This Team Is Not Clutch

[Centerfield]

The problem with this team is that they are just not clutch. It's baked into their DNA.

Kidding. I have no idea what's in their DNA. But I mentioned something in the last IGT that got me thinking. For a team that's been very good, they don't really have any "signature" wins this season. No game really stands out as a great comeback victory. This site tracks come from behind victories. The Mets have 19, which ties them for 9th in MLB. The Dodgers are first with 29. The Cubs are tied for 5th with 21.

https://champsorchumps.us/records/most-mlb-comeback-wins-in-2025

This site also tracks 9th inning comeback wins. The Dodgers have 2, the Cubs have 2. Philly has 3, and Atlanta has 2. The Mets have zero.

Examining their 19 come from behind wins:

1. March 31 vs. Miami. 1-0 lead in the first inning. Mets tied it in the 3rd. Took the lead in the 5th

2. April 2 vs. Miami. Mets were down 4-1 to Miami. Tied it in the 8th inning. Won in 11.

3. April 5 vs. Blue Jays. Toronto up 2-0. Mets scored 2 in the 8th, 1 in the 9 inning to win. Lindor SF.

4. April 8 vs. Miami. Miami took a 2-0 lead in the first. Mets tied it in the 3rd, broke it open in the 5th.

5. April 18 vs. STL. STL was winning 3-2 in the 6 inning. Mets pulled ahead in the same inning. STL tied it in the 9th, Lindor walkoff.

6. April 23 vs. Phil. Tied 2-2 going into extras. In 10, the Phils scored the ghost runner. Mets scored 2 to win it in the 10th.

7. May 2 vs. STL. STL had leads of 1-0 and 3-2 in the first and third innings. Mets went ahead in the 5th and pulled away.

8. May 5 vs. ARI. Arizona leads 1-0 after 1. Mets take the lead in the 4th inning. Hold on to win.

9. May 12 vs. PIT. PIT leading 2-1 top 7. Mets scored two in the bottom of the 7th.

10. May 17 vs. NYY. Yankees had an early 1-0 lead after 3. Mets went ahead top 4. Yankees tied it in the 6th, the Mets got a SF in the top of the 9th to win it.

11. May 24 vs. LAD. Dodgers led 2-0 after 2. Mets took the lead in the 4th inning.

12. May 25 vs. LAD. LA lead 1-0 top 1. Mets scored two in the bottom of the first.

13. May 26 vs. CHW. Mets trailed 1-0 in the 8th inning. SF in the 8th and 9th won it for the Mets.

14. May 27 vs. CHW. CHW scored 2 in the first. Mets answered with 4 bottom 1.

15. May 31 vs. COL. COL scored 1 in the top of the first. Mets answered with 4 in the bottom half.

16. June 1 vs. COL. COL scored 1 in the 3rd. Mets scored 3 in the 4th.

17. June 6 vs. COL. Losing 1-0 in the 7th, the Mets scored 2 to take the lead in the 7th inning. COL tied it, Mets score two top 9 to win it.

18. June 10 vs WAS. Losing 4-2 in the 8th inning, Soto and Alonso drive in runs to tie it. McNeil doubles home the ghost runner in 10.

19. June 21 vs. PHI. Losing 3-1 in the 3rd, the Mets go back to back to back to take a 4-3 lead. Pull away.

As you might expect, most of these are just early leads that are overcome in the course of a regular game. You don't really tend to think of overcoming an early 1-0 lead as a "comeback win". 3 of these wins are against Miami, 2 against the White Sox, and 3 against Colorado. So while it's good to win those games, there's a part of you that's annoyed you were losing in the first place.

You figure a signature win is one where you're chasing a lead late, then come back to win. Like game 161 last year. Or Game 5 in Milwaukee. The Mets have 7 wins this year where they were chasing a lead in the 7th inning or later, and then came back to win.

