The Interesting 2018 New York Mets (Who Will Probably Fall Into a Pile of Scorpions Again)

The #Mets signed Austin Jackson because they want someone who can catch the ball in CF and get a few hits. Nothing more than that. Mickey highly values a good defensive CF. They miss Lagares.

— Wayne Randazzo (@WayneRandazzo) July 27, 2018

MLB Trade Rumors:

The Mets feel that Zack Wheeler has “turned a corner” and would like a return in a trade which they feel is reflective of that improvement, tweets Fancred’s Jon Heyman. To this point, however, “no one has come even close” to meeting the team’s asking price, Heyman adds, making it seem likelier that Wheeler stays with the team through the deadline (and, quite likely then, into the offseason). With six shutout innings today, Wheeler now has a 3.20 ERA and a 63-to-23 K/BB ratio across his past 70 1/3 innings (11 starts) dating back to June 1. The 28-year-old is earning $1.9MM in 2018 and is controlled through the 2019 season.

guess i'm gonna fire up the TV archive

Mets television announcers Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen took turns reading verbatim from the team's media guide in the late innings -- the SNY network played the theme from "Masterpiece Theatre" in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGJ8OiqRhO4

Jose Reyes allowed two home runs last night.

He's hit two today.

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) August 1, 2018

i think we're reaching the point where degrom needs his own thread

Even I feel bad for the guy.

Degrom's dominance + lack of run support is such common knowledge this year that the cy young voters will have to take it in to account. Scherzer may not even be able to help the Nats make the wild card this year, so I wonder if this means Aaron Nola overshadows them both.

as close as the three of them are, i guess i'd be surprised if the guy with single-digit wins is successful

otoh degrom deserves a cy bonus and the wilpons deserve to pay for it 10 times over, so

Best ERA in MLB + 19 straight quality starts = 5W-7L

Very joe Morgan voice

Weeeeeeenssss

saving the marginal arms

https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-to-limit-pitchers-gsellman-and-lugo-for-remainder-of-the-season-1.20345760

mook and i dodged a bullet by not going last night, as Votto didn't play and there was a 100-minute rain delay in the top of the first.

It has happened, but deGrom is currently on path to make history.

The most WAR in a season where WAR > Ws is 6.2, set by Ted Abernathy in his 6-W 1967. At 6.5 WAR and 5 Ws, if deGrom's season ended today, he'd set the record https://t.co/VDiSTdEDp0 https://t.co/ql6sSx58nE

— Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) August 8, 2018

8 K thru 5 and has a 4-0 lead... in danger of winning

beware of Wilpons

https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2018/08/10/the-wilpons-think-that-the-mets-stink-because-theyre-too-analytics-heavy/

Wright is starting a rehab assignment:
https://www.amazinavenue.com/2018/8/11/17679326/mets-david-wright-rehab-assignment-st-lucie-new-york

Austin Jackson has been on fire lately.

Nimmo: 5-for-5 and a HBP

Plawecki Grand Slam was absolutely crushed. Need a gif of that.

http://mlb.mlb.com/images/3/5/6/290558356/081518_nym_plawecki_grandslam.gif

something bad happened to nimmo when he checked his swing -- maybe a wrist issue

Nothing broken, hopefully it’s ok? The rest of game 1 was an absolute treat.

Oh and thanks for the gif!

Not even a rain delay could stop Degrom's complete game that brings his ERA down to 1.71

Jacob deGrom threw his first complete game in a Cy Young season.

The final at-bat -- a game-ending groundout from Nick Williams:
Pitch 106: 98.3 mph
Pitch 107: 99.0 mph
Pitch 108: 99.1 mph (groundout)

Those were, successively, his three fastest pitches of the game.

— David Adler (@_dadler) August 18, 2018

Continue to be impressed w/Jeff McNeil.

Any chance they are resigning deGrom?

they don't have to -- they've got him for another two years, after which he will be heading into his age-33 season

me during sex: hurt me

her: You’ve been traded to the Mets

me: wait—

her: you have a sore elbow. Mets expect you to miss one start.

me: stop

her: It’s a torn UCL. Tommy John surgery. 12-18 months recovery.

— JB (@JB_August) August 19, 2018

Nimmo to DL, what a surprise

McNeil 4 for 4 again tonight. Cory Oswalt has been a surprise, and may actually turn out to be a good long guy in the bullpen if tonight's performance is anything to go by.

Jeff​ McNeil​ has had​ a truly odd career. McNeil, a 13th​ round​ pick​ in​ 2013​ who didn’t​ even​ play​ high​​ school baseball, struggled with injuries for most of his minor league career before finally keeping healthy in 2018 and breaking out. So it seems appropriate that McNeil would have an equally unique approach at the plate, one that is truly rare among MLB players.

To get a sense of the oddity of McNeil’s approach, look at this plot of zone-contact% versus zone-swing% among players from 2018 with at least 90 plate appearances (McNeil had 95 PA entering Monday).

https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2018/08/21073840/z-swing-versus-z-contact.png

There usually exists a slight trade-off in terms of Z-Swing% versus Z-Contact%: swinging at everything in the zone generally results in more whiffs, while swinging at fewer zone pitches allows hitters to be more selective, resulting in higher contact. But McNeil has completely bucked that trend, swinging at more zone pitches than anyone in baseball in 2018 while making contact at the rate of more selective players.

