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Apparently Optimism Is Not A Sin

Ted Berg over at Tedquarters.net is doing a four part series on “If absolutely everything falls right” and looking at the upward bounds of expectations for the Mets roster.  It’s nice to know I’m not the only person looking at the optimistic avenue.  I was beginning to feel a little like Highlander as an optimistic Mets fan.

 

I think this post on the infield  is very reasonable, and it’s even possible that some of the players overshoot his proposed projections.   The most unrealistic part is them all staying healthy all year.  Still, health is not an unreasonable expectation.  I’m not expecting Wright to break his back again, or Ike Davis managing to fall in exactly the wrong way to ruin his season.

 

His second part, on the outfield, seems a tad more pessimistic to me.  Maybe Bay does rebound a little.  I’ve mentioned that here in the past, but  I think we’re doing a disservice to Duda in projecting his ceiling defensively as “not terrible”.  His outfield experience in the minors was mostly in left, and he’s only got about half a season of time in the majors.  Perhaps his hulking frame tends to make one  believe he’ll never be good defensively, but I think he can hit “not terrible” just by having all of Spring Training to start at the position and build on it as the year goes on.   He can clearly hit the baseball, and if he were to improve on what he did last year he could be our own version of Mike Stanton.  In fact, their offensive WAR on baseball-reference were very similar factoring in playing time.   Ralph Kiner and Keith Hernandez both love his swing, for whatever that’s worth.

 

Ted dreams of Jason Bay having a great first half and becoming a trade chip and Kirk Nieuwenhuis forcing his way up to the majors.  Personally I think that’s unrealistic, because I don’t think a half season of good baseball is going to yield the type of return to make it worth trading him.  He’s not Carlos Beltran and his trade would come along with 24 or so million dollars owed to him and a possible vesting option.  More likely if Nieuwenhuis does warrant a call-up, Andres Torres will become a fourth outfielder.  If this happens we’ll lose a little defensively, but gain a lot offensively, including some flexibility with defensive replacements.

 

So what’s the highest fWAR we can expect from the Mets offense?  I’m going to say somewhere in the 28-30  range.  This would’ve had them 4th in the NL last year and best in the NL East.   I think this number represents of everything goes well.  It’s certainly possible that if one or two things turn out to go extraordinarily well, they could shoot past it.  Because fWAR heavily relies on fielding, if the pitching does better there will be less balls in play and less fielding damage to the values.  I assume part three and four of Ted’s series will deal with the rotation and the bullpen.

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Despicable Mets

Remember when I said that the Mets needed to maintain good defense and starting hitting better with runners in scoring position in the absence of Wright and Davis?  Well, this is what happens when you don’t do that.  You drop games to teams like the Pirates due to a frustrating to watch collection of poor defense, poor pitching, and bad luck.

 

These last three days were a showcase for what the Mets would be like without Reyes.  Thankfully he’s back tomorrow, and hopefully he’s back next year, and the years after that.  This, coupled with how well Turner has played, should keep Willie Harris out of the lineup if not off the team entirely.  There’s two big series coming up against teams that will likely compete for the division and the wild card, and it’d be the perfect time to start stringing together wins.

 

Will they do any of this? Or will they let the injuries and poor play crush them?  Only time will tell.  There’s a quick turn around for tomorrow’s day game and that could help quickly erase the poor events of these last two games.   If they lose they’ll have clinched a non-winning home stand, win and they get a chance to win a series against the Braves to start climbing back to relevancy.

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It Was Just One Game, Let’s Overreact

It was a horrible game. The Mets played sloppy baseball all around the diamond, and didn’t hit the ball with runners in scoring position. Niese didn’t throw enough curveballs and was forced to get too many outs in one inning, but survived through five.

This game was not a result of comments made by guys in suits. This game was the result of play on the field, which wasn’t better than the Cubs play on the field. Ruben Tejada was not thinking about what a meanie Fred Wilpon was to Jose Reyes when he failed to catch a pop-up going back.

Jason Bay is not done.   He’s not very good, deserves all sorts of criticism, and is killing the lineup but he’s not done.   Just like Carlos Delgado was not done in 2008. Remember him? I always laugh because there’s a blog out there called Ketchup On Your Ice Cream, whose last post was a frantic call for Mike Carp to replace him.  This blog still stands, nearly three years later, as a monument to not overreacting.   Yes, Bay looks horrible.  Luckily he’s a hard worker and a hustler.  He can come out of it.  No better time than right now, when the Mets need offense the most. 

Justin Turner is not “regressing to the mean” as I saw one beat writer note last night.  Rookies do not regress, because the idea of regressing suggests a baseline value.  Justin Turner does not have a baseline value, because his major league sample size is ridiculously small.  Even punching in his Buffalo numbers to the extremely questionable minor league equivalency calculator gives him a respectable .743 OPS in the majors.  Obviously it’s unlikely he’ll hit like Albert Pujols and drive in a run every game, but that doesn’t mean he’s trash. 

The Mets are not done.  Yes, they’re in a tough spot with the offense.  Justin Turner helped some, but when he cooled off no one else stepped up to get big hits.  When the offense is struggling the defense needs to make the plays and avoid costly mistakes that extend innings and make things tougher.  The Mets had been pretty good at that, but they’ve gotten sloppy again lately.  They’ve got one of those “turning point” series coming up this weekend with the Phillies.  Everyone overreacting right now will likely be overreacting in the other direction if the Mets win that series.

The pitching is not horrible.  The bullpen is actually very good, but the starters are what’s in question here.  Yes, Pelfrey and Niese fell apart around some sloppy play and bad luck, but they’re not crap.  Pelfrey is a solid above average workhorse type pitcher and Niese is still learning the league and the craft.  Dickey put up a good showing on Friday and hopefully that means he’s back in command of his knuckleball.   Gee’s a rookie and Capuano’s pretty solidly average.  I’ve long been saying the good part of the Mets rotation, and the team in general, is that they all around don’t suck.  There aren’t any huge black holes and automatic outs or gimme pitchers.   Every pitcher is capable of pitching very well, and most of the time they’ll keep the team in games.   The lack of an ace, for now, is mitigated some by having an above average back end of the rotation.  I also suspect Sandy Alderson is looking for a couple of pitchers that could help out a little, for depth purposes, but it’s hard to find much in May. 

So in the end, it’s just one game.  You can’t overreact and point to every three game losing streak as confirmation  that all the negative gibberish spouted about the Mets is true anymore than you can take a three game winning streak as evidence that I’m correct in my prediction of the Mets clinching the division on August 25th against the Phillies.  It’s a long season, and lots of things change week to week and even day to day.