Why are the New York Mets the
laughing stock of Major League Baseball?
They
certainly aren’t the league’s worst team.
They also haven’t endured decades of futility, like as the Royals and
Pirates.
Their
infamous collapse at the end of the 2007 season was certainly memorable, and
there most recent seasons have not been successful, but does the struggling
franchise warrant all of the negative attention it receives?
What
makes the Mets different from other struggling teams is that they spend a lot
of money and they play in New York.
Their high profile and proximity to the New York Yankees make them an
obvious target for derision.
Will
the 2012 season for the Mets validate the criticism, or silence it?
Strengths
The
news in New York isn’t all bad-far from it, actually. Arguably the most interesting aspect of this
team is its younger players. After a
stellar start to the 2011 season before a bizarre injury sidelined Ike Davis
for the season (.302/.383/.543 with 7 HRs in 149 PAs), it will be interesting
to see what the 25-year old can do over the course of a full season. Ruben Tejada is hardly an “exciting”
prospect, especially considering whose cleats he is attempting to fill, but
this season will shed light on whether or not Tejada is a capable table-setter
(.280/.360 in 276 PAs) or if his numbers last season were a fluke and he is, in
fact, all glove and no bat. Lucas Duda
(.292/.370/.482 with 10 HRs in 347 PAs) posted numbers that are pretty hard to
complain about last season; the question
is whether or not the 25-year old outfielder can sustain those numbers over an
entire season.
On the
other side of the ball, there are several young arms that have the potential to
take big steps forward in New York this season.
25-year olds Jon Neise and Dillon Gee will both be relied on heavily
during the season. For Neise, many signs
point towards a breakout year for the young lefty. Since 1962, there have been 316 seasons in
which a starting pitcher threw 150 inning while striking out at least 7 batters
per nine innings, walking less than three per nine innings, and allowing less
than one home run per nine innings. In
roughly half of those seasons, the pitcher in question posted an ERA below 3.00,
and about 80% of those seasons resulted in a sub-3.50 ERA. Neise’s 2011 season meets those criteria, and
yet he ended his season with relatively poor 4.40 ERA. The Mets signed Neise to a five-year contract
extension based on the belief that his end results will eventually
match his peripheral statistics.
Gee, on
the other hand, may be in the opposite situation. After starting his 2011 campaign 7-0 with a
2.86 ERA (the best start for a rookie in franchise history), Gee ended his
season with a 13-6 record and a 4.43 ERA.
2012 will go a long way towards revealing whether Gee’s lackluster
finish was an anomaly or simply a regression to the norm. He’s currently penciled in as the fifth
starter, but expect him to take a more prominent role if he gets off to another
hot start and Mike Pelfrey falters.
The
team’s other strengths are fairly obvious.
David Wright is still David Wright.
Johan Santana is healthy and on track to make the start on Opening Day. R.A. Dickey’s 3.08 ERA during
his two seasons as a Met is arguably the best storyline the team has had in
years. The bullpen, which was among the
league’s worst last year, will be aided by the additions of Jon Rauch, Frank
Francisco and Ramon Ramirez.
Weaknesses
The
Mets were, by many standards, the worst defensive team in the entire league
last season, and a glance at the roster reveals that nothing has changed that
could conceivably pull the Mets out of the defensive basement this year. This is especially bad news for two reasons:
the Mets run-scoring, which was actually 6th-best in the National
League and best in the NL East in 2011, will decline without Jose Reyes batting
leadoff and Carlos Beltran batting third.
Also, while the Mets have several pitchers who post good strikeout
numbers, many prominent hurlers such as Mike Pelfrey rely on their defense
fairly heavily. Even Johan Santana
doesn’t put Ks on the board like he used to.
While bad defense is hardly a death sentence (the Cardinals posted the 3rd-worst
UZR in 2011), it certainly won’t be making an already bad situation any better
in New York.
Jason
Bay is only 2 years into his 4-year contract with the Mets, which includes a
vesting option for a fifth year. Bay,
who made over 18 million dollars last year, followed a disappointing 2010
campaign with a downright disastrous 2011.
In his two seasons with the Mets, Bay has hit 18 home runs, half of the
36 he hit with Boston in 2009. To call
the Bay signing a colossal mistake thusfar would be an understatement,
especially considering the delicate financial situation that the Mets are
currently in. Bay’s grip on the starting
job in left field is rumored to be in jeopardy, and after posting an OPS only a handful of
points above .700 in 2011, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Health
is a perennial weakness for the Mets. Be
it pulled hamstrings, season-ending surgeries or freak accidents, injuries seem
to follow the Mets moreso than any other club.
Their recent history of treating said injuries is also infamous; for
example, the decision to put Ike Davis in a walking boot after he tripped over
David Wright while going for a pop-up ended up costing him his entire season. For the last several years, one of the
biggest questions on Opening Day in Queens is: “Can the Mets stay
healthy?” Recently, the answer to that
question has been “no.”
Losing
Jose Reyes is a huge blow, and not only from an offensive standpoint. Reyes’ energy and talent made him one of the
most entertaining players in the league.
There’s more to the drop-off from Reyes to Tejada at shortstop than
the 250-point difference in their OPSs last season.
The
Mets have more weaknesses than strengths right now, and they got worse in an
offseason where the rest of the division either improved or stood pat. Perhaps their biggest weakness has nothing to
do with injuries and statistics: the Wilpons still own the team, and thanks to
the recent developments in the Madoff lawsuit, it looks like that won’t change
anytime soon.
Prediction
“Ultimately,
the best solution for the Mets is to build a strong core of young players who
are coming through the system and can be continuously coming through the
system. And I think if you look at what
we have now, we’ve got the potential for that kind of core. But it’s next generation, together with some
of the players that have been longer term.”
That’s how GM Sandy Alderson
summarized his club. The Mets have
several interesting players, as well as some capable youngsters. The teams best prospects, the ones with star
potential, are still in the minors. The
future doesn’t look completely bleak, although it is certainly clouded with
question marks.
As for this year, the only thing
that remains to be seen appears to be whether or not the Mets will come in 4th
or 5th. The Mets won 77
games last season. The last-place
Marlins will assuredly win more than 72 this year, and the Nationals, who were
three wins better than the Mets last year, certainly haven’t gotten any worse. I predict that the Mets will come in fourth
place with 75 wins. For anything better
than that, the Mets would need the kind of luck that has eluded them for the
past five years.
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