roger_that

Good work, gentlemen. The reason I listed shortstops ' throwing arms is something I noticed when I watched a replay of the 1969 series. Bud Harrelson had a GUN. I never realized how he'd be going deep in the hole, back hand a grounder, and you think "Infield single" but instead Bud would gun it on a straight line to first and nab the runner by two steps. Just astonishing. So my list is 1. Harrelson 2. Rey Ordonez.

Depends on how you define "random", doesn't it? A small Pythagorean difference is probably insignificant, a kind of rounding error while a huge one probably points to something material. But since it's a ratio of runs scored to runs allowed even an insignificant difference points to luckiness or unluckiness. Or efficient distribution of runs vs an inefficient distribution.

We may as well get started here. It just happens that I’ve devoted three separate blogs to this subject, two during the 2024 season (before he re-signed for 2025) and one in the middle of the 2025 season, all recommending strongly that the Mets not sign Pete to a long-term contract, which is also my current recommendation, based on the 10 players listed as his most comparable players in his baseball-reference.com. notation, which list changes from time to time slightly so I might as well review the current Top 10 comparables now, though I doubt it will have changed much, nor will my mind. This is a link to the third installment of my blog https://authory.com/StevenGoldleaf/Alonso-threedux-a013703a83f7445918bb9a217c21ba566?c=c2b732fa64aa54b95a93fc3752ffaf7b6 Which I’d recommend you read third—it begins with links to installments #1 and #2, so you can read them, if you like, in order and see my reasoning and evidence in some detail. If you’d rather not, I’ll sum up my position for you here: The vast majority of the 10 are all oversized slugging first basemen like Pete who went on in their early 30s to crash and burn. I took this as a strong warning sign to the Mets that that’s the fate they’re exposing themselves to if they were to sign Pete through his late 30s. I recommend they let him go, and use the bazillions they would have spent on him instead on signing the best free-agent centerfielder available, or failing that, trading for a decent centerfielder and bolstering their team elsewhere. Of course, you may not buy the concept that the comparables list has any predictive elements at all. When it speaks as strongly as Pete’s comparables do, however, I think it holds some weight and I’d as soon not take the gamble that he’ll continue to slug for years and years.

Let's try this anyway. Maybe it will distract from the pain. Person A names the two greatest Mets, in his view, in some category or other, and Person B names a third Met who, in his view, belongs on that short list, possibly even on the top of that short list. There are, in my view, surprisingly few categories where we are all agreed who the top two Mets ever are. For example, if we were to start with “Greatest Mets pitcher” this would seem pretty easy, “Seaver and deGrom—duh,” except that a Doc Gooden fan could make the legitimate claim that no one has ever had a better peak than Doc, no one has ever sustained more dominance than Doc in the mid-80s, and his (Person B’s) criterion for greatness is a sustained peak, not career length. Or maybe Person B thinks that the game itself changed by deGrom’s time, demanding fewer innings of starting pitchers, or making it more difficult to amass wins, or something of that sort—the point being that a legitimate argument can be made for Doc’s inclusion in the top two Mets’ pitchers. Somewhat weaker but still legitimate cases might even be made for other pitchers –Santana, Dickey, Koosman—and there is the possibility that by expanding the definition of “a Mets’ pitcher” to include any pitcher who ever wore a Mets uniform, however briefly, would place Warren Spahn on that list or Justin Verlander. So try this out with a different category (or go ahead and argue that my examples should have included Jesse Orosco or Nolan McLean) and some other Person B will come along and refute your top two choices, and maybe Persons C and D and G will chime in as well. I call this game “You’re Fulla **** and I’ll Tell Ya Why,” after Roger Kahn’s anecdote about Carl Erskine or Preacher Roe being the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top pitcher. If you like, I’ll offer some opening topics without naming my two picks: 1) greatest Mets slugger. 2) strongest throwing arm for Mets' SS. 3) most intelligent Met You get the idea. Go.

When in doubt, always go for the guy with the best Yankee resume. That always works.

Well, then they didn't play 45 games in which they scored two runs. As I said, they played 23 such games, and won six. That's a little better than .250 ball.

Is that .168 figure for two runs per game, or two runs or fewer per game?

The catch-all number is the Pythagorean W-L. Their R/ RA ratio suggests that they were an 86-76 team, when on the playing field they were 83-79. I'm trying to show various ways they hit well enough, pitched well enough, to win a few more games than they did, and so far all the stats I can find point in that direction. It's very hard to show how Mendoza could have affected the distribution of runs more efficiently. If this is all luck, then you have to be able to argue that they could easily have been as lucky as they were unlucky. Instead of finishing 86-76 as Pythagoras says they should have, they might have cracked 90 wins and I wouldn't be scrutinizing these numbers as carefully as I've been, just accepting it as the Mets' due.

From a defensive position, they had 37 games in which they gave up 7 or more runs. They won 4 of those. A record of 4-33 in slugfests doesn't seem too good to me. They never gave up more than 12 runs in a game, as opposed to the five games they scored more than 12 runs themselves. 19, 19, 13, 13, 13. Outscored their opponents in those games 77-27. Again, inefficient run distribution. We would have loved to have a run or two of those 50 excess runs in some crucial game where a run meant everything. There were 8 games that their opponents scored in double figures (10 or more runs), 88 runs total in those 8 games, of which we won none. The Mets on the other hand scored in double figures 14 times, and went 14-0.

