The pitching’s too good to ever get too down. There’s not a Shaun Marcum reclamation project in the bunch, no Chris Capuano dutifully sucking up innings as if that’s the goal of any given game. One start you get Jacob deGrom, who opposing batters can’t hit; next game it’s Noah Syndergaard, who they can’t touch.
In between, you hear bad news about Steven Matz, yet even as you process it for discouraging words, aggravatingly fluid timetables and comprehension that something initially reported as a little nagging became a full-blown sidelining injury, you can cope, because it’s pitching — and pitching here is plentiful.
Almost as plentiful as uncertainty about how to process this Mets season.
Syndergaard should be all a Mets fan should want to talk about at this moment. Syndergaard Thors his way to the mound and hammers the Diamondbacks. He gives up a run in the first and then none for the next seven. He scatters four hits. He walks only two. He strikes out thirteen.
He strikes out thirteen.
Thanks to the proprietary, complex algorithms inherent in the patent-pending Six-Man Rotation, Noah’s weekly night to pitch has become Friday. Nobody’s lighted Friday night this bright since Coach Eric Taylor was molding young Texans not much Syndergaard’s junior. In his previous two episodes, Noah stifled the Reds and shut down the Dodgers. The D’backs offered about as much resistance. On a staff without All-Star deGrom and pre-lat Matz — never mind social media gadfly Harvey and, for that matter, unsuccessfully hashtagged closer Familia — we’d be buckling in for the Thor ride of a lifetime and gleefully screaming “WHEEEEEEEE!!!!!.”
A forest of pitching, however, almost obscures how beautiful each individual tree is when it is in bloom. Make no mistake, Syndergaard’s branches are exploding with promising new growth every start. He’s getting better all the time, not unlike deGrom was a year ago and continues to now.
This is a helluva baseline for a baseball team. It’s almost become a lock that the starter will go, at minimum, six, and give up, at maximum, three. It’s probably not a normal state, yet we treat it as if it is.
Never scoring enough in support of our starters also seems the uncomfortable norm, but that’s not always going to be the case. These Mets who never put enough runs on the board have, in fact, put enough runs on the board for two consecutive wins. I think they call that a streak. These same Mets have won five of seven. I think they call that a trend. If not for shrinking into their shell like a frightened turtle at the sight of the Cubs, the Mets as a whole — that’s the anemic Met offense in concert with the powerful Met pitching — would stand out as one of the hotter teams in the sport over the past two weeks.
Alas, the Mets have a hole, measuring on most nights from the top to the bottom of their order. Yet when just a little goes right…when Lucas Duda remembers how to drive a pitch…when Michael Cuddyer stands on one good leg and one leg that’s barely good enough…when Kevin Plawecki’s sinuses clear up…when Daniel Murphy dives down long enough to get lucky…the Mets may not become unbeatable, but they don’t get beaten.
Those perfectly crafted Washington Nationals are two games away in the Eastern Division. Two. Two lousy games, or the same distance from which the Chicago Cubs peer back at us in the other potential Met playoff chase. Sounds close enough to make a summer of it. Yet ESPN’s Mark Simon tells us why it’s a fool’s errand to even fathom making up two games with 75 to play. The Wall Street Journal’s Brian Costa says there is no song and dance sincere enough to make us take the Mets’ chances seriously.
I don’t need well-credentialed baseball writers to keep me grounded. I’ve been here. I’ve seen the Mets creep around viability in recent years. I’ve seen the Mets do just enough to make me think maybe there’s a corner about to be turned, only to have the concrete and the clay beneath my feet begin to crumble.
But this is the year when, for a while, it felt different, no? Then it felt all too familiar. Then, though, there was a twist. There was deGrom reaching elite status and Syndergaard rocketing up the rotation and Niese maybe not relentlessly disappointing us as usual and Colon still riding that donkey pretty effectively and Harvey struggling a bit as he continues to find himself, but if Harvey struggling a bit amounts to the most of your starting pitching problems, then you don’t really have starting pitching problems, Matz’s absence notwithstanding. I was falling in love with East Setauket Steve, but at this point two weeks ago, he had pitched exactly as many innings for the Mets as Sidd Finch.
