Ceetar

McNeil and Smith are really the crux of this. The other guys are mostly fine (Alonso is who he is, Conforto and Lindor have been back to normal, and Nimmo and Davis are basically their usual good-hitting selfs) or actually not very good overall so it's hard to say which is approach and which is just suck. This includes Villar, Pillar, Nido, Guillorme... McCann is probably just bad. So five good hitters and 1 that sucks when we're healthy, with McNeil and Smith falling on the bad side of things, and REALLY bad for the most part. And the five good hitters haven't really been healthy together until Tuesday of this week, or early in the season when Conforto and Lindor were scuffling, but the team was winning. Sure, they could've won more games then and be in a better position now, but I think there's more to be said about Lindor and Conforto reverting to being GOOD than killing McNeil and Smith (or McCann) for not, the first two have much longer track records. This is where the hope lies. With Lindor back, we should have Lindor, Conforto, Nimmo, Alonso, and Davis hitting the ball well. Baez isn't great but he's not as terrible as Smith was, who's the guy that's mostly losing playing time. So if McNeil can just be okay, and McCann can come back to at least make C not an auto-out, the Mets SHOULD score more runs. Will it happen? who knows.

“It's something we have to take day by day,” Scott said. “The whole point of ramping him up is to see if he can get back to where he needs to be before he could get activated while remaining asymptomatic.” The club views him as a healthy pitcher at this point, working his way back to being major-league ready. On Tuesday, Scott said he had no long-term concern about deGrom's health, even before an MRI result that the team viewed as encouraging. These two statements seem a little incongruous. It'd be nice if someone pushed back a little and got a clear answer.

Edgy MD wrote: Somehow, the team is only 10th in grounding into double-plays. They don't get on base enough to really excel in that dept, plus they've had fewer PA than any other team. 215 fewer than league average.

=smg58 post_id=75574 time=1629989857 user_id=62] I'm inclined to agree with CF's last comment as far as the front office and coaching staff are concerned. They've demonstrated quite emphatically that money isn't everything. Whoever convinced DeGrom that he needed to throw harder should be forbidden from ever entering another stadium, even if he purchases tickets. The only free agent I bring back is Stroman.

Duda episode of Mets On Tap drops tomorrow morning. (this morning? 4 hours) Even one more guy with an above average OBP would've done wonders. There's a few pending free agent outfielders that would've worked, plus other trade options (or like, even giving Cespedes a try)

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: We were talking about this last night but what do you think-- do the Mets hit too many foul balls? I know fouls are sort of looked at as benign at worst but you got to wonder. It seems like while this team is busy not getting hits they seem to foul off at least 1 hittable pitch in every turn-- often, the best one they will see. So. Do the Mets out-foul the opposition? I have no idea but would not be surprised. Are foul balls good bad or indifferent, overall? They advance the count against them and only in rare cases they drive in runs; on the other hand the alternative is often a taken strike which also ain't good for all those reasons and more. But I dunno. Do any geeks study this? Is there a way for a club to "reduce" their fouls? Would the Mets benefit from fouling less and hitting the ball fair more? Do the Mets foul more than the other guys? How does fouling index with runs scored? https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2021-pitches-batting.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2021-pitches-batting.shtml yes. The Mets foul off 29.2% of pitches per strike seen. They've seen 17091 pitches. (as of yesterday?) This is second 'best' behind Atlanta. This doesn't seem to be a meaningful indicator of anything. Top three, Braves, Mets, White Sox. Bottom, Padres, Cubs, Diamondbacks. The Mets score the second fewest runs per games behind the Pirates (Though the number of 7 inning games skews this) They also see the third fewest pitches per plate appearance. 3.81. Royals the same, Rockies 3.79. THAT is bad. They're probably related. They swing at 49.1% of pitches, second highest behind the Royals. Yankees, Padres, Astros, Dodgers, Giants bottom five. They've seen the fewest 3-0 counts in baseball. (They've seen 500 fewer pitches than the next lowest team, so this is only partially meaningful, though they only jump to second lowest if you use percentage) They're second in first pitch swinging behind the Braves. So all in all, can the Mets 'reduce' their fouls? Sure, SWING AT BETTER PITCHES. SWING LESS. This isn't news though. It's part of the reason Baez was such a bad choice to 'boost' the offense. What they need are guys on base. They need people taking more pitches, WAITING for their pitch, and crushing that one. Not flailing at balls and borderline pitches. Some of it's just not executing I guess. Even 'meatball' pitches are hard to hit, but most of these guys have typically been better than that with it. They need to take more pitches, it won't magically make them identify pitches to hit better, but there is REAL value in being ahead of the count. I'm not gonna try to find it now, but there was an article recently that broke out the Mets offense ahead/behind in the count and pretty much concluded the same thing--when they wait they're find and good. Just look at Nimmo's AB in the 9th tonight. That first pitch maaay have been a ball. If that get's called a ball, and the count is 1-0 instead of 0-1, McGee may not throw the same (high, out of the zone) second pitch. He's ahead in the count, so he can try to get Nimmo to go up and chase. Maybe he lingers closer to the zone and Nimmo crushes one. Or maybe he still walks, but Alonso sense that the ump ISN'T widening the strike zone, and doesn't swing at the 1-2 pitch (almost identical to the first pitch to Nimmo) in on his hands, and now it's 2-2 and perhaps he gets a better pitch to actual hit. It's tough of course, it's hard to say Alonso shouldn't have swung at that last pitch because it was called a strike to Nimmo (though outside versus inside). What Alonso shouldn't have swung at was the second pitch, which wasn't as high to the ball to Nimmo or Smith, but was still above the strike zone. McGee through the same pitch again right after that, just an inch or two lower, IN the strike zone. He probably meant to keep it up higher,but Alonso swung again. This time instead of missing it, he fouled it off. But it still feels like he screwed up there. Swinging at those two pitches means he pretty much HAD to swing at the bad 1-2 pitch at his hands. Game over.

