213 Miles From Shea

The Mets have fallen to 3 games below .500 in games that don’t matter as they face the Nationals today in a game that really won’t matter from a starting pitcher perspective. As we’ve discussed each of the last two game previews, the Mets are starting to hide their regulars from the Nationals/Marlins thus Jacob deGrom, Jeurys Familia and Justin Wilson will all be pitching in the “B” game today.

This means the remaining pitchers fighting for the last roster spot, plus some pitchers already assigned to minor league game will get more work today and some late spring exposure.

Mets Lineup:

1. Brandon Nimmo (LF)
2. Pete Alonso (1B)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. Michael Conforto (RF)
5. Dominic Smith (DH)
6. Jeff McNeil (3B)
7. Amed Rosaro (SS)
8. Devin Mesoraco (C)
9. Keon Broxton (CF)

Starting Pitcher: Hector Santiago

Things To Watch Out For:

1. Hector Santiago gets an opportunity to show the team where he belongs on the depth chart. The Newark native has pitched 6.0 innings in major league games in Spring Training over 4 games allowing 1 run from 4 hits and a walk while striking out an outstanding 11 batters. Lets see what he can do when he’s not limited to 1-2 innings of work.
2. Ryan O’Rourke is the only other lefty available for the Mets today. In 6 games and 6.1 innings this spring he has allowed 2 runs off 7 hits and 4 walks while striking out 8. So great ERA at 2.84 and an ugly WHIP at 1.737.
3. Robinson Cano had a great day at the plate yesterday and now in 37 PA’s this spring, he’s hitting .457/.486/.686.
4. Michael Conforto has had a bit of a slow spring but hit his second spring homer yesterday changing his hitting line to .244/.292/.400 in 48 PAs.
5. Today marks another game where Smith and Alonso, who are both competing for the same spot, are in the same starting lineup. Smith as the DH has hit .400/.462/.543 in 40 PA’s and Alonso the first basemen has hit .356/.396/.644 in 48 PA’s.

Let’s Go Mets!

For the first time since Jenrry Mejia got suspended, Jeurys Familia will not be expected to be the closer the for the Mets. Familia has had an unfair reputation since the 2015 post-season when the Mets collapsed in several world series games late, generally because the defense fell apart. All Familia has done since that point is be dominant.

Part of the reason he has never shaken that reputation is his WHIP. In his career it’s 1.211 but you probably already knew that because it feels like there is someone always on base when he pitches, the inning can never be easy. He still cuts through runners on base and gets the job done, many times as a Met having to go beyond one inning (thanks to Terry Collins‘ bullpen management).

Last year the Mets traded Familia to the Athletics and it felt like the Mets got hosed in the trade deal (they have since traded one of the two players, Bobby Wahl to the Brewers and got Keon Broxton out of it, so the trade seems a little more fair now). Last year Familia put up these numbers:

2018: 72 IP, 3.13 ERA, 2.65 FIP, 1.222 WHIP, 10.4 K/9, 1.4 WAR, 3.94 DRA
Career: 2.73 ERA, 2.92 FIP, 1.211 WHIP, 9.4 K/9, 3.58 DRA

Going into last year, Familia was the main player in the bullpen with Gsellman and Lugo as an experiment. This year Familia has Diaz, who is the star, and Gsellman/Lugo have figured out how to pitch in the pen. The pen is much stronger and won’t have to constantly rely on Familia to bail them out. Here is how computers see Familia’s 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. )

A 3.29 ERA from our set up man would be great for 2019. Normally I would be concerned from a high leverage reliever having a 1.24 WHIP, but Familia’s career WHIP is 1.21, it’s just how he pitches.

As a side note Familia is an odd case with projections. Generally for players who have been in the league a long time, the projected stats are close together. Look the variance though! It’s wild!

Happy Saturday! Today might be the last day for a while you see a starting pitcher for the Mets in a major league game. Yesterday we discussed how often the Mets are playing the Marlins and Nationals over the next week, so in response, as they do every year around this point, the rotation starting with deGrom tomorrow will be doing their final tuneup in “B” games on the backfield.

