Current State of the Mets

[Willets Point]

A thread for intelligent, well-read Mets fans to discuss how the team is doing...NOW!!!

[Farmer Ted]

Just looked at the teams stats on espn.com:

NL Batting: 1st
NL Pitching: !st
NL Fielding: 12th

[Willets Point]

Also tied for 2nd best record in all of baseball and once again in first place in the NL East, for what it's worth in late April.

Personally, I'm surprised. I figured the weak starting rotation would keep the Mets down, but so far the batters have tended to bail out the pitchers and each starter has had a least one awesome performance thus far. The question is, can the Mets sustain this?

[Gwreck]

I'm not so sure we can call the rotation "weak" anymore.

Sunday notwithstanding, it would seem that the Mets will likely continue to win a great majority of the games pitched by Glavine, Hernandez and Maine.
If Perez can continue to pitch 80% as good as he did in the two good starts he had, we'll make the playoffs.

I worry about Pelfrey and who might replace Hernandez if he gets injured.

D. Wright worries me very little actually, given the lineup he plays in.

I would think the Mets will likely continue to win at least at the pace they are now, until the May 18-24 stretch of the schedule (vs. MFYs, at ATL).

[Guest Edgy DC]

What are they ranking by?

[metirish]

I don't think where the Mets are is a surprise overall, I suppose I am a little surprised with Green,he's been a good hitter in his career so maybe I should not be surprised,Wright's lack of power and RBI are a surprise.

Smith has been a very pleasant surprise.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

The Mets have been doing quite well despite a slow start by clean-up hitter, Carlos Delgado. David Wright is still searching for his first home run of the season. However, Alou, Green, and Valentin have been collectively better in the bottom third of the order than most would have expected. Picking up the slack for one another is what good teams do. Reyes is emerging as a true superstar with almost limitless potential. Carlos Beltran is again playing as one of the elite players of the league. So the line up seems solid.

The starting pitching has been surprisingly good over the course of the season. Hopefully, Pedro can give them a boost in the final months of the season. If not, the pitching has shown that they are sufficient for the team to be contenders.

The bullpen should be improved when Mota becomes available, so I feel pretty good with the Mets prospects for this season.

Injuries are always the wildcard that can change everything very quickly. It should be a fun summer of baseball.

[metirish]

I must like the word surprise.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Offense: We lead the league in runs scored, despite having played at least one fewer game than most of the other teams. I doubt we'll continue at our current pace (we're on track for 981 runs, which would crack our franchise record of 853 in 1999), but I think we'll be in the top 3 NL teams in RS when it's all said and done.

Reyes & Beltran have been flat-out amazing (and likely playing over their heads), while Alou is doing about as you'd expect while healthy. Green's been a welcome suprise, but I don't quite trust it yet. Valentin's been solid, making me think maybe last year wasn't a fluke. I think Wright will work out whatever's ailing him, and if I had to guess, I'd say it will come right around the time Reyes, Beltran & Green start to come back to earth a little.

In short, our production will drop, but as some guys get cold, others will get hot, and we'll stay fairly consistent offensively.

Defense: We lead the lead in runs allowed--and RA/Game. Glavine & El Duque have been solid, as expected, but Perez & Maine have been a pleasant surprise. I expect a lot of inconsistency between those two as the season goes on, but at this point, I don't think expecting them to both be a little better than the average pitcher is out of line. I'm up in the air on Pelfrey. I'm willing to bet that we'll wind up with better-than-replacement-player numbers from our #5 pitching slot, however, either from Pelfrey stepping up or from sending him down and calling up Chan Ho . . .

I'd say our rotation is currently pitching above its collective head, but that we'll wind up slightly above average over the rest of the year, with decent potential for break-out. Both Maine & Perez have the goods to be dominant, and if one of them can put it all together this year, we might have something approaching the ace we're currently missing. If they BOTH break out, the rest of the league's in serious trouble.

I like our depth in AAA, and think we can fill in adequately for any short-term injuries.

Our pen's gotten the job done for us so far, but Schoeneweis, Feliciano & Burgos give up way too many walks. Wags, Smith & Heilman have been solid, though, and I think all in all, we'll have an above-average pen again. If Mota & Sanchez come back and are effective, we could have a superior one.

In general, I think our pitchers have gotten a bit lucky. Most balls that are hit hard seem to find their way into someone's glove, and while some of that is good defense, a lot of it is luck too.

Overall, we're overreaching, but not by a lot. The question is, will we be able to hold off the Braves for the NL East title? Personally, I think it will be a dog fight, with the loser winning the Wild Card.

[nymr83]

Edgy DC wrote: What are they ranking by?

my guess would be something archaic like fielding percentage if the defense is ranked 12th and the pitching 1st. the number of double plays that have been turned speaks to a defense bailing out the pitchers, not the other way around

[Guest Edgy DC]

]Maine and Perez... If they BOTH break out, the rest of the league's in serious trouble.

Skippy. And keeping in mind that we also have potential for a breakout from Humber and Pelfrey, and we don't necessarily need a breakout from any of them, I think we're in pretty good shape and we don't need no Milledge/Danny Haren deal.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Much more likely we spring for a name-brand reliever at the rate we're going.

[Frayed Knot]

btw, Our RS/RA differential of +52 is BY FAR the best in MLB - only the BoSox & Dodgers (both at +32) are better than +25.

Small sample sizes like 18 games generally mean should should take stuff like that with several grains of salt, but from that aspect you could argue that we've been somewhat underacheiving (Pythag record = 14 - 4) and that the annoying Braves (just +6) are well ahead of where they "should" be.

Only 4 of our games are listed as "close" (I think that's defined as being within 1 or 2 runs) and we're 2-2 there.

