Ceetar

Fielders just don't muff a lot of balls. you hit the ball on the ground, it's an out. 76% of the time. you mention a fielder could drop it, that's luck. it doesn't make it a good strategy. it's part of the reason bunting is typically bad, because simply putting the ball in play is not helpful. less and less so, as fielding is better and better. If you can't hit it hard, better to take the strike than flick it into play hoping it works. Literally 69% of the time a line drive becomes a hit. That's just logical, less time in the air means the fielders cover less ground. maybe you get a hit occasionally dinking them over fielders. maybe. but how many line drive doubles would you have hit if you'd let the pitch go? or fouled it off? yes, typically if you hit .300 or better you had a better year than a lot of guys, but you're not a better hitter. that's not predictive of being good, particularly in a predictive sense. You can't go "oh, Alex Presley, Howie Kendrick and Tim Beckham and Johan Camargo are going to be great next year" Jarrod Dyson, Starling Marte, Ichiro, Adam Engel, Ryan Schimpf, Jose Reyes. Not particularly good players. Those are the soft contact leaders. People have run tons of statistical analysis and find very little correlation between batting average and run creation. They've also run similar and found that a strikeout doesn't really hurt you much more than an out in play. It's not so much that you shouldn't worry about putting the ball in play if that's your game, but it makes the guys that strike out, but otherwise drive the ball, more valuable than the ones that just put the ball in play but don't strikeout as much. Of course, there are some diminishing returns stuff going on. Duda struck out 27.5% of the time last year. that's pushing up against too high, at that rate you have to also raise the number of balls that you hit hard when you hit them, something Duda didn't quite do last year. But the .217 BA isn't really indicative of a failing there, his .238 BABIP was way low for his career average, suggesting some decent bad luck. He was still 13% better than an average player, but even halfway back to his career BABIP probably gets him back to the 20-25% better range. He had a career high hard hit rate. He's gonna be fine in 2018. It's also why there's no way Aaron Judge is repeating his MVP level season next year, despite the Yankees heavily banking on it. 30.7% strikeout rate is craaaazy. And it came with a high BABIP and a high hard hit rate. He almost literally hit everything he did hit incredibly hard, but unless he can maintain that, he's going to trade home runs and doubles for more outs and his OBP will drop. But the Yankees aren't going to tell him to start trying to flick pitches the other way.

Alderson implied they weren't necessarily looking to add another reliever. I'd wait too, unless they take some fliers on some minor league guys. no reason to burn a 40 man spot (lose a player) on a reliever that might not even be a big part of the team. Wait until you can 60 day some guys, etc.

yes, I do know better. and i've seen and read the math. batting average is so luck-riddled it's useless for telling anything of value, striking out isn't really a distinctly worse way to make an out. Duda is a very good player.

oops, I got him conflated with the meh Indians reliever some Mets folk were drooling over earlier. Travis is seemingly legit and I don't buy that the Brewers are moving him. Wheeler and Lagares doesn't get it done either, Comforto and Smith maybe.

well for one, batting average is basically a worthless statistic and I wasn't even looking at it.

Rockin' Doc wrote: Ceetar wrote: 33 first baseman hit at least 18 HR last year. I would imagine that 33 (or more) first baseman hit better than .217 last season. Two of the best first basemen the Mets ever had (John Olerud and Keith Hernandez) seldom hit more than 18 home runs a season. Not saying Dom Smith will turn out to be nearly as good as those two, but I hope he is more like them at the plate (in discipline and stylistically) and less like Duda. I for one, am tired of the Mets having a bunch of guys hitting solo home runs. The majority of the line up consists of sluggers who hit a lot of home runs while striking out a great deal. The team needs some good BA/OBP guys. ..like Duda. over the last three seasons Duda's BB% was 29th in baseball. Granderson's was 14th. Those are the things we need to replace next year. It's why Neil Walker is probably the best option. Duda's wRC+, a weighted metric that measures how much a player contributes to run creation, was 119. 19% better than average and 47 in baseball of the 232 qualifying players over the last three seasons. Bruce is the slugger with no other skills you're thinking of. the rest of the team is mostly fine in that regard. striking out isn't really a big deal.

Shaw could be on the move if the Brew Crew sign Moustakas. . . https://www.sny.tv/mets/news/brewers-could-trade-3b-travis-shaw-to-mets-if-they-land-moustakas/264710172 Can Wheeler and Lagares get this done? There is really not much of a need for Lagares and (as evidenced below) I think that they can get away with moving Wheeler. 2018 rotation without Wheeler: Syndergaard deGrom Harvey Matz Lugo/Gsellman/Montero AND? are you drunk? Maybe Lagares straight up, but I don't trade a starter than a reliever. Wheeler in the pen is more valuable than Shaw as it is.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Things not looking so good so far for GOD OF BLUNDER. people love Cespedes' Butt, what can we say.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: 2 years, $7 million. That sounds like something Mets could have easily afforded. Neil Walker's way way better. just pay him. Also Kendrick mostly played LF last year, and perhaps can't really play 2B defensively well anymore. Is he gonna be the Nats super sub?

also the idea that if the lineup goes LRL you might stay in to face the righty though intentionally nibble. Though I don't know if that applies in the minors, or if Regnault is even lefty specialist atm. He could certainly get a look. ground ball guy with few home runs. get a 2B that can make plays with Rosario and he could certainly shine.