And with pitching like that — and perhaps just enough going right when you’re two games away from the almighty Washington Nationals with 75 games to go — how exactly do you not find a way to derive a few encouraging words?
How do the Mets not use the twenty days between this very moment and the trading deadline to enhance themselves at least along the edges?
How is there not one help-us-now player among 29 other organizations just waiting to be plucked?
I’m not asking for a superstar ingeniously wrangled with magic beans and Dillon Gee. I’m just asking for a little assistance, a utilityman of true utility, one stinking bat that doesn’t splinter at the sight of .200.
Who is that guy and how do we get him? My job is to hope within reason. It’s this front office’s job to make good on my reasonable hope. As a lusty Duck Phillips suggested to Peggy Olson when she tried to beg off a Friday afternoon rendezvous on account of too much work to do, “C’mon creative. Be creative.”
Somebody wrote a book about how creative this front office is. It needs an addendum for the paperback version.
You don’t have to pick up Troy Tulowitzki, throw his back legs over your shoulder and drag him Pete Campbell fantasy-style through the snow to Citi Field, but my goodness, is it that hard (and that expensive) to hunt down a 2015 version of, say, Bob Bailor? A bench player whose talents transcend those of Danny Muno is not an unreasonable request. Marginal upgrades aren’t necessarily insignificant when the margin is two games. To shrug, “ah, you know, we made a couple of calls, but nobody would immediately give us what we wanted for almost nothing, so we gave up,” and point to 2016 as The Year is to abdicate responsibility.
Same goes for we the people who call ourselves Mets fans. Two games. It’s after the halfway point. It’s not two games heading in the wrong direction, either. The Nationals have had every opportunity to bury all competition. They have neglected to follow through and somehow we remain a going part of their lives. The Cubs hold a 7-0 edge in intramural competition, yet we sit stubbornly in their rearview mirror. Teams like the Braves, the Giants and the Diamondbacks have been poised to blow right by us. They haven’t.
All those clubs, good if flawed clubs, have weapons that could destroy us if deployed properly. And us? We have deGrom and Syndergaard and Harvey and Familia and too many decent-plus players who are due to get going. We’re good if flawed. We could use a little help. A little. Give us that and I don’t think the final 75 games are doomed to the status of full-priced glorified scrimmages.
Listen, I’m not by nature optimistic where the Mets are concerned, or at least I’m not any longer. Too much has beaten the Met optimism out of me. I should be ready to pack it in while waiting for Matz’s lat to heal; knowing Wright’s spine lacks proper width; never sure where d’Arnaud is on the recovery spectrum; being reminded Jerry Blevins is weeks, months, years away from returning (it’s been so long since he’s pitched that his general manager called him “Jeremy” yesterday). Trust me, if the Mets follow up their current 5-2 stretch with a 2-15 funk, I’ll be leading the reflexive retreat into innate 21st-century Mets fan pessimism. Honestly, it would be easier to just default into here-we-go-again mode than get even my reasonable hopes up, knowing there’s every possibility they will crash as they usually do.
But at two games out with 75 to play and this kind of pitching, that’s not a good look for us.
Ed Kranepool knows something about Mets teams overcoming unflattering perceptions, let alone daunting margins. Listen to what he has to say when he joins Michael Garry, author of Game Of My Life, at the Book Revue in Huntington, Monday night at 7 PM. Michael and Ed will be talking Mets history and signing copies of that very fine book.
Unfortunately, with the innings restrictions on Harvey, probably deGrom, Syndergaard (never thrown more than 133) and now of course Matz, even we don’t have “this kind of pitching” the rest of the year. Doom is impending as sure as I type this, given our lack of hitting. Maybe Sandy knows this and is saving his powder for next year…that is about the best spin I can put on this. We don’t spend enough money for 230 inning a year horses…let’s hope some of the young pitchers become that and they spend some money to upgrade the hitting next year.
The Strasburg-type innings limits for all of the Mets young stud starters contradict that the Mets were even allowed to be contenders this season.
Matz only started twice. It’s not as though the Mets have been using a 6-man rotation from the start of the season to save innings for the end of the season.