In his young MLB career, McNeil has displayed elite plate protection: per Baseball Savant, only 9.4% of pitches to McNeil have resulted in a called strike, the 4th best figure in the MLB in 2018 among batters who have seen at least 300 pitches. Making frequent and consistent zone contact is a good skill to have – according to Baseball Savant, hitters have run a .388 wOBA on zone-contact pitches in 2018 (McNeil is at .379 on the year on those pitches) – and McNeil is one of the best in baseball at generating zone contact.

McNeil is simply a contact machine – he swings at everything, and he contacts everything. 50.3% of pitches to McNeil end in contact – the highest figure in the MLB (min 300 pitches). More pitches to McNeil have not reached the catcher’s glove than have. On contact, McNeil is running a .346 wOBA and a .352 xwOBA, both of which are below average (league wOBA on contact: .361, xwOBA: .377) – but since McNeil generates more contact than any other hitter, he provides above-average value at the plate (.339 wOBA compared to a league average .317 wOBA) despite below average quality-of-contact and walk rates.

I wonder how the Mets can devalue or trade him?

David Wright went 1-4 with a run batted in while playing seven innings for Port St. Lucie while Jay Bruce went 3-4 with a double and two singles.

Jake out after 6, trailing 2-0; 4 BB, 10 K

long goes Frazier!

18 Quality Starts in a row for JdG

Mets are 24-23 in the season's 2nd half

that's nice

if only this was a split-season strike year, they'd be in contention

and now 5.5 behind Nats; mighta taken that in March.

Breaking: The Mets will not call up Peter Alonso this season.

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) August 28, 2018

jay bruce *needs* that playing time at first

so their reasoning was that a) between bruce and wilmer and dom smith, they couldn't get alonso any playing time at 1B, and b) he'd be better off getting some rest

a) they don't actually have to play jay bruce, a 31yo outfielder with an 80 OPS+ this season! they can play whoever they want! in any case, alonso won't be getting playing time anywhere else in september because the mets' upper minor league teams didn't make the playoffs

b) now they're sending him to the arizona fall league, which, while not a grind like the season, is not rest! also the guy has a .900 OPS in triple-a -- he doesn't need to be there. guys of his age and pedigree aren't sent to the AFL unless they missed significant time during the season or are trying to change positions. neither of which apply to alonso, who was named the mets' minor league defender of the month in july

it's not a service-time issue -- the extra time gained would be in his age-30 season. the mets just seem to have no clue

we're used to it

from my i.v. chair, i heard Ed Coleman and whoever the noontime WFAN idiot is talking about the necessity of "locking deGrom up" -- beginning with, as mook pointed out, his age 33 season. The mainstream sports media has no clue either.

https://i.imgur.com/yNw67eK.jpg

i don't know that this *means* anything, but at present the 2018 mets are offensively the worst-performing team ever, relative to overall performance, at home

they sure have sucked at home

btw WFAN midday idiot also said their big booboo last winter was not signing Eric Hosmer

The Mets have a 23-year-old potential star first baseman. They don’t want to lose a season of control in a year where they’re going to lose the majority of their games. The Blue Jays have arguably received less backlash for being thrifty with Guerrero than the Mets have with Alonso, and there’s no doubt at all that Guerrero is the better player, now and in the future.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/david-wright-peter-alonso-and-the-law-of-metropolitan-frugality/

the big difference is that alonso is four years older than vlad. when they do finally call him up next april 15, he'll be 24 and under team control until he's 31. we know players peak around 28, so he, like degrom, stands to lose big money by having free agency delayed into his 30s.

the vlad thing also sucks, but assuming the jays don't just leave him in the minors until they think they have a competitive team -- and it could be a while -- he'll still hit free agency at 27.

i don't know how much the union cares about this -- they're still minor leaguers, so they're not *in* the union -- but this is a serious screwing of its future members and yet another sign that the CBA is not working for the players

The Mets just announced that Jay Horwitz -- their longtime PR guy who could write a hell of a tell-all if he wanted to -- will "take on a new role with" the team. They're announcing more tomorrow at 2 p.m.

— Tim Healey (@timbhealey) September 11, 2018

new general manager obvs

via Amazin' Avenue:

"As the Mets ramp up their search for their next GM, reports say the team has asked Terry Collins to assume a larger role in the front office. Right now, people around the team point to Blue Jays' Mark Shapiro as the best fit to lead the Mets."

https://www.sny.tv/mets/news/mets-gm-search-update-collins-asked-to-assume-larger-role-keep-eye-on-shapiro/294168810

I don’t think it’s an accident that Mark Shapiro — a man who has shown that he is an expert at not spending money on baseball players while not catching much hell for it — is a top candidate for the Mets GM position. Indeed, I can think of no one more appropriate for the job.

https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2018/09/11/of-course-the-mets-are-interested-in-mark-shapiro

Heard a clip of Jay Horwitz talking about the time the players bought him a stripper...