Even with nearly one-quarter of a season of additional information, I feel like I have no grasp on who the 2024 Mets are.
I left spring training believing they could win 78 games or 88, and nothing really has changed five-plus weeks into the season. You can convince me they are strong contenders for a wild card and you can convince me they have to consider being July sellers for a second straight year.
For example, what do we make of the fact Francisco Lindor was fourth on the Mets in Baseball Reference Wins Above Replacement through Sunday, thanks to an 11-game surge that saw him hit .279 with a .962 OPS, four homers and three steals in three tries, but the five players surrounding him were José Buttó, Reed Garrett, Brett Baty, Luis Severino and Tyrone Taylor?
No one had that on their bingo card at the outset of the season, so is this actually a positive sign that David Stearns’ fixation on improving depth has helped? Or is the downturn of stars way more important? Lindor has stirred. But there has still not been enough from Brandon Nimmo while Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil have been anchors pulling the offense down.
You want to throw in J.D. Martinez? Unfair: He has played just 11 low-impact games since arriving to the Mets. Fair: The performances of late-signing Scott Boras clients (also Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell) suggest that missing a few weeks or all of spring training can negatively impact the start of a season or beyond.
Clearly, being swept by a banged-up, undermanned Rays team that had lost eight of 10 before the weekend is the kind of evidence that begins to push you a little closer to a negative evaluation of the Mets, who fell to 16-18. Conversely, the Mets still had a positive run differential and an upside-play potential for their pitching with Christian Scott and, at some point soon, Kodai Senga that is, at minimum, intriguing.
Want to see how little has changed? Fangraphs had the Mets as a 29.9 percent chance to make the playoffs as the season began and 28 percent through the weekend. Baseball Reference had the Mets at 25.4 percent, which was up less than one percent from a month ago.
It is not brain surgery. There are three particular items that need to improve greatly if the Mets are going to begin to be more of an 88-win team than a 78-win team:
1. Is looming free agency getting to Alonso? The way that Alonso has dealt with the attention of the Home Run Derby through the years made me think he would not be unnerved by the implications of his walk year.
But perhaps the Home Run Derby plays to the ham in Alonso — a singular event in which he can show off his greatest skill: awesome power. The season is wearying, and what is the mental burden if you begin to do the math in your head about what you turned down from the Mets and begin to worry whether you left money on the table?
Last season’s low batting average is beginning to look less aberrational. More and more, Alonso is becoming a right-handed version of Kyle Schwarber — low average, big homer totals.
This is Schwarber’s line since the beginning of last season (all stats through the weekend): .198/.338/.456 with 55 homers.
This is Alonso’s: .215/.314/.488 with 54 homers.
Those are the two lowest batting averages among players with at least 700 plate appearances in that time while producing the second-most and third-most homers behind Matt Olson.
Schwarber strikes out more frequently, but he also walks more frequently. He also is a proven high-end postseason performer. He also is left-handed. He also has a great reputation for clubhouse leadership. He also was one year younger than Alonso (who turns 30 in December) will be entering free agency, and his overall offensive game was better than Alonso’s — to this point — in the two platform years before his free agency (though one was the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign).
Like Schwarber, Alonso can expect teams to see his main value in his bat, not his unathletic defense and chances to age well.
Schwarber signed a four-year, $79 million deal with the Phillies. Alonso did not leave his smaller agency to join Boras for that kind of a deal. The Mets, at some point, were probably willing to offer double that total, or perhaps with serious negotiation even a bit more for a homegrown player well regarded by the fans. But the sense was Alonso saw himself more in the Aaron Judge mode — the homegrown power hitter for whom the loyal fans would make life hell for the organization if he were to be allowed to leave.
How do the fans feel at this moment?
Offense is terrible in the sport now. Alonso, who Monday night in St. Louis did not start for the first time this season, is going to have value in the marketplace as a proven power force. But just how much value is going to be determined by what he does over the last three-quarters of this season.
Judge set a Yankees record with 62 homers in his walk year and won the AL MVP. The Yankees felt they couldn’t let him leave. Can Alonso still do the same? Or is the whole process actually detracting from his performance?
2. Has McNeil fallen and can’t get up? The major league batting average through the weekend was .239, the second-lowest in the Live Ball Era (since 1920). McNeil’s batting average was .231.
So McNeil is below-average at his most vital skill at a time when the bar is extraordinarily low. He won the NL batting title in 2022 at .326 and was rewarded by agreeing to a four-year, $50 million extension.
McNeil had the third largest dip in batting average (56 points) among those who qualified for the batting title in 2022 to 2023 (Alonso’s drop of 55 points was next-largest). He was down another 39 points from last year.
He has seemed caught between philosophies — trying to be the bat wizard who flipped hits across the breadth of the field and someone who tried to pull more in 2023.
