Historically, the New York Mets are not exactly what you would call a successful Major League Baseball franchise.
Since their inception in 1962, the Mets have won only two World Series championships, and since their last in 1986, have appeared in only six postseasons. Though two of those resulted in World Series appearances, neither resulted in a championship — and the team managed only a combined two total wins in said series.
I have been rooting for the New York Mets for as long as I can remember being aware of sports existing at all, and those few fleeting postseason appearances mentioned above are all that it’s gotten me over the last 28 years.
But of course, the misery of Mets fandom is much more than just a simple title drought. The Mets, while generally being a mediocre-but-not-historically-terrible franchise on the field, are often an all-time catastrophe off of it.
While playing in a market as large as New York certainly puts them under a larger magnifying glass than if they played in– say– Seattle– no team has managed to traffic in the bizarre and outright embarrassing more often than the Mets. Put more simply, what other MLB franchise would be able to have a full March Madness style bracket about all of their most insane moments of the last 20 years?
Being a die-hard Mets fan is almost an impossible thing to explain to those who don’t live it. It is a practice in extreme masochism mixed with self-loathing. But it is also an extreme act of defiance, an undeserved, unexplainable sense of pride. It would be so easy to not be a Mets fan. The most successful franchise in the history of the sport plays in the same city!
And yet! There is no stopping being a Mets fan once you are one. No matter what the team puts you through, be it on-the-field meltdowns and heart-breakers (of which there are too many to count) or off-the-field embarrassments (of which there are more), once you’re in, you’re in for life. Or at least, until they finally win a damn World Series.
All of this brings us to my favorite time of the year to be a Mets fan: Spring Training. A time where all Mets fans engage in their time-honored tradition of talking themselves into this being the year it finally happens. The thing is though, the Mets should not be a complete trainwreck in 2020. In fact, they should be … good?
As much as a huge part of me is telling me this is my Metsbrain speaking and not my real, rational one, this is a Mets team that is favored to win the NL East in several metrics, has a projected top-5 lineup and rotation. Hell even there much maligned bullpen has been getting a lot of preseason attention.
But do these Mets really have what it takes? Let’s break down every facet of what to expect from the Amazin’s this season.
The Lineup
CF Brandon Nimmo
3B Jeff McNeil
1B Pete Alonso
RF Michael Conforto
LF J.D. Davis
2B Robinson Cano
C Wilson Ramos
SS Amed Rosario
OF Yoenis Cespedes
(Ed Note; Players in italics are those on the 40-man roster who I’m not projecting currently to be in a certain spot but could play their way into position or move up because of injury during spring training or the season.)
From 1-8, the Mets have one of the deepest lineups in the NL. There are no glaring holes there, and it features six young up-and-coming hitters that may have not even reached their full potential yet, as well as two steady veterans.
The stars are, obviously, McNeil and Alonso both All-Stars last season. McNeil proved to be a hit machine capable of using all fields, hitting for power and coming through in clutch situations. He ended up hitting .318, good enough for fourth in the NL and also finished in the top-10 in OPB.
Alonso’s dominance in his rookie season was well documented, and while it’s absurd to expect a repeat performance now that NL pitchers and managers have had a full year to figure out how to pitch him, even a slight regression should keep the Polar Bear among the best power hitters in all of baseball.
The Mets’ lineup really hinges though on what they get out of their outfield trio of Nimmo, Conforto and Davis (as well as Yoenis Cespedes, who I’ll touch on in a bit) and Rosario, their shortstop.
Davis broke though in his first full season in New York, going from a bench afterthought into one of the best hitters in the NL in the season’s second half, and he ended the season hitting .307 with a shiny OPS of .895, as well as launching 22 HRs. If he can come anywhere close to those numbers, the Mets will have no choice but to keep him in the lineup every day.
Nimmo had a season to forget, coming out of the gates ice cold and then missing most of the season with an injury. Upon his return late in the season though, he looked much more like the 2018 version of himself in which he finished with 4.4 WAR and finished second in the NL in OPB. Despite playing in only 69 games last season (nice), Nimmo still managed to finish third on the team in walks, behind only Conforto and Alonso.
Conforto and Rosario are much different hitters but deserve to be lumped in together here, as they have mixed stretches of brilliance with stretches of disappointing play for years now. For the Mets to be a contending team, Conforto needs to be, at minimum an All-Star-caliber player, capable of anchoring the middle of the lineup. In other words he needs to trend more towards his best season in 2017 where he hit .279 with an OPS of .939. Last season was an improvement over his subpar 2018 and he did hit 33 HRs, but he needs to be more consistent for the team to unlock it’s full potential.
