It was sort of surreal at the time. I don’t know if I fully grasped that Shea Stadium was no more when I took this shot heading into the game against the Padres on April 16th, 2009.
Lucas Duda’s Green Mets Hat
If you’re looking for what the Mets are wearing this year, check out Mets Police.
Now We Get Serious
Yesterday the Mets took a turn towards the regular season and it’s becoming time to start making sure everyone is getting the work they need. It’s less than three weeks until Opening Day.
The Mets pared down the camp size by sending many of the minor leaguers back to minor league camp. This move is in conjunction with the regular players getting more playing time instead of coming out after 3-4 innings. The pitchers will also start pitching deeper into games, as they stretch out their arms towards being able to throw 100 pitches or so once the season starts. This means the games start resembling real games again, and that means getting rid of the DH. Starting yesterday with R.A. Dickey, Mets pitchers will bat as normal for the rest of Spring Training.
Which is why it’s important for David Wright to heal quickly. The Mets aren’t quite at the stage where he’d be rushing to be ready to play on Opening Day, but that time is drawing near. If he’s not playing by early next week, it’ll start to be a real concern that he’ll miss Opening Day. Ultimately if he’s a week or two late it’s not going to make that much of a difference, but there is something to be said for having your best players healthy and ready to go when the bell rings to start the season.
It’s time to get serious. Let’s work towards rounding out the roster and getting all the regulars healthy and ready to play some baseball!
Stop With The Rebuilding Year Excuse
A quote by Terry Collins “I don’t want these guys ever to come in that clubhouse where they’re not expected to win the game,” conflicts with what many fans feel; That the Mets aren’t expected to do anything this year.
The thing is, they ARE expected to do stuff this year. Win games, play hard and play baseball. No professional organization goes into a season, particularly the staff in the clubhouse, with the attitude that it’s a throwaway year. Terry Collins expects the Mets to win. David Wright expects the Mets to win. Maybe they have their reservations about the likelihood of them finishing first when all the chips fall, but until they do they’ll be trying their hardest and doing their best. They certainly don’t believe it’s a done deal that they can’t win anything.
This is the best quality of Terry Collins in that he doesn’t let anyone play the woe is me card. He demands effort and hard work from his players and I think that leads to a good clubhouse and a positive atmosphere. He’s not making excuses and not making decisions with anything but how to win as many games as possible in mind.
Since the Mets don’t do this, it’s silly for fans to suggest they should. No one should bring Harvey up immediately after he’s had two good minor league starts in April just to see how he looks in the majors. They shouldn’t shut guys down for the first hang nail or muscle twinge because it’s a rebuilding year and it’s better to be safe than sorry. They shouldn’t just let Andres Torres play out the string to keep Kirk Nieuwenhuis’ arbitration clock from starting if he’s the best option for the Mets. Sandy Alderson is not making moves solely with the hope that his acquisition will lead to a greater return on investment when he trades him in July. That’s not to say he’s not cognizant of the option, particularly for guys like Frank Francisco, but to think that was his main motivation in signing him is misreading the situation completely. There’s a big difference in building a flexible roster that gives him lots of options and playing the MLB free agent market like it’s Wall Street. The Mets roster is not actually a NASDAQ ticker.
This does not excuse failure either. It’ll be easy to dismiss the Mets after a game they lose with the comment, “They aren’t good anyway”, but there is no reason to ever excuse failure. Terry Collins certainly isn’t going to accept that as an excuse for a poor stretch of games, so why should we? To view the entire season as some sort of strategic set-up for 2013 and 2014 takes all the actual joy of watching baseball and gives it the importance of a Spring Training game. There is a reason why the awards aren’t given on paper before the season after all; no one really knows what’s going to happen. Rather than prematurely write off 2012 and analyze everything and everyone based on their value in 2013 and beyond, watch the games and enjoy the ride. If ultimately the ride doesn’t take you to the heights you want by the time it ends, you’ll still be able to get on again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that..
Tim Byrdak And New Mets Competitions
Tim Byrdak will be on the disabled list until at least May. This opens up a competition for lefty reliever in a Mets camp that hadn’t previously had a lot of jobs available. Couple that with Scott Hairston‘s injury, and the door is open for some guys to make the team that previously didn’t have much of a chance.
This may not be a bad thing. Tim Byrdak settled down after a bad start, but he wasn’t making anyone forget Pedro Feliciano. Similiarly, Scott Hairston ended up with pretty decent numbers, but his numbers against lefties were down from his career numbers. Neither of these guys are what one would call irreplaceable, and opening up the job to others may result in the Mets finding some that even does the job better.