McNeil has gone from having a penchant for not striking the ball hard, but yet finding hits to just not striking the ball hard. Alonso’s exit velocity average is down considerably from recent seasons. But McNeil’s was 86.9 mph when he won the batting title. It is 86.3 mph now. His strikeout rate — despite three on Sunday — has remained elite. What has changed dramatically is what happens when he hits the ball.
In his first five seasons, 2018-22, McNeil hit .307. Only Luis Arráez (.314) and Freddie Freeman (.310) were better. McNeil’s batting average on balls in play in that period was .332.
Over the past two years, Arráez (.345) and Freeman (.325) are first and third in batting average, respectively (minimum 600 plate appearances). McNeil was 58th in average, at .264, with a .284 batting average on balls in play.
McNeil has no immediate threat to take his job. Joey Wendle — one of the hoped-for depth pieces signed by Stearns — has not played well when given the chance. Ronny Mauricio is likely out for the season after knee surgery. Luisangel Acuña is hitting .215 with a .594 OPS at Triple-A, and Jett Williams is at .180/.668 at Double-A and has been out two weeks due to wrist soreness.
Not long ago the Mets might have been able to hope for a package not dissimilar to what the Marlins got for Arráez, who on Friday was traded to the Padres for four prospects. But Arráez followed up an AL batting title in 2022 by succeeding McNeil as the NL batting champ last year.
Meanwhile, McNeil has two years at $33.5 million left on his contract after this season, including the buyout on his 2026 team option. Perhaps the Mets would be able to trade for equivalent money or eat money to move him now — unless he starts to hit again.
3. Can the Mets prevent thievery? The Rays stole seven bases on Sunday. Opposing base stealers were 52 of 55 against the Mets — that is 16 more steals than any other team had permitted. And it feels as if the word is out now in a stronger way to run with impunity. Through the weekend, the Mets had allowed at least one steal in six straight games and 19 in that period.
The Mets have allowed as many as six steals in a game just 24 times in their history, but two of those were in a four-game span between Thursday (Cubs) and Sunday (Rays).
There were 11 teams that had fewer than those 19 steals the Mets had allowed in a week. One of them was the Cardinals. If the Cardinals — who did not attempt a steal Monday in the opener of a three-game series against the Mets — also gets the bug and runs wild, the Mets’ crisis probably elevates from four-alarm to five.
Helping foster the steal problem is that Mets pitchers had an MLB-high 11.8 walk percentage. That is blunting the impact of having a .216 batting average against, which was sixth-best. Giving a free pass is not just increasing on-base percentage against, but is, in effect, a hidden slugging percentage because so many runners are ending up at second as if they hit a double.
The issue is particularly problematic with the Mets bullpen, which had an 18.9 percent walk rate (third-highest) and had yielded 27 steals (most in the majors). That the pen had maintained a 2.90 ERA (fourth-best) with those two factors feels unsustainable.
Now, for the good news
There really is no such thing as enough pitching. Especially now when injuries are so prevalent. So no team ever wants to get too much ego here.
But in spring training, Jeremy Hefner, in his fifth year as pitching coach, believed the floor for the Mets staff was the highest in his tenure because he felt the club had stacked more quality options than at any other time. And some of that has played out. The Mets have endured without Senga and then without his replacement, Tylor Megill.
And there are avenues to potentially see a better version of the staff.
Senga is perhaps a month away from returning — though shoulder injuries are always worrisome in not only complicating a pitcher’s return to the mound, but in raising the possibility that the pitcher who returns is a lesser version of the one who left.
It was just one start, but it was quite an impressive one by Scott. If he holds a rotation spot, does that allow the Mets to try to further upgrade the bullpen by adding Megill and/or David Peterson when they are ready to return from injury? Peterson’s lefty arm might be particularly valuable in relief.
Within the next 3-4 weeks, the Mets could have Megill, Peterson, Scott, Senga, Buttó, Adrian Houser, Sean Manaea, Jose Quintana and Luis Severino to pick from. Houser is the odd man out this time through the rotation as the Mets will look at Scott for at least a second start. And Houser just may be the odd man out.
He might be struggling with the Mets. But Houser has a track record of being a capable back-end starter at a time when many teams are desperate for rotation arms due to injury and underperformance. They are desperate for arms of any type. Just think: Three teams already have employed Michael Tonkin since the start of the season, and if I had to establish an over/under, I would make it 4 ½ teams by the time the season is done.
You know who could use Houser? The Brewers. I have no inside information, and I am sure there are other clubs that wouldn’t mind taking a chance to revive Houser, who wouldn’t fetch much of a return for the Mets because he can be a free agent after the season and currently sports an 8.16 ERA.
