Worries here

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Let's see, we had a shitty spring training and despite it not meaning anything the offensive funk carried into the regular season.

We lost 2 of 3 at home to the Phillies.

Wright played 3 times in 6 days and required an off-day.

deGrom is hurt, we just don't know how badly.

Matt Harvey now leads in the NL in losses, and has walked nearly as many batters as he's struck out.

Sandy has cancer

Grandyman is batting .050

[TransMonk]

I'm mostly worried about deGrom. His health is necessary to doing anything big this season.

The rest of the items on the list are worries - and certainly concerning when they all occur at the same time at the beginning of the season. But it's too early for me to get out on the ledge over Grandy, Harvey or Wright.

The April schedule is very favorable for the Mets, though. That doesn't leave them much time for them to get their shit together offensively. Treading water at .500 (or *gulp* worse) should not be the idea through the first 20 games.

[metirish]

Good worries Bucket , Graderson is just brutal to watch when he is shit....#mets twitter is in full meltdown..coming in it was all about how sucky the Phillies starting rotation and pen is....Mets hitters sure cured that.

[Frayed Knot]

Granderson has at least hit some balls decently well but either at some fielders or just shy of the wall. Not that that puts a happy face on .050 or anything, but it knocks him down the worries list for me.
Put another way, he's certainly flailing around a lot less than some others out there: d'Arnaud, Duda, and even Cespedes aside from him finally stumbling on a mistake pitch he could crush in Sunday's game.

[MFS62]

Run production - not getting hits in bunches.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

MFS62 wrote: Run production - not getting hits [crossout]in bunches[/crossout].

[Ceetar]

deGrom's the only thing I'm worried about in that list. (Well, the cancer too but not really from a baseball standpoint)

feel like lat strains could be nagging and cause the lower velocity. I mean, he pitched okay and stuff but that feels like it could linger all season and sap his effectiveness. But who knows, perhaps the skipped start and some daddy time are enough to avert it.

[TransMonk]

FWIW, this is exactly what I remember Grandy looking like early last season, too.

SNY flashed a Citi Field promo yesterday where they are giving away some Grandy high socks. The promo read "Curtis Granderson Socks", but obviously I read it as "Curtis Granderson Sucks" before I did a double take.

[Frayed Knot]

Frayed Knot wrote: MFS62 wrote: Run production - not getting hits [crossout]in bunches[/crossout].

Put another way, in five games this team has 1, 1, 5, 0, and 1 run scoring hits
Game #1 - Duda's bloop double barely over 3B scoring two was the only RBI hit (one other run came in via a ground-out)
Game 2 - Walker's 2R HR account for all the scoring
Game 3 - five separate run-scoring hits all off the Philly bullpen (so there's an asterisk involved) plus deGrom's groundout RBI
Game 4 - shutout
Game 5 - only Cespedes's HR

[Edgy MD]

I think Wright was going to get that off day no matter what, establishing early Terry's plan, and being more ginger in the cold weather.

This reflects his policy-based (rather than current condition-based) handling of damaged players going back to the start of his tenure in 2011, when he was resting Carlos Beltran every third game the first weeks of the season, but ruining him out there most every day as the weather got warmer. Start carefully, assess, and gradually increase the workload as observation warrants.

[Guest d'Kong76]

More disappointed than worried. A sweep of the fish sticks and I'll
probably be feeling better going out for more early AL nonsense.

Lets go Matz!!

[Centerfield]

Yeah, I'm with KC. More annoyed than worried, but I do have some concerns.

Worried about health and durability of the starters and Familia, considering how much they worked last year.

Worried that they will come out flat and not play with the same fire/chip on their shoulder that they did last year.

Worried that the Nats will be like, a lot better.

But still feel good. Let's win tonight.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Not to repeat myself but I feel like shit about this team. What are we basing our optimism on?

[Chad ochoseis]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Not to repeat myself but I feel like shit about this team. What are we basing our optimism on?

The best pitching staff in the league, and good enough hitting to make us three games better than the inevitably re-imploding Nationals.

I'm not worrying too much about deGrom or Granderson. There's pitching depth and outfield depth to be had and I think Granderson had an awful start last year, too. Wright worries me. He hasn't seemed physically capable of playing 3B since last season, and we're paying him big bucks for five more years.

[Edgy MD]

I think sometimes the tendency is to take the slow action. When everybody's dooming and glooming, it can be attractive to take the optimistic view. And the payoff is huge.

Now that optimism abounds (I mean, "best pitching staff in the league" is a cool assessment, but it's not necessary been established on the field of honor), one might feel like the community, in their contagious enthusiasm, is missing warning signs.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I'm not optimistic, I'm disappointed.
I don't think they should have trekked out to Vegas before KC but they
did and they got the split. Home opener was glorious. The last two days
have sucked. Sucked bad.
It's April 11th, let's beat the Marlins and on Thursday we can come back
to this thread and re-examine.

Let's go Matz!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Chad Ochoseis wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Not to repeat myself but I feel like shit about this team. What are we basing our optimism on? The best pitching staff in the league, and good enough hitting to make us three games better than the inevitably re-imploding Nationals. I'm not worrying too much about deGrom or Granderson. There's pitching depth and outfield depth to be had and I think Granderson had an awful start last year, too. Wright worries me. He hasn't seemed physically capable of playing 3B since last season, and we're paying him big bucks for five more years.