Certainly none of these jobs are high-impact jobs. Byrdak pitched merely 37 innings last year, and Hairston only had 145 plate appearances. So even if the Mets couldn’t find replacements that would do as good a job, the overall effect on the Mets will be minimal. Other pitchers will get a chance to get outs, and the right-handed pinch-hitting duties will be filled by someone that gets that job done. Ronny Cedeno and Justin Turner both figure to get some of them anyway, so it’s unlikely the Mets even notice Scott Hairston is gone, unless further injury happens.
Chuck James, Danny Herrera, Garrett Olsen, and perhaps Robert Carson or Josh Edgin, are the guys pegged to replace Bydrak. Vinny Rottino, Adam Loewen, Mike Baxter, and maybe Kirk Nieuwenhuis are the guys in line to replace Scott Hairston and were already competing for a bench spot. Now two of them will likely get a chance. None of these guys is likely to come in and make a huge difference, but it’s certainly possible they can at least approximate what Byrdak and Hairston did last year. There is also the possibility of Sandy Alderson adding someone late in Spring Training to fill a role.
Depth is what gets hurt when you have to go to the next in line. Even if the next in line guys are better you run the risk of further injury forcing you to play someone completely not ready, or not very good. Lack of depth has been a buzzword to describe the Mets this spring, perhaps unfairly. In this case the Mets have suitable guys on the depth chart to step in. That’s the not the case for every position certainly, but if you look around most major league camps you don’t find prospects nipping at the heels of most position players, and you certainly don’t find talented major league veterans just hanging out in AAA waiting to help out. The Phillies for example have guys like Michael Martinez, Ty Wigginton, and Scott Podsednik floating around on various parts of their depth chart. Depth is a fluid concept, and Sandy Alderson has suggested there’s room in the budget to make some in-season adjustments. So what you see is not necessarily the whole picture.
I’m interested in seeing how these guys do with a chance to crack the roster. Hopefully fostering this competition will be good for them, and the Mets will go north with guys ready to contribute in these roles.
Mets Phrases To Avoid This Season
It’s a new season with fresh players. There’s nothing to be gained by comparing this year’s team to last year’s. So here’s a couple of phrases to avoid so we can all just enjoy the 2012 Mets season.
“That would’ve been a double/out last year”
“That wouldn’t have been a home run last year”
“Reyes would’ve gotten to that ball.”
“Reyes would be on third base right now.”
Nervous About David Wright’s Ribs?
It’s natural to be a little nervous that David Wright hasn’t played a Spring Training game yet because of some pain/tightness/discomfort in his ribs/chest/oblique.
It’s easy to panic, but the signs seem to point to the Mets being super overly cautious this Spring. The Mets have dealt with some injuries in that area the last couple of years, and most recently Scott Hairston re-injured his oblique, months after he originally hurt it. Can you imagine the public relations disaster if just a week after Hairston hurt the same muscle, David Wright took a hard swing in a meaningless Spring Training game and was out until May? The Mets probably view it as a smart move to just not let Wright swing hard for another week or so to assure themselves that he’s not going to hurt it. He’s certainly got plenty of time to get his timing down for the real games.
Wright claims he’d be playing if this was the regular season, and despite the reputation of the Mets word on injuries being what it is, we don’t have anything else to go on. He’s reportedly doing all his workouts and stretches so he can’t possible be that injured. Hopefully we’ll see him next week as planned and by the time the season starts we won’t remember that he was even dealing with this.
Dueling Brews: Another Beer Idea For Citi Field
This is an idea I’ve been bouncing around for a while, and then The Crazy Mets Fan made a comment on Twitter to Matt Cerrone that he should get a pub in Citi Field called Cerrone’s with some nice IPAs. I chimed in (and you can follow me on Twitter here) that they should do dueling brews.
This started as a thought about a variable beer menu at Citi Field. The best beer bars are not the ones with a good selection, but the ones with a rotating selection of seasonal and small release beers. The idea was solidified while following the Giants Super Bowl run this year. Brooklyn Brewery in New York and Anchor Steam in San Francisco made a wager on the NFC Championship game that the team’s brewery that lost would serve the beers of the other brewery. Brooklyn beers flowed in San Francisco, and it was wonderful.
So why not do the same thing at Citi Field? We know which teams are coming in for each homestand. Why not have two rotating taps, one serving beers local to New York (minus the Bronx) and one serving beers from the city of the away team. These two taps would ‘duel’ until one was empty, becoming the winner. I’m not quite sure what the beer would win besides an announcement that it’d won, but it’d be a fun way to introduce Mets fans to the brews of their enemy and provide the beer-loving masses, who’s size is underestimated, with some nice beer to drink while watching baseball.