1. April 2 vs. MIA (Down 4-1 in the 8th, score 3 to tie in the 8th, then win in 11th)

2. April 5 vs. TOR (Down 2-0 in the 8th, score 2 in the 8th to tie, win in the 9th)

3. April 23 vs. PHI (PHI scores the ghost runner in 10, Mets score 2 in the bottom of the 10th)

4. May 12 vs. PIT (PIT leads 2-1 in the 7th. Mets take the lead bottom 7)

5. May 26 vs. CHW (CHW winning 1-0 in the 8th, Mets hit a SF in the 8th and 9th to win it)

6. June 6 vs. COL (Col winning 1-0 in the 7th, Mets score 2 in the top of the 7th)

7. June 10 vs. WAS (WAS winning 4-2, Mets score 2 in the 8th to tie, then win in the 10th on the McNeil double)

Of these wins, 5 are against ****** teams, so it's hard to think of those as "signature wins". Though the June 10 game against Washington was awesome. So that leaves us the April 5 Toronto game, which let's be honest. Most of us have forgotten about it. And the April 23 day game against Philadelphia. This was the Zach Wheeler start that capped off the sweep.

So if I had to pick a "signature win" for the 2025 Mets, I guess it's that day game against Philadelphia. The Mets almost had a signature win in their Friday night, May 23 game against the Dodgers. This is the game where they scored 3 runs in the 9th off Tanner Scott. But they couldn't complete the job, so instead, this became a cock-punch loss.

Speaking of cock-punch losses, I count a bunch.

1. April 25 vs. WAS. Leading 4-3, the Nationals score 2 in the ninth off Ryne Stanek to walk it off

2. April 27 vs. WAS. Mets blow a 7-1 lead. Nationals score 2 in the ninth off Ryne Stanek to walk it off

3. May 23 vs. LAD. The 13 inning debacle

4. June 3 vs. LAD. Muncy 9th inning HR, 10th inning Freeman fly ball to Nimmo

5. June 5 vs. LAD. The Conforto game. Mets give up 3 in the 8th.

6. June 13 vs. TAM. The 6 run inning for Blackburn/Kranick. Started the losing streak

7. June 17 vs. ATL. The Ozuna 3 run double off Reed.

What does all this mean? Not much I guess. But for a team that has been good except for this recent stretch, it kinda sucks that they haven't given us that great moment. But has instead given us a bunch of cock punch losses.

[Chad ochoseis]

A bit of math geek-out follows.

The Mets are batting .245 (639 for 2609) on the season, and .215 with RISP. I'd prefer to work with OBP and not BA, but I couldn't find their OBP with RISP.

I also couldn't find the number of at-bats they've had with RISP, but on average, about 24% of ABs come with RISP. So, figure in rough terms that 626 at bats have been with RISP and the Mets have gotten 134 hits.

On average, if the Mets' true overall BA is .245, you'd expect them to get 153 hits in 626 at-bats. Using some standard mathematical assumptions, this is distributed normally (i.e. according to a bell curve) with a standard deviation of 10.76.

We're assuming 134 hits, or 19 fewer than expected, or about 1.77 standard deviations below average. There would be about a 4% chance of that happening by luck alone.

5% is about where statisticians start considering that something didn't occur by luck alone.

I'm oversimplifying by avoiding issues like sampling error, but this is about where we'd conclude that it isn't just bad luck, and we have enough of a sample to say that yes, there's a real problem here.

Not that I know what to do about it. Or that anything is certain. Things with 4% probabilities of occurring do happen by dumb luck sometimes.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Who gives a ****? The Mets had the best record in baseball for most of this season. That means that the Mets had the most wins for most of the season. If they're not coming from behind, that means that they're usually ahead from the get-go. Because, you know, they have just about the most wins in baseball.

And they're still one of baseball's very best teams, bad week and all.

Give me a ****ing break already. Three of their first four hitters are MVP candidates. I'm sure every team has that going on.

Again with the clutch crap.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Who gives a ****? The Mets had the best record in baseball for most of this season. That means that the Mets had the most wins for most of the season. If they're not coming from behind, that means that they're usually ahead from the get-go. Because, you know, they have just about the most wins in baseball.

And they're still one of baseball's very best teams, bad week and all.

Give me a ****ing break already. Three of their first four hitters are MVP candidates. I'm sure every team has that going on.