What's your take on Matt Harvey? He looks pretty beatable to me so far.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Other Mets teams have started out 2 and 3:

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: I think sometimes the tendency is to take the slow action. When everybody's dooming and glooming, it can be attractive to take the optimistic view. And the payoff is huge. Now that optimism abounds (I mean, "best pitching staff in the league" is a cool assessment, but it's not necessary been established on the field of honor), one might feel like the community, in their contagious enthusiasm, is missing warning signs.

Lotta preachin' on goin' on here, eh?

[Chad ochoseis]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Not to repeat myself but I feel like shit about this team. What are we basing our optimism on? The best pitching staff in the league, and good enough hitting to make us three games better than the inevitably re-imploding Nationals. I'm not worrying too much about deGrom or Granderson. There's pitching depth and outfield depth to be had and I think Granderson had an awful start last year, too. Wright worries me. He hasn't seemed physically capable of playing 3B since last season, and we're paying him big bucks for five more years. What's your take on Matt Harvey? He looks pretty beatable to me so far.

Well, he wasn't worrisome...dude can't go out and strike out twelve every start. But, yeah, "beatable" is a fair way to describe him. I can walk "best pitching staff in the league" back to "damned good pitching staff".

[Edgy MD]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Edgy MD wrote: I think sometimes the tendency is to take the slow action. When everybody's dooming and glooming, it can be attractive to take the optimistic view. And the payoff is huge. Now that optimism abounds (I mean, "best pitching staff in the league" is a cool assessment, but it's not necessary been established on the field of honor), one might feel like the community, in their contagious enthusiasm, is missing warning signs. Lotta preachin' on goin' on here, eh?

No, actually, none.

[ashie62]

I'm putting whatever early season "disapointment" vibes at the hands of cold April weather. Sometimes it takes these guys awhile to get out of bed.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Harvey looks touchable.
deGrom looks achy.

Even the best pitching staff in the league can't keep opposing teams shut out for weeks on end. Which it looks like this offense may need.

It's nascent worry, yes... but I got worry. (I was about to start this thread this morning, until I saw JCL had.

[soupcan]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Let's see, we had a shitty spring training and despite it not meaning anything the offensive funk carried into the regular season.

Worrying about 2-3? We're past that at this point no?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: We lost 2 of 3 at home to the Phillies.

C'mon. One series. Shitty weather.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Wright played 3 times in 6 days and required an off-day.

We knew this was coming. Why freak out about it?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: deGrom is hurt, we just don't know how badly.

He's not. I choose to believe its nothing until there's something. wouldn't you prefer they be extra cautious?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Matt Harvey now leads in the NL in losses, and has walked nearly as many batters as he's struck out.

This is really the only thing that I wonder about (not concerned about, just curious really).

Again though, I think this early its silly to make a big deal of it.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Sandy has cancer

He's responding to treatment.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Grandyman is batting .050

Same thing last year. And Francesa assures me this is normal for him.

[Edgy MD]

I wonder if there's statistical support to the notion of some guys just being bad April hitters.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Pretty sure bbrdotcom has monthly split stats of some kind.
Francesa has spoken, no need to look it up!!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

To be sure I wouldn't be up in arms over 2-3 if it also hadn't been a continuation of how shitty they looked in Spring Training. And they looked very shitty this spring.

For example, the Mets started 2-3 last year too, but to me at least, it was a competitive 2-3, it came off a very strong spring training, and so when they went and won 11 straight starting in Game 6, it felt genuinely possible, at least until they got pretty raggedy near the end and both Wright and dArnaud went out.

And I'm not really up in arms. I'm just looking for something we can look at and say, you know what, this team doesn't completely suck. It has to be something more than Big Jim Henderson's Comeback-of-the-Year.

[Ceetar]

d'Kong76 wrote: Pretty sure bbrdotcom has monthly split stats of some kind. Francesa has spoken, no need to look it up!!

Unless we're talking BANANA splits...


even monthly splits are pretty much arbitrary endpoints and small sample size stuff. But April is a tick off Granderson's career OPS.

Leaders, with at least 600 April PA are:

Bill Madlock with a .140 drop in April in OPS. .667 vs .807.

Followed by
Ryne Sandberg,
John Valentin,
Roy Sievers,
Ron Gant,
Yogi Berra,
Andrew McCutchen..

HoJo at 23 with a 0.090 difference.


Dropping to 300 PA and activE:

Allen Craig, Chris Coghlan, Pedro Alvarez, Ben Revere, Andrew McCutchen, Will Venable, Brett Lawrie, Chris Carter,Gordon Beckham, Brandon Belt, Jason Kipnis, Mark Teixeira, Giancarlo Stanton

[Guest d'Kong76]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm just looking for something we can look at and say, you know what, this team doesn't completely suck. It has to be something more than Big Jim Henderson's Comeback-of-the-Year.

Conforto has looked decent. Walker (who I expect(ed) little from) has
had a little flash here and there. Cespedis hit a homer yesterday. The
win on Opening day and split it KC, but I already mentioned those. It's
only been five games. Two good ones, three awful.

[Lefty Specialist]

Eh, a little too early to be worried. Fillet some Fish and all will be right with the world. If they look like crap coming into May, and deGrom still isn't back, then maybe it's time to reach for the Xanax.