Things I never want to see again

[roger_that]

And yet...if Pete's lineout to LF with bases loaded yesterday had gone out of the park, and they'd managed to pull out the victory, I think we'd all be willing to cut Mendy a little slack today. The manager can do a lot, but he can't make his team score runs when they're not hitting, can he?

I haven't done the work, don't know how to do it exactly, but I suspect that the Mets' record will show a lot of games where the hitting didn't show up while they got decent pitching, and lost, and a lot of games where the hitters were excellent and the pitchers couldn't get anyone out, and lost. A manager can't control that, can he?

If a team usually has ten games per season like that, I suspect we had fifteen, or twenty, something like that. Which makes the difference in where we are today, and where we would be with a more normal run distribution.

[Lefty Specialist]

I suspect Mendoza not being fired immediately was because they didn't know if they'd limp into the playoffs or not until the very last moment. These things are planned in advance on a team that's out of it.

Hard to reward 4 months of horrendous baseball with continued employment. All the glitter from 2024 got washed away this year.

But Stearns needs to look at himself, too. He put together a pitching staff out of pipe cleaners and paper clips and it blew up on him. He was lucky it worked for 69 games, but it fell apart over the next 93.

[Fman99]

Andy Martino reporting on social media that it's widely expected Mendy will keep his job for 2026.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

I don't think you can lay this at Mendoza's feet. It's not his fault that all the starters and all the good relievers except Diaz went down with injuries -- and that the deadline deals didn't work out. He's trying to play the players he has. Sterns had a rough year. Last year all his moves worked out -- Severino, Winker, Inglesias -- and he looked like a genius. This year practically none of them did.

[smg58]

I'm going to give myself a few days before I think in detail and in a cool-headed fashion, but I'll say a few things here.

I do think CF is right about the pitching lab. Our pitching staff collapsed. Whatever metrics they looked at had nothing to do with pitching sustainably.

Mendoza seemed to have a gift for making the wrong decision on when to stick with a pitcher and when not to every single time. Or at least it felt that way.

Good relief pitching is necessary but it can also be a crapshoot. Plus it was a sellers market for pitchers (the deadline almost always is), but a buyers market for hitters. Perhaps they should have looked at Mullins' defensive numbers this season, realized he wouldn't be an upgrade over McNeil or even Nimmo in center, and gone for a better bat.

[Fman99]

Andy Martino reporting on social media that it's widely expected Mendy will keep his job for 2026.

 

OE: Sorry, I missed that this had been posted before me

[roger_that]

Here's a little of the work I was talking about above:

The Mets lost more extra-inning games than they won, 6-7. This is partly bad luck (extras are always a crapshoot) but a good team should win more than they lose.

They lost 3 more one-run games than they won, 23-26. Again, a good team will and should win more of these than they lose. Logic says that a team that goes 83-79, as they did, should win at least 25 out of 49 one-run games.

The difference in these two factors alone would, of course, have gotten them into the playoffs, and a strong showing would have comfortably given them 90 or so wins.

The weirdest stat I've come across has to do with their Pythagorean figures for the season's second half: despite scoring 6 more runs than they gave up (340-334) they managed to lose NINE more games than they won (28-37) over the second half.

This is very difficult to do. With a more normal distribution of their runs, they should have won something like 33

out of their last 65 games. A record of 33-32 would have, again, given them 87 wins and a comfortable playoff berth. This is scoring the same exact total of runs and giving up the same exact total of runs in the last 65 games that they did in fact score and give up.

These factors combine to suggest that the 90-win team we felt they were was realistic. They would hit better in games where they already had scored enough runs to win, and they wouldn't hit in the spots where a hit meant winning the game. Likewise with pitching.

I'm not sure what Mendoza could have done to prevent this.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I had technical difficulties yesterday; MLB.tv terminated my subscription one day early and I had to deal with customer service to get it turned back on. So I missed the first few innings. Was there a reason that Manaea was pulled after 1.2 scoreless innings and 38 pitches? I know he hasn't been terribly reliable lately, but pulling the starter in the second inning is awfully risky. And/or foolish.

[roger_that]

By way of contrast, Washington, a 96-loss team, won 5 out of 8 extra-inning games, and went 24-18 in one-run games.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

I had technical difficulties yesterday; MLB.tv terminated my subscription one day early and I had to deal with customer service to get it turned back on. So I missed the first few innings. Was there a reason that Manaea was pulled after 1.2 scoreless innings and 38 pitches? I know he hasn't been terribly reliable lately, but pulling the starter in the second inning is awfully risky. And/or foolish.