But that’s all for tomorrow! Today is Jason Vargas day! which is weird to say positively! More on that after the lineup:

Mets Lineup:

1. Jeff McNeil (LF)
2. Pete Alonso (1B)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. Michael Conforto (RF)
5. JD Davis (3B)
6. Travis d’Arnaud (C)
7. Amed Rosario (SS)
8. Juan Lagares (CF)
9. Jason Vargas (P)

Starting Pitcher: Jason Vargas

Things To Watch For:

1. Jason Vargas makes his 4th start of the spring and so far he’s been fantastic. In his first three games of Spring he has allowed 1 run over 8.1 innings with 8 hits and 2 walks while striking out 8. More of this please!
2. Travis d’Arnaud continues to work his way back with another day behind the plate. I wonder if we’ll start to see him, Mesoraco and Wilson split time between the A and B games to catch the regulars.
3. The Mets are back to giving Jeff McNeil reps in the outfield. He’s probably still the opening day third basemen. JD Davis is getting the start at third today as he tries to push his way onto the roster. In 45 PAs this spring he’s hitting .286/.333/.429.
4. If Jeff McNeil is the starting third basemen, then Juan Lagares will be starting in the outfield. In order for this to be the situation, he will need to outhit JD Davis to force McNeil to the infield. Right now he’s not doing that. Lagares in 40 PAs he is hitting .184/.205/.237. Alternatively, he would need to outhit Keon Broxton who is hitting .273/.467/.318 over 31 PAs.
5. In case you forgot, Pete Alonso is having a great spring. In 43 PAs he’s hitting .375/.419/.700.

Let’s Go Mets!

Edwin Diaz is arguably the most important addition the Mets made this off-season. He’s young and one of the best closers in the game. The Mets gave up a ton to get him (and Robinson Cano, but the talent loss in the trade was to get Diaz).

The Mets the last two seasons have gone through mini-firesales where they trade everyone they can for top 15 to top 30+ type pitching prospects that throw hard, hoping to overhaul their bullpen. So far they’ve had mixed results but no bonafide stars have emerged. To compete in 2019, the Mets decided to complement Lugo and Gsellman with Diaz and a reunion with Familia. On paper, the four of them represent one of the stronger bullpens in the division.

2018: 73.3 IP, 1.96 ERA, 1.61 FIP, 0.791 WHIP, 15.2 K/9, 3.2 WAR, 1.77 DRA
Career: 2.64 ERA, 2.56 FIP, 1.016 WHIP, 14.2 K/9, 2.28 DRA

Diaz’s career line is fantastic but his 2018 is unbelievable. He just had a tremendous year on the mound last year. Think about how good deGrom was last year. Jacob posted a 1.99 FIP, Diaz has a 1.61. Just statistically speaking, it is incredibly difficult to get that number so low. His WHIP was just tremendously low, two tenths lower than his career.

Here’s what computers think he’ll do for an encore:

Increases across the board from last year’s numbers, but very few pitchers have put up a season like Diaz did last year and followed it by an even better season. It’s been a while a since the Mets have had someone in the pen with an ERA around 2.5 and a WHIP below 1. If he puts up numbers closer to that average line the Mets could be in very good shape.

The lineups across the division, minus the Marlins got a lot better last year. The Mets pitchers have more difficult batters to face. They retooled with Diaz, and now we’ll have to wait and see if it was enough.

This is the first time in a while though the Mets have an exciting closer that is marked as marquee (Familia was great but for some reason never got that label). He is going to be a star.

The Mets play against the Nationals today, the Marlins tomorrow, the Nationals on Sunday, the Nationals on Monday, the Marlins on Tuesday and the Marlins on Thursday. Essentially, in their last 10ish days of spring training games they are playing half of the NL East over and over and over again. This is routinely the argument made for the Mets moving their Spring Training facility to avoid this. Anyway, don’t be surprised over the next week if Mets pitchers who should be in major league games end up in the backfields in minor league games instead.