[Guest Rotblatt]

]Skippy. And keeping in mind that we also have potential for a breakout from Humber and Pelfrey, and we don't necessarily need a breakout from any of them, I think we're in pretty good shape and we don't need no Milledge/Danny Haren deal.

I totally agree. If we can get a Willis-type player, then I'm all for it, but otherwise, I think we should stick with what we've got.

I realized that I forgot to mention Petey in my earlier post. I'm not counting on him at all this year, but there's another place where, if absolutely everything goes right, we could get a solid boost late in the season.

]btw, Our RS/RA differential of +52 is BY FAR the best in MLB - only the BoSox & Dodgers (both at +32) are better than +25. Small sample sizes like 18 games generally mean should should take stuff like that with several grains of salt, but from that aspect you could argue that we've been somewhat underacheiving (Pythag record = 14 - 4) and that the annoying Braves (just +6) are well ahead of where they "should" be. Only 4 of our games are listed as "close" (I think that's defined as being within 1 or 2 runs) and we're 2-2 there.

Good point. I definitely think we're playing over our heads, though--there's no way we're going to stick at our current pace of 981 RS and 513 RA (franchise record--532 in 1988)--so it's probably fair to say that our current run differential isn't indicative of our actual ability.

BP puts our adjusted equivalent RS at 97 and RA at 62 (12-6 record) which strikes me as a bit better gauge of how we're doing. Still amazing (873 RS, 558 RA), but not off-the-charts implausible.

Incidentally, Braves check in at 10-9 and Phillies at 10-8 after BP's adjusting and equivocating.

[smg58]

We're talking about essentially the same team that came within an inning of the World Series last year. Pelfrey has replaced Trachsel (a wash) and Alou has replaced Floyd (a big upgrade over last year's Floyd, at least), but superficial changes otherwise. I haven't seen any reason to think that picking up where they left off last year should surprise anybody. The biggest difference is that it looks like we'll have to contend with the Braves, but that might actually make September interesting this time around.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Thing is, since our record isn't matching our differential, our RS/RA ratio could drop, while we still win at the same rate.

[Willets Point]

Well, not exactly the same team as 2006. Pedro is injured, Glavine & Hernandez are aging and may be on the downside, and Maine/Perez/Pelfrey are all lacking in experience. That is why the rotation was questionable going into the season and despite it's success thus far is still questionable.

[smg58]

Do the BP adjustments factor in that having a deep bullpen (like Atlanta does this time around) or a particularly sucky one (like Philadelphia) matters in close games? The Phillies have lost several games already to the Mets and the Braves because of their pen. Since their pen was a major source of concern going in, I don't see that as bad luck.

[Guest Rotblatt]

]Do the BP adjustments factor in that having a deep bullpen (like Atlanta does this time around) or a particularly sucky one (like Philadelphia) matters in close games? The Phillies have lost several games already to the Mets and the Braves because of their pen. Since their pen was a major source of concern going in, I don't see that as bad luck.

Well, they do correct based on league offensive level, pitchers faced, home park, and defense, so maybe, but I'm not positive.

Looking at the breakdown BP gives, it seems to be suggesting that the Phillies ran into some above-league-average pitchers (they gained 4 RS through adjustments) and some really formidible lineups (lost 8 RA).

Sounds plausible to me, at least without looking closely at their schedule . . .

[Guest Edgy DC]

Edgy DC wrote: Thing is, since our record isn't matching our differential, our RS/RA ratio could drop, while we still win at the same rate.

F'rinstance, last night.

[dinosaur jesus]

The RS/RA ratio went up last night; it's the differential that went down. The overall ratio is close to 2:1, which is insane. Only one team has ever done that for a full season: the 1876 Chicago White Stockings.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And peeps are still bitching at WFAN?

[Willets Point]

Should I be worried that the Mets have dropped back to back games to our two most hated rivals? That they've allowed a shitload of runs in the past couple of weeks? That the offense is up and down like a yo-yo?

Or should I just quit being so goddamed crabby?

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Of those 3, I'd worry about the yoyo-i-ness of the offense the most.

Though we've come out of it (so far) OK from a W-L perspective, this mini-funk we're in now -- which I trace back to the beginning of the Cubs' series -- is the second one we had this year (the other was struggling to score consistently vs. Colorado, DC and Floriday late last month). We also won a decent share of those games but looked bad doing it.

Our pitching is good but not good enough to withstand a lack of offense: It's exactly what killed us in September/the playoffs last year.

I think we miss Alou some right now, and could surely use Delgado breaking out for the fiirst time this year.

[Willets Point]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Our pitching is good but not good enough to withstand a lack of offense: It's exactly what killed us in September/the playoffs last year.

Ok but when the pitching is allowing 12, 9, 8, 7 & 8 runs as they have in 5 of the last 10 games the lack of offense is immaterial imho. I really think the pitching should be good enough that scoring 3-6 runs will win you more games than not.

[nymr83]

]We also won a decent share of those games but looked bad doing it.

you're goig to look bad sometimes over a 6-month season, i think a good team wins games while it "looks bad" and then turns things on, in spurts if need be. i don't think the Mets ever really got going last year until after the all-star break.

[TransMonk]

We're still a game better than we were at this time last year (tonight marks the anniversary of Beltran's 16th inning HR against the Phillies...my favorite game of 2006) in what has been tougher competition both in the league and in the division.

Even with that being said I think the next 2 games against Atlanta are fairly important ones for the 2007 campaign. Winning games we look bad in doesn't matter if we can't beat ATL and they stay right with us in the standings.

[Frayed Knot]

]Current State of the Mets

Georgia

[Willets Point]

Wow, the Mets are a whole 7 games behind their pace of last season. But the Phillies and Braves are only doing slightly better than last year.

Regardless, and despite last night's suckfest, I'm still feeling pretty good about the Mets going into September.