Frayed Knot

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

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.

There will come a future day when I will have totally forgotten that Colin Poche was ever a NYM. That day may occur sometime later this week.

The turnstiles at Grand Central don't turn as rapidly as the Met Count does these days. You can't tell the players With a scorecard.

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.

Jason Heyward just released by San Diego [.176/.223/.271 in 95 PAs]. You wonder if that's it for him after 16 seasons even though still 'only' 35 y/o (36 in Aug)

Maybe if Thor shows some sort of return to form while with the ChiSox it'll lead to an opportunity with a major league club. couldn't resist

Hmmmm. One day after his loooonnnggg HR last night. But, as I posted in Saturday's IGT, not only does he just have 29 hits this year (.236 BA) but 23 of those hits are singles (3 2Bs, 3 HRs). So even though his current BA is right in line with his career norms, the isolated Power (Slg Avg - BA) is WAY down. For '23 & '24 combined his IsoP was right at 200 where this season it's exactly 100 even with last night's HR factored in. With MLB average typically around 150 (currently 153) that's a big fall. Put another way: 100 puts you slightly below where Torrens is this season. 200 puts you up there with Nimmo and Lindor who have 58 XBHs between them (29 each).

Justin falls between Wayne Garrett and Rod Gaspar alphabetically. Those names have been side by side since 1969. Brilliant!!

btw, I love that this thread is now 2-1/2 years old and still going strong.

Boras will certainly point to Judge and Freeman for ammo. Not that Pete is as good as either of them but that, at age 35, Freddie currently sports his highest BA and his 2nd best OPS of his career. And Judge, in the midst of his age 33 season, has his highest BA, OBA, SLG, OPS, OPS+ of his career by A Lot! 'So you see, Steve and David, Boras is bound to say, you've got nothing to worry about when it comes to signing mid-30s sluggers. Particularly when the guy we're talking just had (assuming current pace) 'HIS best season ever for BA, OBA, SLG, OPS and he's three and five years younger than those guys. And if you don't think so I've got 47 other teams waiting to talk to me and surely some of them will see it that way.'

In your previous post I meant to add the caveat that the above projection dates were based on Pete not hitting any more HRs today. So ignore everything I wrote above ... y'know, like most of you usually do.

And now he's no HRs away from tying Wright. With Pete's HR pace picking up lately, the timing for the tie-Straw and break-Straw now projects to occur in late July. It was mid-August last time I checked. At his current HR pace for the year, #252 is slated for game #105 on 7/28, right in the middle of the remaining west coast swing to SF & SD, with #253 slated for four to five days later when the club is back home.

He doesn't appear to be pitching that badly [3.43 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 10 G/8 Starts] but Taijuan Walker is being moved to the Philly pen - even though it was former Marlin Jesus Lazardo who gave up 12 ER on 12 Hits/3 BB in 3-1/3 IP on Saturday to the Brewers.

There's an ad on the CitiField outfield wall for Milagro Tequila

Saw it like a million years ago (maybe not that many, probably more like 37) but don't remember anything at this point.

Jonah Tong had a perfect game going for 6-2/3 in a DH which, in the minors, is designated as a 7 inning game, and ... he was pulled from the game. Reliever TJ Shook K'd his lone batter to complete the combined Perfecto for Binghamton.

Definitely been better the last day or two ... and especially so today.

That's not at all surprising. Guys don't normally stay down like that after fouling a ball off their legs. Who was that (from the Angels? the A's?) who broke his leg after fouling a ball during a playoff series w/the Yanx about 20-some years ago?

As just posted in the TWiB notes thread: Cubs ace, Justin Steele, out for the season with some kind of elbow surgery to follow. That kind of puts the baby bears at the front of the line in the Sandy Alcantara sweepstakes as the Cubs system is said to be "loaded" (Buster Olney). The NL Central certainly seems to be there for the taking so the Cubs would seem to be a good bet to be aggressive in getting what they need either at or even before the trading deadline.

Done! [FIMG=300]https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0274/9854/5226/files/ram-paul-mccartney_1024x1024.jpg?v=1723553181[/FIMG] Hey, this McCartney guy is pretty good. Is there anything else of note he did?

Yeah, MLB.TV is really for fans of out of town teams such as NYM fans who aren't in SNY territory. For a non-NY'er who can't get SNY, you can order MLB.tv and either pay for Met games only or for all games. Not sure there'd be an advantage of getting it through Peacock, or some other streaming service you already have, unless there was some sort of price break since MLB.TV is a stand-alone offering that doesn't need another service.

'Extra Innings' is a set of channels carried by (some) cable providers which feeds you the game just like any other channel option. MLB.TV is strictly a streaming service that you buy through MLB.com. You can buy a season full of just one team or all games (blackout restrictions apply) and it works on TVs, lap-tops, phones, etc. It's not really clear to me how this licensing thing is different. Subscribe to NetFlix [or insert other here] and get MLB.TV at a reduced cost, maybe? You certainly don't need anything other than an internet connection to make MLB.TV work so the only benefit I can see would be packaged pricing.

Nope. Slower tonight than it was this afternoon and than it's been in a while (for me anyway).

Yeah, usually. Although I think he stormed out of here angry too. Don't remember the details.