Mets Lineup:

1. Brandon Nimmo (LF)
2. Jeff McNeil (3B)
3. Robinson Cano (DH)
4. Wilson Ramos (C)
5. Dominic Smith (1B)
6. Keon Broxton (CF)
7. Amed Rosario (SS)
8. Luis Guillorme (2B)
9. Rajai Davis (RF)

Starting Pitcher: Steven Matz

Things To Watch For:

1. Matz will make his 4th start of spring training today. Over his first three he has allowed 5 runs over 8.2 innings while striking out 7. In his last outing he allowed only 3 hits and no runs over 4.0 innings, so hopefully today is another step forward in that direction. He should be pitching between 5-6 innings today.
2. It is becoming increasinly likely that Frazier and Lowrie will not be ready for Opening Day, so McNeil is at third again today. In 28 PA’s this spring he has a .321/.321/.571 line.
3. Wilson Ramos continues to make me smile. In 27 PAs he has a .360/.407/.480 line. I’m so excited to see him the regular season.
4. Seth Lugo and Luis Guillorme are quietly having an amazing spring. We talked about Lugo yesterday. Luis is hitting .417/.533/.625 over 31 PA’s this spring.
5. Robinson Cano is hitting .414/.452/.655 over 31 PA’s spring. Beautiful!

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets overhauled their bullpen this off-season bringing in Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia and Justin Wilson on major league deals and Luis Avilan (among others) on minor league deals. The flurry of action didn’t put Lugo or Gsellman in risk of losing their spot but has put Zamora, Sewald, Bashlor, Oswalt, Smith and Rhame into competition for the remaining spots. (Many of the players just named who have already been assigned to minor league camp or in the case of Smith out for the year from TJ).

Tyler Bashlor was assigned to minor league came yesterday, which makes sense. He was a rookie last year and so far in Spring he has allowed 5 runs over 7.0 innings. With all of the arms the Mets have, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to break camp with him. There is a strong chance, almost inevitable chance, that he comes up to Queens at some point.

2018 (Also Career): 32 IP, 4.22 ERA, 5.44 FIP, 1.188 WHIP, 7.0 K/9, 0.1 WAR, 5.68 DRA

He had a good rookie campaign. Didn’t blow anyone away but didn’t see completely lost out on the mound. For the most part, projections were struggling with his playing time:

(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. )

Hold ZiPS aside because they don’t worry about playing time – most of the projections have Bashlor getting about the same amount of innings as he did last year, so probably a call up later in the season. Nothing about it is too crazy or different than 2018 outside of an FIP that matches his ERA better. The only projection that seems cool on him is BP which generally is the most conservative when it comes to projections anyway.

Happy Pi Day! The Mets are one game below .500 in games that don’t matter as they head to the Cardinals today. Yesterday Cano hit a pie in the sky homer that went way out and provided the only runs as the Mets beat the Astros 2-1. While Cano’s strength was notable, the real apple (pie) of my eye went to Noah Syndergaard. He made mince meat (pie) of the Astros lineup allowing 2 hits and 2 walks over 5.2 innings while striking out 5 lowering his spring ERA to 1.88.

In yesterday’s game preview we noted how good of a Spring Seth Lugo was having. Generally this year that has been a kiss of death for the player that day. Not for Lugo. He tossed two scoreless innings striking out three and lowering his Spring ERA to 1.04. The lefty competition for the bullpen continues to heat up like the fight for pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving table with Avilan bouncing back for his poor outing earlier in the week and pitching a clean inning yesterday.

So the Mets are now two weeks away from Opening Day and I’m pretty much out of pie jokes, or attempted pie jokes to continue. Let’s take a look at today’s lineup:

Mets Lineup:

1. Jeff McNeil (LF)
2. Juan Lagares (CF)
3. Robinson Cano (2B)
4. Michael Conforto (RF)
5. Pete Alonso (1B)
6. Travis d’Arnaud (C)
7. Luis Guillorme (SS)
8. Adeiny Hechavarria (3B)
9. Zack Wheeler (P)

Starting Pitcher: Zack Wheeler

Things to Watch for:

1. Zack Wheeler makes his 4th spring training start, aiming for 5-6 innings of work today. So far he has allowed 5 runs, 3 earned, over 6.2 innings.
2. We are starting to get to that point in the spring where pitchers have to hit! There’s a possibility that the DH leaves the NL sometime in the next few seasons so this moment in spring could soon become a relic.
3. Travis d’Arnaud is making the next significant step in his rehab, starting a game at catcher.
4. After his homer yesterday, Robinson Cano is now hitting .423/.464/.692 this Spring over 28 PA’s. Small sample size (would reduce to about 7 games worth of PAs), but still impressive.
5. Yesterday was a good bounce back day for Avilan. Wilson and Zamora go today. I would expect the Mets to carry two lefties. Avilan has an NRI and Wilson signed a contract with significant monetary value so at this point Zamora, despite having a roster spot, might be on the outside looking in to getting on the 25-man.