From the start, what if the Mets won a wild-card berth or even the division while using up the innings limits? Would that mean Colon, Niese, and Gee, plus a fill-in-the-blank pitcher (say, Carlos Torres) or two took over the rotation to end the regular season and for the post-season?
Syndergaard shut down 3 top-10 MLB offenses (OPS), including the top-scoring AL and NL offenses, over his last 5 starts. His track record as a rising ace is solidifying.
Is it my imagination that Familia has been hit harder than usual his last 2 outings? Still, no harm, no foul.
I would like to have seen Mejia start the 9th inning with the 3-run lead with Familia ready to take over at the 1st sign of trouble. Maybe Collins prefers to reintroduce Mejia in a situation with a greater margin for error where Mejia can be allowed to put runners on base without being taken out. But with the way the Mets are hitting, who knows when that situation will come up.
As far as pushing Syndergaard for the extra inning and upper-limit pitch count, my sense is Collins’ intent is to test his impressionable young pitchers’ mettle by pushing them through the extra inning and tough hitters like Goldschmidt when they’re tired and their command is wavering. Once Collins is satisfied with a young pitcher’s mettle, like with deGrom, he’ll take out the pitcher an inning early, at least this season, to save the inning and pitch count.
Reading between the lines of Alderson’s comments in the Friday press conference with Matz, I think Alderson suspects Matz hid the lat injury while in the minors. Sanderson noted the torn muscle was atrophied indicating an older injury and seemed to pointedly emphasize that the team relied on Matz’s self-reporting. Of course, Matz pitched just fine in his 2nd start after indicating discomfort, which shows Matz could have hidden the injury and pitched as well as he did at Las Vegas. But Alderson gave Matz a pass by saying the injury was asymptomatic before his promotion.
Tough call regarding the choice between a 5-man versus 6-man rotation the rest of the way. A 5-man rotation without Matz is only a small drop-off in quality. A 6-man rotation without Matz is a bigger drop-off in quality when the 6th man most likely would be Gee or Verrett. The 6-man rotation was easy to justify with 4 young stud starters and 2 middle-rotation quality starters. For a contender, a 6-man rotation is harder to justify when the 6th starter is a fringe pitcher. On the other hand, a 5-man rotation means the Mets face the prospect of hitting the innings limits in September at the same time the team might be racing to the finish line for the division title and/or a wild card berth. Also, do the innings limits apply to the post-season?
Notably, the 6-man rotation worked with Matz. Harvey is the only pitcher who struggled adjusting to the 6-man rotation and his struggle may have been due to normal Tommy John recovery shakiness rather than the extra day in his pre-start routine.
I don’t think Duda is out of his slump yet, but at least we know the power is still there.
Oops. Sanderson = Sandy Alderson.
I guess here’s where Rob E tells us that all teams’ benches are filled with guys hitting .088 (which happens to be Niewenhuis and Muno’s combined average). But as he would also point out, as Greg does here, and quite appropriately, the team for all its flaws is only 2 games out. Which means Sandy, don’t leave us hanging. Because there are guys who constitute “another bat” who are not owed $110M on the remaining portion of their contract, will not cost you Syndergaard, Plawecki and Conforto, and who hit for a higher average than, let’s see, your entire dumpster diving bench…even higher than Syndergaard and deGrom (maybe not Matz). Where is the Bob Bailor, the Shawn Dunston, the Chris Woodward? Joe Orsulak or Tom Paciorek, anyone? There are such things as productive players who are not expensive stars but who also aren’t a year away from playing for the Somerset Patriots or the Long Island Ducks.
Bring Travis d’Arnaud off the bench, assuming he comes back at all this season. Take away his catching gear and tell him to try not to make bone-headed mistakes when he fills in at 1B and/or LF, don’t dive at either position, and don’t run into any walls in LF.
Dave, I think Steve D got you covered…we’re doomed, we’re screwed, we suck, it’s over. But for some reason you’re still going to watch the game anyway.
Rob – Over? No. But is the roster as currently staffed good enough to make the playoffs? No, probably not. We’re going to watch the game anyway because this is our team…ask my wife how many hours I’ve sat in front of the TV during seasons a lot more hopeless than this.