The Mets made a push to acquire Francisco Lindor but were ultimately unwilling to pay the stiff price, but the fact that they were looking for an upgrade at shortstop should motivate Amed Rosario to prove once and for all why he was once a top prospect. Last season he seemed close to put it all together (offensively at least) hitting .287 and finishing fifth in the league in hits. If those numbers continue to trend upward, Rosario is likely the best 8th hitter in the league, and a true sign of the Mets’ lineup’s depth.
The Bench
IF Matt Adams
C Tomas Nido
OF Jake Marisnick
OF Yoenis Cespedes
1B/OF Dominic Smith
IF Jed Lowrie
IF Luis Guillorme
IF Eduardo Nunez
This is one area in which I’m pretty optimistic on how the Mets stack up against most of the league.
Smith was dangled in trades in the offseason, and rightfully so. He had a breakout 2019 season in a limited capacity, hitting .282 with 11 HRs, 10 2Bs and an OPS of .881 in 197 plate appearances. On a lot of teams, he’s a starter at first base. The Mets just so happen to have the best young first baseman in baseball blocking his playing time, so he’s relegated to the bench. While not being an everyday player is assuredly frustrating for Smith, he is extremely valuable to this team. His ability to not only pinch hit as a lefty bat and give Alonso a rest at first, but also fill in when needed in left field, a position he worked hard to learn, will increase his playing time significantly.
Beyond Smith, the depth of the Mets though really hinges on two guys: Jed Lowrie and Yoenis Cespedes.
Lowrie barely played last season, but in 2018 he was an All-Star on a playoff team and played in 157 games while finishing in the top ten of the AL in walks and RBIs. He is also a switch hitter who can play multiple positions on the infield. If he can give the Mets literally anything this season, it strengthens their depth significantly. Concerningly, he’s already showed up to camp sporting a giant brace over his left leg, so it remains to be seen if he can at all be a factor this year. I have him off the Opening Day squad for now, but if he can stay healthy, he will play.
Cespedes has played a total of 119 games in the past three seasons but he did hit 17 HRs in 81 plate appearances in 2017, and 31 in 2016, his last full season. In that season, he finished 8th in MVP voting and was a Silver Slugger. Again, it would be unwise to expect anything significant of Cespedes this season, but he is bound and determined to make a comeback. He is in the last year of his contract and another injury-plagued or unproductive season could mean he’s out of MLB entirely in 2021. Additionally, Cespedes voluntarily (somewhat) gave up millions of dollars back to the club after the nature of his latest injury was revealed (he was apparently, in truly typical Mets fashion, trampled by a boar on his ranch) — and he will be trying to earn back as much as he can through financial bonuses and incentives in his contract. There’s no telling if Cespedes can stay healthy at all, or if he’ll play even one game this season. But he sure is hell is going to do everything in his power to prove himself, which will be to the Mets’ benefit.
Beyond that, the Mets brought in potentially useful veterans like Matt Adams and Eduardo Nunez to compete for roster spots. Luis Guillorme struggles as a hitter but is a good utility infield option due to his defensive ability. Their backup catcher situation is a bit sticky as they’ll be relying on the defensive-minded Tomas Nido to fill in for Ramos. Nido is fine as a backup, but should he have to start for an extended period the Mets will have a big hole in their lineup.
The Rotation
Jacob deGrom
Noah Sydnergaard
Marcus Stroman
Steven Matz
Rick Porcello
Michael Wacha
From 1-3, the Mets have one of the best rotations in the NL. While the Nats’ trio of Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin is probably still at the top, the Mets have as solid of a case anyone for No. 2.
The Mets rotation begins and ends with the continued success of Jacob deGrom, the two-time defending Cy Young award winner who is in the conversation with Scherzer, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander for the best pitcher in baseball. deGrom’s dominance has been unbelievable to watch over the last two seasons, and he shows no signs of slowing down.
Behind him, there are slightly more questions to be had for Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman, but it’s tough to argue that any second and third starting pairings have a higher ceiling. Syndergaard had a rough season last year, but from 2015-18, his ERA never topped the 3.24 it was in his rookie season.
Stroman was a mixed bag after the Mets surprisingly acquired him last July, (a 3.77 ERA in 11 starts) but, in a contract season, he will be looking to revert back to his All-Star form. He brings a level of swag and excitement whenever he pitches that should make him a fan favorite if he can pitch to his ability.