 

He walked two batters in a row. I suspect the plan was a bullpen game, but I thought he'd get the chance to get out of it. I trusted him more than Stanek.

[Edgy MD]

Nothing can be laid all at anybody's feet. It's a team game and organizations can prosper while some guys in the organization are doing more harm than good. Some organizations can flail despite a handful of guys — even the manager — performing wonderfully. You sort out where these spots are, adjust, and move on.

I'm not a big Mendoza fan. There are, in fact, things he does that drive me nuts. But I tend to suspect that many of those things are tied into organizational philosophy, and so not obviously fixable by replacing him.

If the Mets do replace him, he will be fourth straight Mets manager to last for exactly two seasons — no more, no less (depending on how you count Carlos Beltran). While I am certain there are a few guys out there better than him (and certainly many worse), most of the things that drive me crazy have generally persisted across all of these managerial regimes.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I tend to agree with that. I won't be upset if Mendoza stays, and I won't be upset if he goes.

There have definitely been times when I've questioned his pitching moves, as recently as yesterday. As Edgy said, sometimes it may have been Mendoza's decision, and sometimes it may have been because he was following orders (or policies) from upstairs. We really can't blame him for the lack of reliable pitchers, but I do think he could have made better (or at least less damaging) use of what he had.

It looks like he'll be back. Okay. Whatever. Let's see what kind of players he gets. I do hope that Pete and Diaz return.

[metirish]

[TWEET]

[/TWEET]

[Edgy MD]

VIPs rocking a sporty half-zip pullover sweatshirt over their business attire.

Never want to see that again.

[Cowtipper]

I don't want to see Reed Garrett and Ryne Stanek ever again. Or Helsley, Blackburn, Montas, Lovelady, Justin Garza, Zach Pop or Colin Poche. All the other no-name dingleberries they tried are worth at the very least a 2026 minor league look, but the guys I mentioned I've had enough of. Especially Garrett. He's been around two-plus years and always starts off hot, creates the illusion he's good, then collapses. For example:

July 1-end of season, 2025: 6.17

Before that: 2.25 ERA

July 1-end of season, 2024: 4.91 ERA

Before that: 3.23 ERA (but even the 'before that' was marked by a 7.62 ERA from May 24 to June 29)

[Frayed Knot]

Stearns, speaking to reporters today at CitiField: (posted 3:45 by NY Post/Justin Tisch):

“I believe Carlos has all the same traits and assets that I believed in when I hired him two years ago,” Stearns said.

“I still believe he’s a very good manager, and I think he’s gonna demonstrate that.”

“I’m the architect of the team. I’m responsible for it,”

[roger_that]

Seems to me (no real context here) they played very poorly with 2 or fewer runs. When they scored 2 or fewer runs, they went 6-39. Four of those six victories occurred in April.

They won 6 games when they scored 2 or fewer runs. In the 23 games they scored 2 runs in, they won only 6, 6-17 in those games seems unusually low to me.

In the 14 games where they scored only 1 run, they didn't win any. 0-14. That seems unusually low to me.

And of course in the 8 games they got shut out in, they won none. That seems about right to me.

[roger_that]

They played about what you might expect in games where they scored 3 runs, which is to say under .500 but not too far under: 10-14.

The thing that makes this seem worse than it is is that they actually had a winning record when they scored 3 runs until very late in the season. Through July 22, they were damned good with 3 runs, 9-4. From that point on, though, they went 1-10 when they scored thrice, the last time on August 16, which was, I believe, McLean's first game.

So in the last month and a half, they scored 3 runs nine times and won none of them. That's gotta hurt.

[roger_that]

At the other extreme, they scored seven runs or more 38 times, and they won 36 of those.

This stat goes back to my case that they had a horrible distribution of runs this year.

Many times in those 38 games, they scored runs well beyond what they needed to win the game, which means they accumulated impressive offensive stats (which we acknowledge) but these impressive stats didn't produce quite as many victories as they should have. They would blow out opponents frequently and then the next night be unable to come up with a sorely needed single, time and again.

What good does it do you to score 19 runs, when victory in those two games required only 6 or 10? It looks good on the individual stat sheets, but it's frustrating when two nights later you lose 4-3, with the bases loaded in the ninth and no outs. The other 19 run game was followed by a game that was tied 8-8 going into the 7th but they got shut out the final three innings, leaving men on base each inning.