But for a point of reference, don’t forget the teams in the early 70’s…love the young arms we have now, but no one of this bunch has yet proven they’re in the class of Seaver, Koosman and Matlack. And those 3 guys pitched for a bunch of .500-ish teams year after year because anyone who hit 15 HR’s and drove in 60 was probably hitting cleanup.
Good comparison to the early to mid 70’s.
As for me being too negative, that’s what they said when I wrote that Ike Davis couldn’t hit.
I’ve agreed with practically everything that Rob E. has written the the comments this season. One of my biggest frustrations about being a fan of this team is the relentless negativity among so much of the fan base, even when the team is doing well. It’s like, five games into an 11 game winning streak? Don’t expect it to last. Lose a game? Terry Collins needs to be fired. Lose three in a row? Sell the team! Get to the all star break right on the heels of the division leader that everyone expected to run away with the NL East this year? It doesn’t matter, we’re still doomed.
I’m not questioning anyone’s fan bona fides, but for me, personally, pro sports are a corner of my life where I can do without constant doom and gloom while making small talk. There are plenty of things to be excited about on this team, even though they’ve been hit hard with injuries. Greg is pretty much the only sports blogger I even read anymore, because I find it hard to stomach the snark and sniping that seems to have replaced humor and thoughtful critique everywhere else. But it blows my mind that even here, the griping in the comments persists even when the team is in the middle of winning six of their last eight during a stretch where everyone was predicting they’d get buried. This should be fun!
For some people, I guess the negativity is the enjoyment. But for many of us, we want to see the team win. And improving the hitting is what is needed for this team to win. And considering management has claimed they care about winning but hasn’t signed legit ML players for the bench in 5 years and has brought up guys who haven’t had great success in the minors to fill holes when small deals for guys like Juan Uribe and Casey McGehee were available to plug major holes, it makes you question if they really care about winning like the fans do.
I’m glad you agree with Rob E, whose arguments I’ve been shooting down for a week now. And I’m glad Rob E thinks by not criticizing he is more of a real fan than the rest of us. And I’m glad people think Totally Clueless is a good manager. That’s all your choice and you’re entitled to it. But to insist on telling us what we know to be false is true is just as annoying as people insisting everything is the fault of management.
And just so you know where I stand:
-I think Alderson has done a solid job and the team is headed in the right direction.
-I think Terry Collins is awful and with better players would screw things up.
-I think management needed to make small moves not involving star prospects to get decent bats that would’ve already resulted in more wins. I’m not sure why that didn’t happen.
-I think management needs to make small moves not involving star prospects to get decent bats for the lineup and the bench to help result in more wins. As it didn’t happen already, I don’t have much faith it will happen, but I hope I’m wrong.
-I was born the day the Mets won the World Series in 1969. I’ve been a fan literally since the day I was born. I have the MLB Extra Innings package so I catch bits and pieces of games in Burbank, CA. I may not go to many games (but was when the Mets and Thor beat the Dodgers last Friday night) but when I do it’s always fun. LET’S GO METS!
Regarding your first point, I’ve sometimes wondered if that’s the case. That there’s a whole contingent of fans that just enjoy kvetching. And I’ll concede that I’ve only been following the team closely for about 13 seasons, so while I’ve never really gotten to enjoy watching them in the World Series (as a transplant from the Southeast, I was kinda sorta vaguely a Braves fan when I moved to NYC in 2000. Actually, IMHO, “kinda sorta vaguely a Braves fan” described much of the team’s fan base in the Southeast during the 1990s, which in retrospect is kind of shameful), I’m also not weighed down by a history of disappointment (unless I’m allowed to count 2003, 2004, the collapses of 2007 and 2008, or 2009 through 2014).
