213 Miles From Shea

Short Answer: Probably Not.

Longer Answer: Why Not?

There have been some surprising teams over the last few seasons and the Mets could be one of them this year if the following happens. (Warning to pessimists, this is the most optimistic post I write all year. I forget reason in this post and I know it is nearly impossible for everything to go the right way. If you are going to point out how impossible this is, well I agree with you).

What needs to happen for the Mets to reach 90 wins?

• Curtis Granderson needs to not only be productive but provide protection to David Wright
• Ike Davis needs to be a shade of his 2012 second half self. 32 homers would be nice, 20 or so with some consistent hitting would be plenty
• Chris Young needs a bounce back year. It happened with Byrd last year and Capuano not too long ago. Maybe the Mets can do it again.
• Terry needs to start Lagares
• Tejada needs to be a shade of his 2012 self. Doesn’t need to be as good but just some portion of it
• Colon is hopefully close to his production last year
• Wheeler just needs to be Wheeler
• Gee needs to be Gee
• It’s time for Mejia to step up!
• Syndergaard has a great rookie year
• Lagares Needs to start #OnThisListTwice
• d’Arnaud should start to improve
• The bullpen needs to be reliable

The Phillies are fading in the division and the Braves have taken some injury hits. The Marlins are emerging this year and the Nationals are still strong. If the Mets could beat the Phillies for most of the season and stay competitive with the Marlins and Braves (and beat out of conference teams) then the Mets have  shot. A lot of things do need to go right for the Mets.

If the Mets can have an offense this year that is respectable, and rotation that projects near to where it should be, they could make a run at the wild card. #StartLagares

CBS Sports has discovered that before Ian Desmond agreed to a 2 year deal worth 17.5 million to buy out his arbitration years, the Nationals made an attempt to sign him long term at about 90 million over about 7 years (exact terms are unknown). Desmond didn’t sign.

This doesn’t mean the Nationals won’t extend Desmond, it just means it will take more than that.

On Desmond’s side, and I can’t believe I’m saying this due how big a 90 million dollar deal is, turning down this extension makes sense. As CBS Sports pointed out, Andrus got a 120 million over 8 year deal from the Rangers, and Desmond is a better player than Andrus. Before last year, Desmond was set to have a break out year with the Nationals and he delivered. If Desmond stays healthy over the next two seasons, he looks to have a huge pay day especially with the contracts that players like Peralta have received.

I do wonder if the Nationals offered an identical deal to Andrus if Desmond would have accepted. The Nationals also deserve no fault in this. They made a legitimate offer to a player that is being compared to a really unfair contract (Andrus’s contract is ridiculous) and with the amount the Nationals will soon have to commit to younger players, it is wise to be cautious.

A spring battle between Tejada and Flores is not quite a surprise, but I think a lot of us are surprised how close of a competition it has been. Back at the start of Spring Training, Tejada was in “the best shape of his life”. Then through some normal spring things, and not signing Drew, Flores was given a shot to blow us away with his skills. But he couldn’t take advantage.

This was true for both Tejada and Flores until the last week or so when they both have started to hit.
Tejada: 31 AB, 3 R, 7 H, 3 2B, 1 RBI, .226 BA, .273 OBP, .323 SLG
Flores: 41 AB, 9 R, 10 H, 1 2B, 2 HR, 9 RBI, .244 BA, .319 OBP, .415 SLG

The above are their season stats, which look a lot better through the lens that the most of the offensive production has happened in the last two weeks.

Tejada has made some good days this Spring but has also jumbled routine plays. Flores falls in the same camp. The offense production favors Flores and ultimately Flores plays routine defense, which is what you need when you put a bat in the lineup and cross-fingers for defense.

If I were the manager of the Mets, at this point I would start Flores and have Tejada as a utility fielder. They are similar-ish on defense and one (Flores) has a higher ceiling on offense. I rather see (read: pay to see) Flores figure things out at Short with Tejada as back up than see (read: pay to see) Tejada try to figure things out at the plate with Omar or Seratelli as a backup. If I was also the manager of the Mets, centerfield wouldn’t be a competition and Lagares would be out there every day.

Hopefully Terry does the right thing.

Or Sandy comes in and makes things more interesting (Drew, Franklin, etc…)

The following menu via the Daily Telegraph:

Thoughts:

1. I have never seen wings served in a mitt at a stadium. Nor have I ever had wings at a stadium. If they were in a plastic mitt, I would totally have wings at a stadium.
2. It says nachos in the baseball helmet, but are those fries? Is this a chips/fries , crisps/chips confusion thing?
3. That superdog is huuuuugggggeeeee. 60 cm? Huge.

