Gavin Cecchini (3B)
9. Jeremy Vasquez (1B)

Steven Matz starts his first spring game of 2019 today. Last year was the first season he pitched a full season in the majors making 30 starts and going 5-11 over 154.0 innings with a 3.97 ERA, 4.62 FIP, 1.247 WHIP and 93 ERA+. Last year we saw Wheeler turn a corner in his development. A couple of years ago Wally Backman was singing Matz’s praises as the best in the young minor league arm crop at the QBC. Could this be the year that Matz turns that corner as well?

Things To Watch In No Particular Order:

1. Walker Lockett is scheduled to pitch again today. In the first spring training game of the year he had a brilliant first inning and then couldn’t pitch around defense miscues behind him leading to 2 runs coming across in 2/3rds of an inning.
2. Anthony Kay allowed a hit and struck out a batter in his spring debut. He was ranked as the #6 prospect in the Mets system this year at MMO. You can read about the ranking here.
3. When Arquimedes Caminero (preview here) pitched over the weekend, the SNY booth decided to teach us all Arquimedes’ principal (despite the Mets booth calling rho, “p” the entire time). The rest of the debut went south for the veteran who allowed 5 runs over 1.0 inning. He’ll look to make a better impression today.
4. With the injuries to Frazier and Lowrie, JD Davis is definitely getting a look right now. Can his bat hit major league pitching? If he keeps starter spring games, he’ll see major league arms.
5. The injuries to Lowrie and Frazier have provided a pathway for Gavin Cecchini to get back on the roster (not a likely possibility but a better chance than previous). Let’s see what he does with this opportunity!

If the Mets lose today, hopefully it won’t be by double digits!