However, the Brewers were in first place at the conclusion of the weekend — but with the second-worst rotation WAR (Fangraphs). The Brewers could use some stability in the rotation, the kind they used to get from (looking it up now), oh yeah, Houser. They knew it could be a struggle because Brandon Woodruff is likely to miss the season after shoulder surgery and they traded their ace, Corbin Burnes, and Houser. From 2019-23, Houser appeared in 120 games for Milwaukee (97 starts) and produced a 4.04 ERA.
And we know the Brewers and Mets can do a deal. They did at the trade deadline last year when Mark Canha went to Milwaukee. And they did it last December when the Mets traded prospect Coleman Crow to the Brewers for Tyrone Taylor…and Houser.
My basketball analogy
If you are a regular visitor to this space or to “The Show With Joel Sherman And Jon Heyman” podcast or my TV work on MLB Network, first, thank you; second, you probably know I tend to think in basketball comparisons. I love the NBA.
And so I have one for you that Yankees fans are probably going to hate, but really, I am not trying to hit raw nerves. I just thought about it during the 76ers-Knicks series.
Is Aaron Judge baseball’s Joel Embiid?
Wait, give me a second here.
What we have are two guys who even within their large, athletic worlds stand out for not just their size, but their agility within the size — Embiid as a center and Judge as a center fielder. They are both hurt often and miss a lot of time, but when they are not injured, they are high-end MVP candidates. And each has won that award once.
They both have postseason highs, but do not perform as consistently well in the playoffs as in the regular season — too often vanishing at the biggest moments. Judge, for example, has 13 homers in 44 postseason games, but hits .211 and strikes out in 33.3 percent of his plate appearances.
And neither has led their team to the big one — Embiid’s Sixers have never made the conference finals and Judge’s Yankees have never made the World Series.
Got my attention
I like talking to Gerrit Cole. I almost never leave a conversation with him without feeling more informed about the Yankees or the art of pitching or something within the state of the game.
Cole reminds me in this way of David Cone, who was insightful enough and wise enough that he often would drop points into conversations that he would want to emphasize without ever saying that was what he was doing. It was just that he would highlight an item, and if you were paying attention you realized that it was not unintentional — almost like he had an agenda to accentuate a point.
On Sunday, I was discussing the general sturdiness and excellence of the Yankees rotation going round and round without Cole and holding the fort until he returns, which is still at least a month away. Cole was laudatory about the group. But he offered just one name, and it was not accidental.
“Our guys are doing a great job, and Luis Gil has made huge strides within one month — huge strides,” Cole said. “I’m sure he is super-focused on things where he has a lot of work to do, but he has done a great job for us.”
Cole talked about how “impressive” the stuff was and then decided to publicly hold back on going further because why layer on expectations and pressure? But Gil has been drawing attention from the outset of spring training, and not just in the Yankees universe. Opposing scouts gushed over him during the spring. And when I recently suggested to a non-Yankees executive that the Yankees might be able to solve a need for relief strikeouts and to strengthen their setup chain to Clay Holmes by putting Gil in the pen when Cole returns, the official said, “Sure, yeah, why not? I hope they do that.”
It was the official’s way of saying that Gil’s stuff really plays in the rotation right now and would think it self-defeating to take Gil out of the rotation.
Of course, there is a long way from here to there, and Gil, who missed last season after Tommy John surgery, has to stay healthy and so do the others for Aaron Boone and the Yankees to even have to make a decision about which five to keep in the rotation. One of the reasons the Yankees climbed 10 games over .500 is that, yes, they lost their ace, but they have (key words: to date) kept the other five guys going round and round.
But what Gil has shown — in just a snapshot so far — is high-end stuff that can win in the strike zone as a starting pitcher. And it’s been good enough to catch the attention of Cole and the industry.
Gil’s Tuesday night start against the Astros poses another interesting hurdle. His 30.8 strikeout percentage is eighth among those with at least 30 innings. The Astros are not mimicking a lot of successful stuff from recent seasons, but, as always, they are tough to strike out. Their 16.8 whiff percentage is by far the lowest in the majors with Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yainer Diaz and Jeremy Pena standing out in this area. They will put the ball in play. Will that frustrate Gil?
Also, the opposing starter is Justin Verlander, if that means anything to Gil.
And there is this: Gil did not face the Astros when the Yankees swept four games in Houston to open the season.
The Astros arrive 10 games under .500 to play the 10-over-.500 Yankees. In an age of three wild cards per league, there may be no-pre Memorial Day kill shots. And after the Astros beat the Yankees four times in the postseason since 2015, including in the ALCS three times, there is no equal retribution before the calendar flips to June.
But the Yankees can really damage the Astros’ playoff chances further and build up their confidence more during the next few days. And it begins with the ball in Gil’s hands.