At the other extreme, they scored seven runs or more 38 times, and they won 36 of those. This stat goes back to my case that they had a horrible distribution of runs this year. Many times in those 38 games, they scored runs well beyond what they needed to win the game, which means they accumulated impressive offensive stats (which we acknowledge) but these impressive stats didn't produce quite as many victories as they should have. They would blow out opponents frequently and then the next night be unable to come up with a sorely needed single, time and again. What good does it do you to score 19 runs, when victory in those two games required only 6 or 10? It looks good on the individual stat sheets, but it's frustrating when two nights later you lose 4-3, with the bases loaded in the ninth and no outs. The other 19 run game was followed by a game that was tied 8-8 going into the 7th but they got shut out the final three innings, leaving men on base each inning.

They played about what you might expect in games where they scored 3 runs, which is to say under .500 but not too far under: 10-14. The thing that makes this seem worse than it is is that they actually had a winning record when they scored 3 runs until very late in the season. Through July 22, they were damned good with 3 runs, 9-4. From that point on, though, they went 1-10 when they scored thrice, the last time on August 16, which was, I believe, McLean's first game. So in the last month and a half, they scored 3 runs nine times and won none of them. That's gotta hurt.

Seems to me (no real context here) they played very poorly with 2 or fewer runs. When they scored 2 or fewer runs, they went 6-39. Four of those six victories occurred in April. They won 6 games when they scored 2 or fewer runs. In the 23 games they scored 2 runs in, they won only 6, 6-17 in those games seems unusually low to me. In the 14 games where they scored only 1 run, they didn't win any. 0-14. That seems unusually low to me. And of course in the 8 games they got shut out in, they won none. That seems about right to me.

By way of contrast, Washington, a 96-loss team, won 5 out of 8 extra-inning games, and went 24-18 in one-run games.

Here's a little of the work I was talking about above: The Mets lost more extra-inning games than they won, 6-7. This is partly bad luck (extras are always a crapshoot) but a good team should win more than they lose. They lost 3 more one-run games than they won, 23-26. Again, a good team will and should win more of these than they lose. Logic says that a team that goes 83-79, as they did, should win at least 25 out of 49 one-run games. The difference in these two factors alone would, of course, have gotten them into the playoffs, and a strong showing would have comfortably given them 90 or so wins. The weirdest stat I've come across has to do with their Pythagorean figures for the season's second half: despite scoring 6 more runs than they gave up (340-334) they managed to lose NINE more games than they won (28-37) over the second half. This is very difficult to do. With a more normal distribution of their runs, they should have won something like 33 out of their last 65 games. A record of 33-32 would have, again, given them 87 wins and a comfortable playoff berth. This is scoring the same exact total of runs and giving up the same exact total of runs in the last 65 games that they did in fact score and give up. These factors combine to suggest that the 90-win team we felt they were was realistic. They would hit better in games where they already had scored enough runs to win, and they wouldn't hit in the spots where a hit meant winning the game. Likewise with pitching. I'm not sure what Mendoza could have done to prevent this.

And yet...if Pete's lineout to LF with bases loaded yesterday had gone out of the park, and they'd managed to pull out the victory, I think we'd all be willing to cut Mendy a little slack today. The manager can do a lot, but he can't make his team score runs when they're not hitting, can he? I haven't done the work, don't know how to do it exactly, but I suspect that the Mets' record will show a lot of games where the hitting didn't show up while they got decent pitching, and lost, and a lot of games where the hitters were excellent and the pitchers couldn't get anyone out, and lost. A manager can't control that, can he? If a team usually has ten games per season like that, I suspect we had fifteen, or twenty, something like that. Which makes the difference in where we are today, and where we would be with a more normal run distribution.

Sure we do. We know how old Taylor is, and how often players improve after that age (hint: starts with "n," has a "v" in the middle, ends with "r" and there are two "e"s in there) and we know how old Acuna is, and how often players improve from that age on (this one I'll reveal openly: "all the time"). Taylor's age is a data point. It is not what he is. This should be obvious. You can condescend all you want, but no, it is utterly untrue that players never improve at or after Taylor's age. There are any number of examples. This should be obvious. It is also utterly untrue that players improve all the time at or before after Acuña's age. There are any number of examples. This should also be obvious. It is additionally obvious that being condescending to your interlocutor means you know that your argument is terrible, so you try to get by being cool and snotty instead. Bolstering your own snotty comments with the repetition of the word "obvious" doesn't actually make for a stronger or a truer comment--quite the opposite, in fact. I won't trouble you to provide examples of players whose career seasons occur after Taylor's current age. I'm sure you can provide them, if I make you hunt through the record book long enough, but it's a reliable rule that the vast majority of career years take place before age 30, and he's well into his decline phase now. So while you're fatuously claiming that "it is utterly untrue" you're relying on the rare exception that proves the rule. Likewise with players improving after Acuna's age--you can nitpick a few exceptions, but the vast majority of career seasons occur between Acuna's current age and Taylor's, and no matter how many "obviously"s you attach to your confident attempts to squelch me, you're still making a feeble argument. Thanks for finding me "cool," however. I appreciate the compliment.