Let’s Go Mets!

For the last three or so weeks we’ve been looking at projections for every hitter who is or could be on the Mets roster this year and now we are going to switch gears and look at pitchers. Some of the pitchers we are going to look at over the next three weeks have already be assigned to minor league camp but since there is still a possibility of them coming up to the Mets this year, we’ll still cover them.

Jacob deGrom is coming off of one of the best seasons I’ve ever seen a pitcher put together:

2018: 217 IP, 1.70 ERA, 1.99 FIP, 0.912 WHIP, 11.2 K/9, 9.6 WAR, 2.09 DRA
Career: 2.67 ERA, 2.81 FIP, 1.072 WHIP, 10.0 K/9, 2.64 DRA

Last year deGrom was projected to be good, but he was projected to be around as good as he was in previous years. It’s really hard to explain how good his stats were last year. To keep an ERA that far below 2 all year and WHIP that far below 1 but still pitch over 200 innings? Astounding!

It’s obvious that computers don’t project him to repeat that line, but how does his projected line compare to his career?

(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. )

It looks like he is projected to be right around where he normally is. Everyone except BP decided to go with projections that were friendlier to his 2018 campaign success, BP kept their projection line in line with their projection for the year before.

It’s an absolute treat to watch deGrom pitch, and tomorrow we follow up with a pitcher with very different projections – Tyler Bashlor.

Yesterday was a game the Mets would like to forget as they lost to the Marlins 8-1 after allowing 6 runs between the 7th and 8th inning. For the most part, the offense was silent yesterday except two hits by Dominic Smith raising his average to .433 and his OPS to 1.100 and a double by Rajai Davis. The lineup yesterday was a very much a spring away game despite being midway through spring as a lot of the regular hitters stayed home in St. Lucie. Jacob went 5.0 innings allowing 2 runs on 6 hits. Things really started to fall apart for the Mets when Bashlor got up. He allowed 4 runs on 5 hits in an inning of work.

Today, could easily be the Opening Day Lineup, minus Keon Broxton and with Jacob deGrom hitting. This is the closest lineup the Mets have had yet to a starting lineup, and that’s exciting! We’re only two weeks away!

Mets Lineup:

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

Starting Pitcher: Noah Syndergaard

What To Watch For:

1. Noah Syndergaard will make his 4th start of spring today. So far he has pitched 8.2 innings allowing 5 runs, 3 earned off 8 hits and 5 walks. His WHIP is high in this small sample size at 1.5 but he also struck out an impressive 14. The Mets pushed Jacob through 5 innings yesterday so we can assume they’ll do the same for Syndergaard today.
2. Brandon Nimmo is slowly getting back into the rythem of spring. In 26 PA’s he’s now hitting .292/.308/.417
3. When I’m feeling down, I look at Wilson Ramos’ spring numbers. He’s hitting .364/.417/.500 in 24 PAs. That feels great!
4. If this was a regular season game and there was a pitcher in the lineup, I disagree with batting Rosario at 8th. His spring numbers agree with that hitting .412/.500/.882 in 20 PAs.
5. Seth Lugo has quietly put together a nice spring training so far. In 6.2 innings over 5 games he has allowed 4 runs but only 1 earned from 5 hits and a walk while striking out 8. That’s a 1.35 ERA and a 0.9 WHIP

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets made a late signing of Adeiny Hechavarria to a minor league deal this year with an invite to spring training. Hechavarria has never been known for his offense but is a defense super star. What the Mets didn’t know at the time is Lowrie and Fraizer would both be nursing injuries this late into camp and what seemed like a long shot for Hechavarria may become a reality.

So far this spring he has not impressed offensively posting a .286 OBP. Here are his numbers from last year:

2018: 274 PA, 253 AB, 5 HR, .249/.279/.336, 0.8 WAR, 89 DRC+
Career: .254/.290/.345, 78 DRC+

Computers project these numbers 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. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )

It looks like from the average line that Adeiny is projected to have a slightly better season then average, but when you look at the numbers, Steamer and BR have him below average for the season, ESPN right around average and BP way above average. This is noteworthy: BP is usually the conservative, wet blanket on player projections and are rarely this different in a positive way for the player. I’m not sure what if any thing to make of it but it is interesting.