33 first baseman hit at least 18 HR last year.

I can't get too worked up over this reliever over that reliever. so fungible. I mean, Reed was their best reliever for a stretch but he might not be going forward. as for the second lefty, that's a popular spring topic for championship level teams, but they'll find someone. Might even be Matz as CAllaway has suggested a starter could work out of the pen. Otherwise, Smoker? I mean, the Mets are a little tight on 40 man space and have almost no lefty pitchers on the 40 man, so it is something to keep an eye on

I mean, i'd be ecstatic if Smith turns out to be as good as Duda, and if signing Duda for just money doesn't hurt anything budget wise I'd say for it.

If I had to guess, they agree to reinstate him in 2019 after a year of submitting to drug tests or something. I'd love to hear more details around his original testing because the timing felt like it could've been double-charging him for the same offense, but I'm sure we won't. Not like the Mets couldn't use another talented reliever on the depth chart for basically junk change.

Zvon wrote: All very interesting but it's the 100 RBI that blows my dress up. . has no thing to do with Bruce though.

Zvon wrote: Valadius wrote: I like it. Contract terms are fine. I have no faith in Nimmo suddenly finding a power stroke. One might think that 35 HR, 100 RBI guys are a dime a dozen until you remember that the last time the Mets had one of those was David Wright in 2010. Wahowzers! counting stats. Duda hit 30, then 27. 20 last year combined. Cespedes hit 31 in 2016. Literally 37 players hit 30 home runs last year. 89 hit 20. guys like Nomar Mazara and Tim Beckham and Tommy Pham.

Rumors the Giants offered 3/30 or so, so maybe the Mets weren't actually the only team that values him.

i mean, WAR is an estimate and relievers are the kings of small samples. I feel like once you've accumulated a careers worth though, it's at least fairly useful. noise balances out, etc.

nowhere near the best option.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Mets by the Numbers, on a tip from Citi Field HVAC Guy, is reporting Smith and Lagares to Pittsburgh for McCutcheon. HVAC Guy might have misheard "Harrison" though. Pittsburgh would have to include both for that to be remotely interesting.

41Forever wrote: I agree. My guess that the next addition will be an infielder. If it's Frazier, does Cabrera move to second? If it's a second baseman, does Cabrera go to third? Is there a scenario where Cabrera is a utility guy, like Wilmer? Cabrera is tentatively the third baseman already. They've been linked to a bunch of 2B guys so it's always felt like that. So yes. The scenario where Cabrera is a utility guy with Wilmer is the "David Wright is active" scenario.

Centerfield wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: What are the odds that Ceetar uses the word "garbage" somewhere in this thread? I'm guessing "meh". I'm going with disappointed. Bruce is a fine one-dimensional player but home run hitters grow on trees and he doesn't play center, is a lefty, isn't really a first baseman which just doubles down the punting defense thing here. everyone hit home runs, I'd rather an OBP guy, i think that would've led to more runs and Nimmo might very well be that guy/better. OBP and defense seem to work better with a top-flight pitching staff. As an incomplete part of the total picture, I don't like it. If they still get Nimmo plenty of playing time, sign someone like Walker, and don't try to shoehorn Bruce into any (give Flores the Smith rest days) 1B time, i'm fine with it as Conforto insurance. I'd argue that if the Mets get Bruce 600 PA in 2018 things haven't gone well.

What's Dave Kingman without the steroids?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: What's always been reported about the Wilpons is that they give Sandy/Omar/Phillips/whomever a figure but say they are open to hearing a case for it being outside of that range. Whether the range is acceptable is one thing, and breaking the bank for a top of the market FA is unlikely under this way of doing biz, I do believe it's true in a general sense that there's no hard ceiling, just hard sells. that's how I've understood it too. I've also heard it said that pretty much every GM has to run those huge signings past the owner. I'm trying to think who would be the 'break the bank' guy in terms of free agency this year. Darvish? He might be a hard sell with so many starters to deal with already.

Edgy MD wrote: Reporting on a story that somebody else broke and giving the original scoop as your source is still reporting. Sharing in the report that talks "don't have much traction" and that the Mets "might prefer a free agent" is providing context. You're complaining that there's no context at the same time you're complaining that the context is so mitigating as to discredit the lede. Meanwhile, poor Ashie is dying for a rumor. He finally gets one and you hate on it coming and going. there have been dozens of these if he was looking. And they're all the same. it's click-baity column-filling reporting. the worst kind. "The Mets checked to see if McCutchen's cost has changed. It hadn't." This thread could've been posted exactly as is without the link and it'd change nothing.