Roster stuff maybe only I notice
Curtis Mead batted ninth for the Rays on Friday night. He went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the only time in a three-game series that a totally homegrown Ray got into a game against the Mets.
And it was the only chance in the series.
The Rays have only used three players this season whom they signed to their first pro contracts: Mead, Rene Pinto and Brandon Lowe. Pinto was sent to the minors leading into the series and Lowe has been out since April 7 due to an oblique injury.
Three is an MLB-low for totally homegrown players used by a team this season. The Brewers, Mariners and Nationals are next with seven apiece.
Some of this is reflected in what have so far been season-long injuries keeping players such as Taj Bradley, Josh Lowe, Shane McClanahan and Taylor Walls off the active roster — though Josh Lowe came off the IL and was in the Rays’ lineup on Monday night. Additionally, Wander Franco has not played since being put on administrative leave last Aug. 14 as an investigation continues into allegations of Franco’s relationship with an underaged girl.
But it also underscores that the Rays’ success — the fourth-best record in the majors from 2018-23 — relies heavily on winning trades for players such as Randy Arozarena, Yandy Diaz, Pete Fairbanks, Tyler Glasnow, Isaac Paredes, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs.
Even within what has not been a very good start to their season, the Rays are benefitting from tiny trades that did not seem much at the moment.
On Jan. 5, they made two deals, sending Luke Raley to the Mariners for Jośe Caballero and Andrew Kittredge to the Cardinals for Richie Palacios.
Caballero has taken over at shortstop with Franco unavailable and Walls injured and had a 106 OPS-plus, 13 steals and was sixth in Defensive Runs Saved at shortstop. Raley had a disappointing 74 OPS-plus and one homer for the Mariners.
Palacios had a 155 OPS-plus, three homers and was 5-for-5 on steals. Kittredge had been terrific for the disappointing Cardinals with a 0.64 ERA in 14 relief outings before allowing a tie-breaking homer to Nimmo in the seventh inning Monday.
In a three-team deal just before the season, the Yankees traded out-of-options catcher Ben Rortvedt to the Rays and received Jon Berti from the Marlins. Rortvedt’s reputation has been as a defensive catcher who can’t hit at all — yet in his first 23 games with the Rays, Rortvedt was batting .351.
Let’s assume that is highly unsustainable. Rortvedt also leads the majors (minimum 60 plate appearances) in batting average on balls in play at .513. The league average is .288.
Last licks
Tigers outfielder Parker Meadows faced Nestor Cortes twice on Sunday and struck out both times before he was pinch-hit for in the seven inning by Kerry Carpenter. There really was no surprise in the outcome. Meadows has reached two strikes in a plate appearance 55 times this year; he is a stunning 0-for-47 with 32 strikeouts and eight walks.
I repeat: Meadows is hitless in 47 at-bats that reach two strikes.
The Tigers have greatly improved pitching this year revolving around high-level Cy Young candidate Tarik Skubal. And they have a chance to win the tepid AL Central.
But their offense is a millstone. Javier Baez began this season with four years at $98 million still owed him — likely too far from the finish line for the Tigers to release him, though his OPS in Detroit began with an unacceptable .671 in 2022, fell to .593 in 2023 and is .472 this year.
But more and more they were being forced to reconsider whom they could change from their positional group, and after Monday’s 2-1 loss to the Guardians, the Tigers acted on Meadows and his .096 average, demoting him to the minors.
Will it stop there?
The Tigers made a commitment to Colt Keith before he had spent a day in the majors, signing him to a six-year, $28.64 million contract. But it is hard to get less out of a double-play combo than the Tigers are right now. Baez’s .471 OPS through the weekend was the fourth-worst in the majors (minimum 100 plate appearances). The worst? That would be Keith at .399. Could the Tigers demote Keith and call up one of their top prospects, such as Jace Jung, who in his past eight games at Triple-A was hitting .423 with a 1.310 OPS.
The most difficult decision would involve Spencer Torkelson, who was the first overall draft pick in 2020 and who over the final quarter of last season finally seemed to click. During his last 45 games in 2023, Torkelson hit 14 homers — only Judge (15) hit more in the American League in that span. That went along with a .264 average and a .905 OPS.
Torkelson finished with 31 homers last year, but this season only Arráez (159) had more plate appearances without a homer than Torkelson’s 139. And Torkelson’s minus-1.1 WAR (Baseball Reference) was the third-worst in the majors. The once-touted, failed prospect Keston Hiura is an alternative the Tigers could consider at Triple-A.
The Tigers have a dilemma. They were fourth in the majors in ERA, between the Yankees and the Orioles. But they were 21st in scoring, weighed down by the sixth-lowest average (.224) and seventh-fewest homers (29).
How long do they go with the youth they thought was going to elevate the lineup and instead is sinking it?