The first homestand features the Braves and the Nationals. I don’t know what the availability and distribution rules are for acquiring beer from far away places, but Terrapin is an Atlanta brewery that you can find in New York, so it’d be a good choice. Washington DC is a little tougher, and perhaps the toughest baseball city. Baltimore has some options, but that’s a different team. Shenandoah Brewing bills itself as Washington DC’s only brewery, but as far as I know they don’t distribute to New York. Flying Dog is nearby, but it’s based in Maryland and equidistant to Baltimore. On the other hand, AL is junior league baseball and it doesn’t really count.
I think this would be a cool idea. Citi Field needs more distinctive beers outside of the Anheuser Busch distribution agreement and why not tie it to what’s going on on the field? That’s why we all go there after all.
Some Optimism For Mike Pelfrey
Mike Pelfrey‘s FIP has actually stayed pretty steady over the last four years, and his xFIP was even steadier. The main difference being that he game up less home runs in 2008 and 2010. So the question becomes what was it that caused the home run rate to be lower in those years? Was it dumb luck, or some adjustments on Pelfrey’s part? Personally I think his xFIP staying the same is precisely what’s wrong with the stat. Pelfrey clearly pitched better in 2010, particularly in the first part of the year, than he has since.
There probably still is some luck to it. The margin of error for flying out instead of hitting a home run is tiny. Optimistically, Mike Pelfrey’s numbers in 2011 were probably at the far end of bad luck and it’d be pretty easy to see how even with changing almost nothing he’d probably have a better result in 2012. Hoping for lucky bounces is not a good philosophy for a major league pitch to adopt however.
Pelfrey is working hard this Spring at his sinker. This is something he admittedly struggled with in 2011, and harnessing it against should be a positive. For one, it’s a different look than teams are used to. Adding in a pitch provides a new wrinkle to the scouting report and helps keep hitters off balance. Additionally, sinkers are harder to hit out of the park as they are harder to hit in the air. So far the reports are positive on his feel for the pitch.
With luck and the sinker, Mike Pelfrey should be an improved pitcher again in 2012. Throw in a likely improved bullpen and more of Pelfrey’s games should turn into Mets wins. That only happened 12 of 33 times last season.
The Best Offense In The NL East
The Mostly Mets Podcast discussed offense in the National League East in episode 33. The Mets scored the most runs in the division last year, and Toby, Patrick and Ted agreed that they’d probably lead again this year, although the Marlins have gotten real close.
Speaking in terms of runs scored the Mets scored 718, the Phillies 713, NL Average was 668, Braves had 641, Florida 625, and the Nationals 624. The Phillies offense is heavily influenced by the park they play in, and without Ryan Howard indefinitely plus another year of age for Rollins and Utley it doesn’t seem like the Phillies will score as many in 2012. Can the addition (And subtraction) of Jose Reyes account for 92 runs of difference between the two teams? The Marlins offense is heavily lopsided with Reyes, Hanley Ramirez and Mike Stanton making up most of it.
The Mets drop off from Beltran to Duda shouldn’t be too great, and Andres Torres can probably give the Mets what Angel Pagan gave them last year. Replacing Jose Reyes’ production is a little tougher. Luckily most of his at bats will be made up with more at bats from Ike Davis and a little more Ruben Tejada. David Wright will get more at bats as well, and all of them with a healthy back. This will all keep the offense churning, even if Jason Bay exhibits no signs of life.
If I had to pinpoint one player to worry about, it’d be Tejada. He’s still young though, so there’s still plenty of hope he’ll improve. Last year’s OBP was partially BABIP/AVG fueled, but he did improve on his strikeout and walk rate. Keep improving there and even if he gets lucky he’ll still maintain a very helpful rate at getting on base.
One other factor to consider that makes the Mets clear-cut favorites: power. The Mets got on base more than anyone else in the National League except the Cardinals, but they had league average slugging. This translates to a lot of runners stranded that otherwise would’ve been runs. In 2012 the Mets will have more power. Duda is already impressing people with his power this spring, and Davis will join him to tattoo the Pepsi Porch all year long. Add a healthier Wright and even a 20% bounce back from Jason Bay towards his career norms and the Mets will be a very dangerous threat. This is all without even mentioning the walls. The Marlins addition of Jose Reyes will likely raise their on base percentage, but not enough to make up the difference.
I’m confident the Mets will have the best offense in the National League East this season. It’s one step towards a successful season, and it’s also a step that isn’t going anywhere. The Mets offense is controlled through 2013 at least, with prospects prepared to fill in at some of the weaker positions soon. The Mets offense is great and will stay that way.