The MLB is returning to the idea of opening the baseball season overseas this year with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks playing in Australia soon (March 22-23). Australia has a baseball market that is starting to grow with a new fall league from the last few seasons, new MLB stars, and better WBC performance, so the MLB playing there sounds good.

But there are problems with overseas play. It prevents all teams to start off an even footing. It ruins that idea of everyone starting on the same weekend. One team loses two home games.

There are two paths to a solution here. First is the MLB doesn’t do this anymore, which doesn’t seems likely.

The second, is EVERY team does this. Whether it is for Opening Day, the back end of the All-Star Weekend, or for Spring Training, every team does it. Here’s the proposed program:

1. Two teams commit to a country for two seasons. They are interleague teams that are not rivals.
2. One team is home for the first two games in the first year. The other team is the home team for the two games the following year. The team that was the home team has only 79 games played in their city that year but is guaranteed to have the US Opening Day spot.
3. Alternatively, the teams alternate being home, everyone plays 80 US Games
4. Games are played in 2015 and 2016 in countries that are trying to qualify for the WBC, which has qualifiers towards the end of 2016.
5. This practice is suspended for the 2017 WBC. Occurs in 2018 and 2019. Suspended in 2020 for an expanded WBC qualifier, then the 2021 WBC. Process continues.

The downside this it makes the start of the year very disjointed. Even though this is my idea, I don’t really like it. However if we are going to continue this process, we should try to make it more fair.

The Mets played the Tigers yesterday. However if you didn’t live in the Detroit area or have MLB Gameday Audio, you would have no idea that this occurred. Anyway, Syndergaard had start number 2, deGrom continued to show promise and the Mets improved their Spring Record to 3-5-1.

The Optimistic Mets Fan Saw:

• deGrom pitch another two innings without allowing a run. He allowed a hit and a walk that was it.
• Kolarek, Carreno, Walters and German all pitch no runs, one inning outings. Walters got the win and German the save.
• Lagares 2-3, R
• Clark with 2 RBI’s to win it for the Mets in the ninth

The Pessimistc Mets Fan Saw:

• that Thor is human. Syndergaard is still working on control which is why he will be a mid-season call up and not break camp with the team. This is to be expected and not really a big deal
• Omar 0-3

The Mets and Cardinals met for a game yesterday as David Wright and Daniel Murphy got their first spring action. It also marked the first time this season that the Mets ended a game in a tie. What did our different Mets fans see?

The Optimistic Mets Fan Saw:

• Brown 2-2, 2 R, HR
• Murphy 1-2, 2B
• d’Arnuad 1-2, 2B
• Recker 2-2, HR
• Montero 2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, none earned, 1 K
• Matz 1.0 IP, 1 H, 3 K
• Black 1.0 IP, 1 BB, 2 K
• Familia 1.0 IP, 1 K

The Pessimistic Mets Fan Saw

• Dice K allow 6 hits in 2 innings. He had three K’s but his WHIP is a huge concern for him
• Eric Young 0-3
• Chris Young 0-2
• Captain Kirk 0-3

The game showed some promise in some areas, but still hoping for some members of the outfield to step up and make it clear.

Fantasy season means players projections are ubiquitous right now. This is part of a multi-week series where we will go over projections player by player, averaging what we can to see how the computer models and pundits think the 2014 Mets players will do.

Well this is it! The last post in a 22 part series look at the Mets in the upcoming season. At some point this year we will see Noah Syndegaard in Flushing hopefully dominating hitters. This is tricky but sometimes computer models can predict how these players do, so lets take a look:

MLB: 5-5, 4.30 ERA, 90.0 IP, 32 BB, 75 K, 1.33 WHIP
Oliver: 6-5, 4.00 ERA, 95.0 IP
PECOTA: 1.8-2.8, 3.74 ERA, 34.3 IP, 12 BB, 34 K, 1.25 WHIP

Average: 4.3-4.3, 4.01 ERA, 73.1 IP, 22 BB, 54.5 K, 1.29 WHIP

I think PECOTA really low balls the amount of starts that Noah will get in the majors, but Noah will also be limited to 145.0 innings this year, which means it is hard to see him pitching deep into the season. I think the rest of the averages is pretty accurate, an ERA around 4 and a WHIP around 1.3 looks about right for his rookie debut. There is of course the chance he comes in and throws absolute heat and shatters these numbers.

Should be exciting to see what he does!