Redundant?

I've always been big on trading pitchers off a strong season for a comparably good batter for the simple reason (irrefutable, really) that pitchers are fragile, relying as they do so heavily on one body part. The problem is we have no pitchers (other than McLean) coming off a strong season. Hence, we have no chance to land a good hitter, nor do we need one, other than in CF. A decade ago, I built an article around the argument the 2015 Mets were having with the 2015 Cubs--one team built around young home-grown pitchers (Harvey, deGrom, Syndergaard), the other around young home-grown position players (Rizzo, Bryant, Schwarber). I still think that's the wisest way to go, trade off young pitchers as soon as they establish themselves as reliable, because that perception is not going to last long and then you'll be stuck with expensive guys who sit out whole seasons and whole careers. McLean isn't there yet, and we don't have any other pitchers who are going to fetch anything valuable in return. Who are you gonna get for David Peterson at this point? Peterson's the best of the lot, so we might as well stick with him.

Sure we do. We know how old Taylor is, and how often players improve after that age (hint: starts with "n," has a "v" in the middle, ends with "r" and there are two "e"s in there) and we know how old Acuna is, and how often players improve from that age on (this one I'll reveal openly: "all the time"). Now if you want to get into a discussion of epistemology, and whether anything is truly knowable, and if not, why not, and so on, have at it. I'm always up for a spirited discussion. And again, I'm merely noting that Acuna's ability to play CF was often cited by the Mets in the spring as a viable possibility, given his tools and the team's needs, but was dropped shortly into the season. I'm wondering if he misplayed some balls, showed some awful fielding traits, had a weak throwing arm or what. Seems to me our need for a good CFer just got more and more severe as the season went on, and Acuna sat on the bench. Wasn't he sent back to AAA in part to get some reps in the outfield? Did he? Did that experiment fail? When he went to Syracuse, did he in fact play CF, or am I misremembering? OK, I looked it up: Acuna played 13 games at SS in AAA, 7 games at 2B, 6 games in CF, 1 game at 3B. If this was an experiment in making a CFer out of him, it was far from whole-hearted. The previous year, BTW, he played 31 games in CF in AAA. So this statement of fact is off by quite a bit, as is the authority which it cites.

Well, we know what Taylor is. Very recently there were calls for his head here on this website. He has his moments offensively, but his MLB track record says he's a glove but no bat. Mullins has a good year on his MLB resume but that year is pretty far in the past and we may never see its like again. Acuna has not shown that he can't become a good MLB hitter but now he seems to be permanently relegated to a pinch running role. I'm not arguing he should be the Mets regular CFer. He just seems forgotten in Mendoza 's plans.

No, he isn’t. And he certainly hasn’t been this year, as the numbers show. We're talking about replacing a #9 hitter with another #9 hitter, right? Acuna has potential to improve. Taylor not so much, and Mullins has shown no signs of improvement in his Mets tenure. It just seems a bit odd that he's dropped out of the discussion entirely.

I think Yoenis and Curtis have 2016 CF covered, thanks.

I thought McNeil didn't get high marks for his ability to play CF. Personally, he's looked fine to me, but I think someone posted here recently that he was -5 runs in CF, which (if I remember right) is terrible considering how little McNeil has played in CF. Acuna, OTOH, certainly doesn't lack for foot speed, and I thought he was a decent outfielder--at least I haven't heard anyone running him down. I'm not campaigning for him to be the Mets' CFer or anything. It's just puzzling that he doesn't appear to be in the mix considering that Taylor and Mullins haven't earned "everyday CFer" status to say the least. Maybe I just haven't been listening.

With all the controversy raging over the Mets' best option, of several mediocre to poor options, in CF at this point and going forward, I haven't heard that much lately about playing Acuna in CF, not since early in the season. Why is that? Did he display ineptness fielding the position? If so, I missed that. It can't be his offensive game, since compared to the other options, he's at least as good a hitter as Taylor or Mullins, and one heck of a lot better than the departed Siri. With some room to grow. And he's certainly the fastest baserunner on the team. So why is he out of the discussion, do you suppose?

And this is the one factor most easily changed by a pitching coach's philosophy. To be an MLB pitcher, control (and command) is your most basic skill. It's 100% (well, 99%) within each pitcher's skill set to choose whether to throw a ball or a strike. The problem is, of course, that the more you commit to throwing a strike, the more hittable your pitch becomes. But there's no question but that a pitcher should be able to throw strikes all day long at will. I believe the Mets pitchers were encouraged to nibble, even in circumstances where nibbling was crazy. I was driven insane to find some reliever, in the game protecting a late 6-run lead, who time and again threw ball after ball, walking multiple batters and letting the other team accumulate base runners and score multiple runs. Mets coaches and manager tolerated this to a degree I cannot countenance. If your **** is so weak that you're afraid to challenge hitters with a gigantic lead, then your **** is too weak to pitch in MLB.