Again with the clutch crap.

 

(And another thing ...)

Because the runs that the Mets score early on don't count as much as the runs they might score late in the game.

[Frayed Knot]

I also couldn't find the number of at-bats they've had with RISP, but on average, about 24% of ABs come with RISP. So, figure in rough terms that 626 at bats have been with RISP and the Mets have gotten 134 hits.

 

808 PAs / 674 ABs going into today's (Sat 6/28) game -- so that's 25.7% of their PAs w/RiSP [3,144 total PA] or 24.3% of ABs [674/2,771] . Mets have a higher than average OBA so it stands to reason that a higher pct of their plate appearances would come with runners on while their BA is right at MLB average.

A simpler way to look at all this is via OPS which is the stat that most closely correlates to runs scored.

The correlation between RS and BA is positive but not all that strong. SLG is a stronger link, OBA is better still, and OPS better than all of them.

Mets started today 6th of 30 in MLB OPS, yet 14th in runs scored.

Of the top 11 OPS teams, every other one has their RS (1-30) rank within two slots (one way or the other) of their OPS rank

The only team with a wider disparity than the Mets (-8) is the [fill in the blank] A's who are 12th in OPS but 24th in RS

The Brewers (+12) are the team on the other extreme: 19th in OPS, 7th in runs scored.

Not surprisingly the Brews' 703 overall OPS turns into 740 w/RiSP while the Mets go in the opposite direction: 743 to 694

This all comes on the heels of the stat thrown out during last Saturday's game by the FOX crew which showed the Mets 3rd in hard hit pct, behind only LAD and NYY.

And since you figure that a higher hard hit rate should beget a high OPS, the Mets are somewhat failing to turn their hard hits into bases won. Not a big gap (3rd to 6th)

but one that implies a few too many at'em balls and not enough fortune in finding holes. Then, once you tack on their failure to turn that already lower-than-expected

OPS into runs at the expected rate, their run scoring troubles just get compounded.

[Centerfield]

We’ve been noting the poor OPS with RISP for just over a month. And though we all thought it would even out toward their overall OPS it’s stayed terrible.

So the question becomes at what point does this thing, which is usually randomness and bad luck, actually become a thing?

I still think it will even out. But I’m getting sick of waiting.

[rchurch314]

clutch remains not a thing. They've got a few black holes, Torrens, Taylor, but really the problem in June has been pitching.

[rchurch314]

really the problem in June has been pitching.

[batmagadanleadoff]

really the problem in June has been pitching.

 

I think that's mainly it. No coincidence that this brutal stretch began, more or less, with Senga's injury. Replacing innings from your best pitcher with innings from the worst pitcher in the rotation is never a recipe for success.

[Frayed Knot]

Clutch remains not a projectable thing. That doesn't make it non-existent.

When a team is in the upper echelon [top 6] in OBP, OPS, SLG and yet middle of the pack in runs scored that points to consistently not getting hits as often at the right times or situations. The fact that, through more than half a season now, the team's OPS is 70 - 80 points lower runners on (in scoring position or otherwise) than it is with bases empty backs that up.

With bases empty the collective team is bit better than this season's version of Francisco Lindor. With runners on they're somewhere between Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Clutch remains not a projectable thing. That doesn't make it non-existent.

 

 

Sure. There are, of course, clutch hits. What doesn't exist, however, is clutch hitting. All a team can do is stockpile as many good hitters as it possibly can and hope for the best.

And besides pitching, the baby Mets of 2022 are also killing the Mets. Francisco Alvarez has been so bad that he's not even a major leaguer anymore. Other than a pretty good week and a half, two week stretch last month, Brett Baty's entire baseball career, all of it, has been vomit inducing. And Mark Vientos has been playing like the pre-breakout version of himself all season long.

[Cowtipper]

This Team Is Not C̶l̶u̶t̶c̶h̶ Good

Fixed it for you.

[Frayed Knot]

Sure. There are, of course, clutch hits. What doesn't exist, however, is clutch hitting. All a team can do is stockpile as many good hitters as it possibly can and hope for the best.