[roger_that]

From a defensive position, they had 37 games in which they gave up 7 or more runs. They won 4 of those. A record of 4-33 in slugfests doesn't seem too good to me.

They never gave up more than 12 runs in a game, as opposed to the five games they scored more than 12 runs themselves. 19, 19, 13, 13, 13. Outscored their opponents in those games 77-27. Again, inefficient run distribution. We would have loved to have a run or two of those 50 excess runs in some crucial game where a run meant everything.

There were 8 games that their opponents scored in double figures (10 or more runs), 88 runs total in those 8 games, of which we won none. The Mets on the other hand scored in double figures 14 times, and went 14-0.

[Edgy MD]

The expected win percentage for teams that score two runs in a game in 2025 is .168. The Mets went .133 — lower indeed. They won six of 45 such games, when the expected team would win 7.56.

I would suggest that difference means little in the great scheme of things but, of course, that's the difference is between the Mets being a playoff team and going home.

[roger_that]

The catch-all number is the Pythagorean W-L. Their R/ RA ratio suggests that they were an 86-76 team, when on the playing field they were 83-79.

I'm trying to show various ways they hit well enough, pitched well enough, to win a few more games than they did, and so far all the stats I can find point in that direction. It's very hard to show how Mendoza could have affected the distribution of runs more efficiently.

If this is all luck, then you have to be able to argue that they could easily have been as lucky as they were unlucky. Instead of finishing 86-76 as Pythagoras says they should have, they might have cracked 90 wins and I wouldn't be scrutinizing these numbers as carefully as I've been, just accepting it as the Mets' due.

[roger_that]

The expected win percentage for teams that score two runs in a game in 2025 is .168. The Mets went .133 — lower indeed. They won six of 45 such games, when the expected team would win 7.56.

I would suggest that difference means little in the great scheme of things but, of course, that's the difference is between the Mets being a playoff team and going home.

 

Is that .168 figure for two runs per game, or two runs or fewer per game?

[Edgy MD]

Two runs — no more and no fewer.

[roger_that]

Seems to me (no real context here) they played very poorly with 2 or fewer runs. When they scored 2 or fewer runs, they went 6-39. Four of those six victories occurred in April.

They won 6 games when they scored 2 or fewer runs. In the 23 games they scored 2 runs in, they won only 6, 6-17 in those games seems unusually low to me.

In the 14 games where they scored only 1 run, they didn't win any. 0-14. That seems unusually low to me.

And of course in the 8 games they got shut out in, they won none. That seems about right to me.

 

Well, then they didn't play 45 games in which they scored two runs. As I said, they played 23 such games, and won six. That's a little better than .250 ball.

[ashie62]

I'm ok with Mendoza coming back but he's got to stop pulling pitchers at the slightest drop in velocity and hard contact

If he can't goodbye to him and Hefner

[Frayed Knot]

The catch-all number is the Pythagorean W-L. Their R/ RA ratio suggests that they were an 86-76 team, when on the playing field they were 83-79.

 

I tend to view Actual vs Pythag differences as more random than anything, particularly when the number isn't all that high.

So two things I found looking at the league's Pythag numbers overall:

1) MLB teams as a whole had eight fewer Pythagorean wins than actual wins.

That seems odd in that one would expect the positives and negatives to more or less cancel each other out. Not sure what would cause that other than an accumulation of rounding errors, although you'd think that those errors wouldn't collectively tilt in one direction enough to skew things about 1/4 of a win per team.

2) A difference of three wins (in either direction) isn't that much. Eight teams won four or more games more they were 'supposed to' [8, 7, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4] based on Pythagorean projections, and five showed a negative Pythag of more than three wins [-4, -4, -7, -9, -11]. So if the Mets Win total is different from where it 'should' have been, it's a variation of less than what nearly half of all other teams (13 of 29) saw this year.

[roger_that]

Depends on how you define "random", doesn't it? A small Pythagorean difference is probably insignificant, a kind of rounding error while a huge one probably points to something material. But since it's a ratio of runs scored to runs allowed even an insignificant difference points to luckiness or unluckiness. Or efficient distribution of runs vs an inefficient distribution.

[ashie62]

Mike Sarbaugh. He pushed runners as if they had his speed

[MFS62]

Mike Sarbaugh. He pushed runners as if they had his speed

 

You got your wish.

Later