What, Me Worry?

[Fman99]

With respect to the recently passed Al Jaffee of MAD Magazine, are we worried yet about this lineup?



Starling Marte is the only regular with an average over .250. Aside from the Piss Missile no Met has even 2 HRs. Of 30 teams, Mets are currently 27th in BA and 27th in SLG. That's pretty damn bad.

[whippoorwill]

Yes it is. How is the pitching doing? I guess with fewo ninth inning leads the loss of Diaz hasn't been huge so far

[MFS62]

Me worry.

Later

[Lefty Specialist]

Not worried yet. Small sample size. I don't think the Rays will be going 162-0 either.



But it would be nice to string together a couple of double-digit-hit games.

[cal sharpie]

To be fair, McNeil is hitting .256 joining Marte in the over-.250 club. But, yeah, it looks like Carrasco might be cooked and the bullpen worries me. That on top of a not-great offense is concerning. Ask again after the west coast trip.

[kcmets]

Much more worried about pitching.



This team will hit, and when they do, watch out!!

[Lefty Specialist]

Cookie does look cooked. Really needs a bounceback start. I wonder if there's an undisclosed injury involved, as he seems to run out of gas early in games.

[Edgy MD]

I worry about oddly colored skin tabs. And monkey uprisings.



I don't worry that the Mets have the personnel to play as well as anybody. Whether they'll execute wisely or effectively is what remains to be seen. But that's always.

[MFS62]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Cookie does look cooked. Really needs a bounceback start. I wonder if there's an undisclosed injury involved, as he seems to run out of gas early in games.

Age?



Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

FiveThirtyEight.com isn't worried.



The Mets Assembled The Most Expensive Baseball Team Ever. Is That Enough To Make Them MLB's Best Team?



Excerpt:

All of which is to say: The Mets are not likely to remain a picture of mediocrity, although early injuries to their old and expensive pitching staff could certainly turn into a longer-term problem. At the moment, the Amazins are subject to the same noise that all of MLB's less-expensive teams face, too. In some areas, April volatility has even been good to the Mets. They were third in the league in Defensive Runs Saved through Monday's games, despite a fielding configuration that changed very little after finishing a few runs below average in 2022. Maybe the Mets have figured some things out in their efforts to turn batted balls into outs. Either way, all forms of regression to the mean should come soon enough. That will mostly be a good thing for the Mets — and the guy who spent all that cheddar trying to make them great.

Read it all at: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mets-payroll-slow-start-2023/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mets-payroll-slow-start-2023/

[smg58]

The hits will come. And I'll see how the pitching looks at that point before I start worrying about that.

[batmagadanleadoff]

What really worries me is that if this keeps up, Alonso's gonna have 68 HR's by the end of this season.



Halavah.

[Edgy MD]

He just moved that marker.

[batmagadanleadoff]

75 HR's. It's Pete's destiny to best whatever Aaron Judge does. Now I'm really worried.





Mehhhhhhhhhhlvin!

[metirish]

My state of worry is unfortunately game to game

[Frayed Knot]

So for all our worrying so far (not all of it unjustified) they've won three series out of four played so far this season so things can't be considered a total disaster.

OK so that one series loss was a disaster (two of the three games anyway) and they've already burned more than half of their games vs the Marlins for the year.

But, still, any series win is a nice thing to have so let's take it and move on.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: So for all our worrying so far (not all of it unjustified) they've won three series out of four played so far this season so things can't be considered a total disaster. OK so that one series loss was a disaster (two of the three games anyway) and they've already burned more than half of their games vs the Marlins for the year. But, still, any series win is a nice thing to have so let's take it and move on.

I'm not saying anything is a disaster, yet, (other than Diaz's injury) but that stuff about winning series always rang empty for me. I mean, if a team wins every series, that's one thing, and a good thing,



But this season, so far, the Mets are 3-1 in series, yet only one game over .500. It's the games, not the series. Just like winning "two out of three" drives me fucking nuts. So what's a team to do after they've won the first two games of a series? Lose the third game on purpose? Take its' foot off the gas pedal a bit? Relax? To fulfill the two out of three stupid meme because it already won two games?

[TransMonk]

Are we going to run out of pitchers? It's only April 18.

[MFS62]

=TransMonk post_id=122814 time=1681861309 user_id=71]
Are we going to run out of pitchers? It's only April 18.

[Edgy MD]

Two Truths:



1) There are always plenty of pitchers.



2) You can always use more pitchers.



But hey! They still haven't even launched their greatest weapon!

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I'm a little WERRIED.



Lost 4 in a row to not so good SF and Wash teams, the fielding has started to slip, and the starting pitching is as weak as its been in years.



This whole weekend looks rainy too

[ashie62]

Until the rotation settles into something resembling a routine they will scuffle



Verlander and Max should be fine. Carrasco is anyone's guess

[Edgy MD]

Until they score, the starting pitching can be Walter Johnson, Satchell Paige, Tom Seaver, Sandy Koufax, and me, and they still won't win.



It's interesting to see how Nimmo-dependent the O is. When he hits, they win handily, and when he don't, not so much.

[kcmets]

Where's that worry thread? They're only one game out of the last playoff spot. Welcome to watered down baseball. What I worry about more than the playoffs is that the Mets will suck bad enough this season that it'll turn off Ohtani from wanting to come and play here.

BBRdotcom still has them as a wildcard here... https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2021-playoff-odds.shtmlMLB Playoff Odds

[metsmarathon]

so, like, what'd we do so wrong over the offseason to put us where we are right now?



it's not like our new additions are all that much the problem, and our prospective-additions-that-weren't aren't exactly lighting the world on fire.



i think the only pitcher that was potentially tied to the mets that looks like a missed opportunity was nate eovaldi, right? but if megill and peterson weren't hot garbage alongside carrasco, that wouldn't be quite as big of a miss, would it? if those two were doing what they should, the fragility of our older pitchers and the growing pains of senga wouldn't hurt as much.



the offense could use vientos and mauricio possibly coming up and hopefully producing - like the reliable producers that rookies always are - but the real problem is escobar, marte, nido, and canha all sucking bhmc, with a side suck of underwhelming inconsistency from the top of our roster.



thoughts?

[Edgy MD]

Not all problems are solved in the offseason. Not all answers can be found there.



Capitalism may tell you that amassing acquisitions from a limited marketplace alone is the path forward. Capitalism lies.

[ashie62]

They can take care of this from within



I'd like to see half of the money spent in the off-season and use it to cure a disease

[Frayed Knot]

Lindor isn't hitting nearly as well as 2022

Neither is Marte, Cahna, Escobar, or anyone who wears a catcher's mask.



On the mound side of things, Scherzer isn't pitching as well or as often, ditto Carrasco.

No Bassitt, no Diaz.

And two of the three mound additions have pitched very briefly so far or not at all.



Those are the bigger problems rather than who might have been left on the cutting room floor.



Trying to remake a team on the fly via older, big ticket acquisitions, as Unca Steve is doing so far, is a risky route to take and it worked a whole lot better last year than it is so far on this one.

[MFS62]

So at what point should that worry turn into real concern that they can't turn it around?

4th of July?

The All Star Break?



Later

[metsmarathon]

we may already be at that point. or this might just be a shit stretch of bad baseball by a good team.



i'll panic come memorial day. or tomorrow. whichever feels more right.