 

We're playing semantics here. No one is arguing that 'clutch hitting' is something that certain players or teams do or do not "own", or that what happened last week is predictive of what will happen next week. But we can assess what has already happened and that's that this team has been lacking with timely hits for essentially the entire season and in doing so their output of runs scored has been far lower than what would normally be expected from the input.

Compared to the six teams closest to them in OPS (the three just above them plus the three just below) the Mets are averaging nearly 2/3 RS/G lower than the average of those six, a rate that puts them more than 50 runs* fewer than expected for the season to date.

* 43 fewer than the Yanx, -80 to Cubs, -64 to Tigers, -29 to Red Sox, -35 to Rays, -17 to Phils

[metirish]

Maybe Ron is lurking here as he just brought up the clutch argument while Soto was at bat

[kcmets]

For two generations going back the 28,800 baud Mofo modem

days posters have been chasing their tails about clutch.

Teams's sucking and underperforming seems accurate enough.

[Centerfield]

Beyond the numbers with RISP, my original complaint in this thread is that this Mets team simply does not fight back after being behind.

They’ve overcome a 3 run lead exactly once. That was against Miami in the second series of the year.

Outside of that game, every other team that’s built a 3 run lead at any point in the game has gone on to win. Basically once behind, the Mets fold. So the idea that they might come back today after falling behind 5-0 is even more far fetched than it would be normally.

In many cases, like today, not only do they not come back, they fall even further behind (outscored 3-1 after the 5 run outburst).

There’s no such thing as a clutch hitter. But this team has failed to hit in the clutch.

There’s probably no such thing as a “fight back” player. But this team has not fought back all year long. And it’s now half a season.

[batmagadanleadoff]

That's because the Mets can't hit when they're trailing. Probably on purpose. They give up when they're behind. As soon as they're down a run, they're making after-the-game dinner plans. When you make baseball player money and can afford to eat anywhere, there's so many great restaurants to choose from wherever they play, being that the cities that have major league baseball are major cities. Even Cincinnati, too, I suppose. They'll never ever come from behind to win a game for the rest of our lives till the end of the world.

Oh, enough already.

[Edgy MD]

These Mets are not clutch enough!

[FIMG=400]https://www.trentonian.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/AP25086829491767.jpg?w=862[/FIMG]

This clutch is not Met enough!

[FIMG=400]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/5b/4f/c35b4f58c3122634cc5ef2b6f4b0fc7b.png[/FIMG]

[Frayed Knot]

Worst offenders

Lindor: Bases Empty 882 OPS -- Men On 571 -- w/RiSP 566

Nimmo: 820 -- 705 -- 679

Soto: 1134 -- 618 -- 596

McNeil: 917 -- 686 -- 754

Alvarez: 672 -- 626 -- 561

Vientos: 675 -- 603 -- 571

[Centerfield]

Basically, everyone except Alonso.

[Frayed Knot]

Pete [737 -- 1090 -- 1150] sometimes seems like he's the only thing keeping this team from being shut out every night.

Also Torrens and some marginal gain from Taylor, but neither of them play everyday or gives you much offense to begin with.

And it's not just that production is down from the rest of the crew when 'ducks are on the pond' (whether in scoring position or not), it's that it's not even close.

Every one of them loses at least 100 points of OPS when bodies are on base with Lindor losing over 300 and Soto over 500 (the latter of which scarcely seems possible).

Even when it's a stat as simple as HRs: the Mets are 6th in MLB in the number hit but a shade over 2/3 of theirs are solo (and lately more like 90% *) while the MLB avg is 59%

* actually 90.48% -- 19 of their last 21

[Centerfield]

Honestly, that seems like that should be impossible. And of course Alonso was the only one to get a hit with RISP today.

It's simply incomprehensible how bad this team is playing.

[rchurch314]

Soto has a .091 OPS with no outs and a runner on second, but with 2 outs and a runner on second that jumps to .930.

So obviously if the 8th batter hits a lead-off double, the 9th hitter and Lindor should both just intentionally strike out.