Conforto has a 99 wRC+ and a fWAR of 0.3 on the season. Smith has a 84 wRC+ and -0.4 fWAR, and 100 more PA. For his career, Conforto has a 124 wRC+ and Smith has a 104, with less than half the track record. For August 2021, Conforto has a 133 wRC+, Smith has a 15!!!!!!! Kevin Pillar has a 28. Drury a 53. They have 127 PA between them, for roughly a -1 fWAR. Short sample WAR isn't really meaningful, but even having an average OFer taking those 123 PA probably has this team a game or two closer. Pitching was the priority but choosing to bet that Smith or McNeil or Pillar would suddenly play much better was the cheap and easy choice and so far it's backfiring hard.

I'm still in. If they lose more ground over the next say..10 days, then no, but right now I think, if were were starting the season today, on paper, you'd still take the Mets. They're better than they've been playing, and the Braves are worse than they're playing. Can they play 1 game better than them every week, and then beat them head to head to end it all? yes. that's reasonable.

no, Conforto needs to be playing every day. As does Nimmo. LF is the flex point, Smith and McNeil haven't really been good, but if you could platoon and fix them.. The team really needs another high OBP guy to counter adding Baez back in.

I mean, we'll probably find out. It's hard to argue for any other config than J.D. Davis, Lindor, Baez, Alonso.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Also Longoria is on the covid list si chances are high for some Wilmer action. which means the MLB active wRC+ leader is J.D. Davis.

I'm so sick of this up-down BS. https://twitter.com/DeeshaThosar/status/1426738952476766216 There's certainly a thought that the game is likely to end in the 10th, with the zombie runner rule, so you're not necessarily worried about burning through pitchers. Maybe there's an argument to be made that Diaz, fresh, against those specific players is more effective than a second inning of Lugo. Maybe there is some data to back that up, maybe there are fatigue/injury issues we're unaware of, but the up-down thing clearly seems to be Rojas' go-to lie about bullpen moves, so we'll never know.

shouldn't have been bunting.

yes, just traveling west to east but can be waived for ESPN regardless. It's not a great situation, but East to West you get almost 24 hours to get from end of one game to start of the next across the country compared to 18 the other direction. It's not great, and Thor has a point, but at least you have the time to actually have a full "night" sleep.

the goal for deGrom has to be "ready for the playoffs" at this point. Granted, that's very much best case at this point. A reminder that the MILB season doesn't end until 10/3, so there's at least places he get face live batters and rehab. I'm actually surprised by the news today, I thought they'd play mum and he'd try to fight through it in order to make it back this season. Unless the "improving" line is setting it up for him to do just that in two weeks.

Rojas isn't good at this.

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=74360 time=1628885854 user_id=68] I went for 8-6 because things rarely play out the way the pundits and experts and everybody, really, thinks they'll play out. Also, I was thinking of starting this exact same poll/thread for the last few days, down to the 14 choices, one for each W-L possibility.

I'll settle for nothing less than 1 more game than the Phillies and Braves win over the same stretch.

Joel's been covering this game this long and still doesn't understand it, it's amazing.

yes, the data bears that out. I mean, America is racist. the entire country is built upon that racism. Why wouldn't it extend to umpiring? Coming into today, Marcus Stroman was tied with Nathan Eovaldi for the 6th-most pitches in the strike zone called for balls this season with 48.

the move to get on Rojas for is letting Williams burn an out and pitch a 5th inning of 7 when he's garbage and like your 15th SP. I know it was the bottom of the order, but quit while you're ahead. The bullpens been good enough to do 3 innings, plus real hitter.

It's a systematic problem. Barber is white. Stroman is black. That falls within the study parameters.

You have data showing a Major League umpire is making calls based on a pitcher's skin color? https://twitter.com/HSnowdon5/status/1424817013000654849

=bmfc1 post_id=74204 time=1628785994 user_id=73] They should light up this minor leaguer who is relying on tricks to get by but at least McNeil got mad and slammed his helmet.

=Ceetar post_id=74193 time=1628774424 user_id=102] wonder which home plate umpire we get for Stroman.