I’m really glad you said that about Alderson, because I totally agree. The fact that this team is still in the race, when so much has gone wrong, is ample evidence that the front office has been making the right moves while rebuilding. Maybe you’re right about the moves they haven’t made. Maybe Alderson and the Wilpons are blinded by caution, and are a little behind the curve in terms of the ungodly contracts that are being doled out now. I’d prefer to think otherwise. I’d prefer to think that the main reason the team’s payroll isn’t massive is because our monster pitching staff is made up of guys that are pre-arbitration, plus Niese who the team made a good-for-both-sides deal with early, and Colon. (The Nationals, meanwhile, are going to be paying their ace about $16 million per season for 14 years, and he’s only on the team for this and the next six). Both of our starting catchers look very promising, and are making around $1 million between them. Around the board, it’s a young team.
With Collins, some of his moves are baffling, but I’m in the camp that thinks managers take too much blame when things go wrong, never get any credit when things go right, or get TOO MUCH credit and deference after they manage world beaters for a couple of seasons. I won’t argue that he needs an extension, but I also disagree that much blame can be pinned on him for the team not having 50 wins at this point.
Anyway, we’re all fans here, and I enjoy discussing the team with you. Regarding Rob E., I’ve never gotten the impression that he’s questioning that. Like me, I’m guessing that sometimes he starts writing, and “cheer up!” becomes shouting into the void.
LGM!
Excellent post Matt! I enjoy reading and agree with many of Rob’s posts as well. I love this site and Jason & Greg’s writing, but sometimes the negative shit by some of the posters here borders on the psychotic and irrational. Like you said…..this should be fun, and who knows how this season will end up, but I’m having a good time so far and enjoying the ride. No doom and gloom here…..LGM!!!
Mark Simon’s article was pretty on the mark. I would say Costa is an idiot, but he obviously knows enough about statistics to twist them into YET ANOTHER an anti-Met story. So instead of “idiot,” I’ll call him a bad journalist (at least in this case).
Simon wasn’t saying it’s unfathomable to make up two games, he’s saying it’s a fool’s errand to overpay and compromise the future to address what is a temporary problem. Costa, to cite one gripe, deceptively used “trips to the DL” instead of DAYS on the DL as one of his markers to claim injuries is just an excuse. Also, saying the Dodgers have injuries and the Nationals have injuries and they are still better than the Mets is like saying Apollo Creed had a broken hand and Rocky Balboa had a broken hand, so they’re even. They are NOT even! Even completely healthy, the Mets were and ARE underdogs! If the Nationals lose a guy and the Mets lose a guy, the Nationals are still the better team. And the Mets have been hit harder. It’s quite a feat that they are only two games out.
To get back to your “we need a bat” point…one of the problems here is that the bat will have to be a 2B, SS, or 3B. They are not going to displace Duda, d’Arnaud, or an OF. They can shift Flores and Murphy around, but if Wright comes back, they are not going to displace him, either. Any “professional bat” is going to displace another player, and the only guy they can do that with without causing a ripple effect is Tejada. An upgrade at 3B or C would have to be temporary. A better backup would help, but Ben Zobrist is the gold standard there…is he really the guy that’s going to transform this offense? He would help, but we’re not talking Mike Trout here. More likely you are talking about guys like Aramis Ramirez and Casey McGehee. Alderson and the Wilpons are taking a lot of heat here (the radio has been KILLING them since the Matz injury was announced), but this is not an easy fix. There are not a lot of guys that are going to fit this description. The better bet can very well be waiting on hurt guys to come back and waiting on underperforming guys to at least get back to average.
Rob, I think the bat should be an OF’er. I’d like to see the Mets go to a 4-man rotation in the OF, presumably Granderson playing more or less every day, but with a left-handed hitter filling in in left and center fairly often, Lagares as a defensive replacement most days he’s not starting. Cuddyer’s knee may or may not be a serious injury, who knows, but he’s well into the back 9 and has missed his share of time, even if he’s on his game he should probably be a 250-300 at-bats guy by now. Lagares is starting to remind me of Tejada, who a few years back looked as though he was developing into a decent hitter and then regressed…we’ve seen Lagares resort to bad habits at the plate this year. A Gerardo Parra type would suit me just fine, and 2 months of him wouldn’t cost a top prospect.
As I wrote below, there are bats like McGehee and others who would cost pennies. As well, the team needs a better hitting backup OF because Nieuwenhuis isn’t a hitter.
Well……Nieuwenheis is certainly a hitter today.