[MFS62]

I re-scanned the thread and it seems that no one* has used the appropriate old-time baseball word, so I will.

They choke.

Later

* I may have missed it

[Centerfield]

The Mets have now overcome a 4 run lead.

[Centerfield]

They've now overcome a 4 run lead twice.

They finally had that game where the starter falters, they fall behind, then chip away and win it late. This thread is just under a month old. Since then:

July 4 vs. NYY: Losing 5-4 in the 7th, McNeil hits a 2 run HR and the Mets come back to win.

July 8 vs. Bal. Losing 6-2 in the 8th inning, Mets score 4 runs in the 8th on Lindor and Alonso HR. Win it in 10

July 12 vs. KCR. Losing 3-1 in the 8th inning, the Mets score 7 over the last two innings to win going away.

July 21 vs. LAA. Fall behind 4-0 early, eventually win 7-5.

Four times in two and a half weeks.

[Frayed Knot]

So I figured I'd revisit this thread with the second half of the season in the books.

As expected, the Mets weren't nearly as un-clutch in the second half as they were in the first: regression to the mean and all that.

It wasn't quite enough to make the year as a whole 'good' in that sense, but it was at least less bad.

When we looked in June, the Mets were 6th (of all 30 teams) in OPS but 14th in runs scored, the second highest gap between expected RS rank and actual RS rank (only ATH had a wider gap). By the end of the season they were still 6th in OPS but had jumped to 9th in runs scored. Still not quite where you'd like to be, but a much smaller deviation from the expected. Several teams were as many as five or six slots lower (MIN, HOU, KCR).

Looking at how the Mets compared to the teams closest to them in OPS (as we did back in June) they averaged some 15 fewer runs scored (or about 1/10th of a RS/G) as compared to the three teams above them and the three below. The average would have been closer to 25 runs fewer except that West Sacramento was even worse than the Mets so they dragged the average down. Back in June the Mets were right around 2/3 of a RS/per game below what their most similar OPS teams were scoring which put them around -50 runs scored.

As far as individual players went, all the regulars except for Alonso were significantly worse across the board when hitting with runners on base vs bases empty.

Vientos, Alvarez, Nimmo, and McNeil all were around 100 points worse with runners on and w/RiSP than w/bases clear. Meanwhile the big boys, Lindor & Soto were considerably worse, Lindor around 300 OPS points worse, Soto a stunning 500 points.

Final numbers

Lindor: 862 (OPS w/bases empty) 720 (men on base) 750 (w/RiSP)

Nimmo: 765 - 754 - 888 (no wonder he set a personal RBI high)

Soto: 1027 -- 786 -- 859 (still bad, but compared to where he was ... )

Alvarez: 714 -- 879 -- 800

Vientos: 685 -- 726 -- 747

Baty: 740 -- 759 -- 810

[Centerfield]

Great work. I remember checking those numbers around the end of August and was surprised how much they had changed. They went on that tear after Gelbs reported that change in philosophy on fastballs, before regressing in September.

All of this providing no solid answer to, were the Mets unclutch or unlucky?

I posted this in another thread.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast?type=batter-team&year=2025&position=&team=&min=q&sort=barrels_per_bip&sortDir=desc

The Mets batted ball metrics were terrific. #1 in hard hit balls, #2 in hard hit %. #2 in average exit velocity. They were #2 in number of balls barrelled. #2 in barrel % for batted balls, and also #2 for barrel % against plate appearances. By all these metrics, the Mets should have had an elite offense. So was it just bad luck?

They were 5-13 in one run games in the second half. After winning their first 3, they finished 2-13 over their last 15. They lost 3 of 4 extra inning games in the second half, Pete's walkoff against Texas being their sole victory.

When they scored runs, they gave up runs. They lost three games by a score of 7-6. But when they pitched well, they didn't hit. The lost five games by a score of 3-2.

Is this terrible luck? Or was there something off about this team?

[Centerfield]

Also, the Mets BABIP was .287. 20th in MLB.

https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/batting-average-on-balls-in-play

[roger_that]

Is this terrible luck?

 

I'll go to my grave insisting on this.