Duda will eventually break out of his slump. Not sure I can say the same for Cuddyer with his balky knee and the fact that he’s an older player. If Wright comes back, does Wilmer move back to shortstop?
And Terry leaves me scratching my head. On Wednesday, deGrom had thrown only 99 pitches in 8 innings. Campbell’s home run gave him a 4-run lead. There was no reason to remove him at that point. Last night, Thor threw 100 pitches in 7 innings, yet Terry let him pitch the 8th. Terry is consistently inconsistent.
If Wright returns, we go back to Wright 3B, Flore SS, Murphy 2B. If Campbell hit, then Flores would have stayed at SS, too. Without Wright long term and Tejada in, it didn’t make sense for Tejada, Flores, and Murphy to play out of position.
As to why Syndergaard stayed in for an extra inning but DeGrom was pulled an inning early, see my theory above, ie, default is to pull the young stud pitcher, but first Collins wants to test their mettle to squeeze out an extra inning in a close, well-pitched game. Syndergaard came through, against Goldschmidt no less. My hypothesis will bear out if the next time in a similar situation, Collns pulls Syndergaard like he pulled deGrom in a similar situation.
Nobody’s out of position. Flores played 2B the last few years in minors, moved from SS when he was 19. Murphy has always played out of position – in college and minors always played 3B, but with Wright around he’d never play there. Bounced around OF and infield, and only now is he playing position he played his whole life
Right. Without Wright long term and Tejada in, it didn’t make sense for Tejada, Flores, and Murphy to play out of position.
Hey, guys, when David Wright comes back, everything will be A-OK!!!
How ridiculous! He still can’t hit at Citi, and has not since they moved over there. Time to burn your Number 5 jerseys, worshippers, and enter the land of reality.
Keep the faith. We can win all the games 1-0 and 2-1. Need to abandon the 6-man, though, in order to win this year.
can’t we just assume david wright is not coming back this year? it’s extremely unlikely and is something of a false hope.
the only reason the mets haven’t come clean on that — aside from their nixonian inability to come clean on anything — is that it would make it even harder to deal in what is no doubt a very difficult market. (that said, anyone in baseball already knows the window on wright’s being a factor in the rest of the season is closing fast.)
While he has certainly hit better on the road, he really only had two bad years at Citi Field (for him)….2011 & 2014. Not sure what your problem is with Wright, a great Met and model citizen, but asking fans to burn his jersey is not only childish but moronic.
So a guy like Casey McGehee, who fits the mold of guy who would’ve been fine filling in at 3B and then being a bench player if/when Wright returns was signed by the Marlins after being released by the Giants. That’s the sort of player management should’ve grabbed a month ago for a minor prospect but didn’t. A player who HAS A TRACK RECORD OF HITTING WELL that they should take a chance on because he’s done it before and is a legit major leaguer.
Sorry Rob E, your argument that the Mets have done all they could and there are no players they could get and everybody’s bench includes a Nieuwenhuis and Muno doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Sounds good to me Matt. More afternoons where the Dark Knight of Gotham is literally Bat Man will make for more fun!
Hey guys, lighten up a bit! I get as down as everyone when we have a bump, but the carping and negativity at present isa bit confusing. We all know we need offense, we all know we won’t trade for it so I just get on with what we’ve got. That’s superb pitching which will win us more games this season than last and that’s progress. Anything else that happens, gravy :-)
It is quite annoying to hear the ESPN sports announcers, and other so called experts already giving the World Series rings to the Nationals. As soon as the Nationals climbed back into first place, you could almost hear them cheering as if the Nats had already won it all. I have watched the Nats play, they are not unbeatable. I believe in the Mets, the Vegas players have shown great effort in helping the Mets remain close to the Nats. I will continue to BELIEVE! It is what Mets fans do!
Guess all you guys were wrong. I know you’re all happy you were except maybe Sandy does have a clue. I’ve spent much of the last two days reading this blog from the beginning of the year. Maybe now you guys understand how to rebuild a team. It takes time a plan and some luck. But now we should be contenders for at least the next few years. Hope we pessimistic Met fans can enjoy some prosperity.