Losing Zack Wheeler certainly hurts the depth of the Mets rotation, but it should in no way break them. While GM Brodie Van Wagenen’s recent back-and-forth with Wheeler — in which he cried that the Mets helped Wheeler parlay “two good half-seasons over the last five years into $118 million” is not entirely wrong — it also is another example of Van Wagenen talking when he shouldn’t — and will assuredly cause Wheeler to throw like, four complete-game shutouts against the Mets next season.
Regardless, while Wheeler’s back-to-back 180+ IP and 3.5 WAR from a season ago are solid, the Mets smartly realized that they needed more than just one starter on the open market to replace him. The Mets took low-risk, cheap flyers on both Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha, who, along with Steven Matz, will compete for the final two spots in the rotation.
Porcello, the 2016 AL Cy Young winner, had a rough season in Boston in 2019, but he did still start 32 games (winning 14, for whatever that’s worth) and pitched 174 innings. He’ll be looking to show in a one-year prove-it deal that he deserves a bigger contract next offseason.
Wacha presents a similar case. Mixing between starting and relieving the last few seasons, Wacha is a former All-Star that is looking to show he can still stick in the back end of the rotation for a good team. Matz meanwhile, had his typical up-and-down season in 2019, and while he can be frustrating to watch at times, the raw numbers show he is a better-than-average No. 4 starter.
By bringing in both Porcello and Wacha, the Mets created not only some intriguing competition in spring training, but have themselves covered should one of their starters go down. Last season, starting pitching depth was a serious concern that only ended up not mattering much due to the rotations very un-Mets-like ability to stay mostly healthy throughout the season. Even if Porcello and Wacha don’t both work out, the Mets really only needed one of them to cover those starts that were being made by the likes of Jason Vargas and Walker Lockett for much of last season.
Again, this group is deep, talented and extremely promising. As with many Mets seasons, it all may come down to how healthy the rotation can remain, but it’s hard not to be incredibly optimistic about how their staff stacks up against the rest of the league.
The Bullpen
CL Edwin Diaz
SU Seth Lugo
SU Dellin Betances
MR Justin Wilson
MR Jeurys Familia
MR Brad Brach
LR Michael Wacha
LR Robert Gsellman
MR Drew Smith
MR Tyler Bashlor
MR Paul Sewald
LR Corey Oswalt
For most MLB teams, the bullpen is the area in which there are the most amount of roster question marks heading into spring training. For the Mets however — they have their top-seven bullpen arms pretty much locked and loaded — with the only major question being which starter hopeful between Matz, Porcello and Wacha will become the eighth member of the unit.
Make no mistake, the Mets’ pen is certainly not without questions — it’s just that which players will be on the team is not really one of them.
On paper, the Mets have the makings of a top-notch bullpen, but ask any Mets fan if they’re confident that will play out and just see how that conversation goes.
The success of this unit depends largely on three players who are looking to bounce back from difficult 2019s. Edwin Diaz was the best relief pitcher in baseball in 2018, but had a disastrous first season in Queens, with a decline in confidence, a habit of missing his spots and some truly terrible luck combining for a cocktail of catastrophe.
Still, Diaz has the stuff to become dominant once more. Despite losing his closer status to Seth Lugo last season, he enters spring as the presumptive favorite to earn the job back. If Diaz can even trend towards his 2018 stats instead of his 2019 ones, it could propel the entire unit to elite status.
The second player looking to make a bounce back is the Mets most prized offseason acquisition — Dellin Betances. Betances is looking to come back not from any sort of bad statistical year, but is looking to just stay on the field entirely. After missing mostly all of 2019, Betances made it only 1 game last season for the Yankees before being hurt again, tearing his Achilles. But if Betances can stay healthy, the Mets may have gotten the bargain of all bargains in free agency. Betances is a four-time All-Star, capable of being among the game’s best setup men.
Next, Jeurys Familia, who signed a fat contract last offseason will be looking to just not be an absolute disaster. While it’s tough to watch him and expect anything but walks and home runs allowed, there is a capable pitcher in there somewhere. Famila is a former All-Star who saved 43 and 51 games for the team in the back-to-back postseason appearances in 2015 and 2016. Even as recently as 2018, he was an above-average middle reliever. With news that Familia has shed 30 pounds in the offseason, there’s hope he can return to form.
Seth Lugo was one of the best relief pitchers in all of baseball in the second half of last season, and if Betances and Diaz pitch to their capabilities, the trio will be among the best 7-8-9 combos the league has to offer. Lugo is one of the game’s most underrated relievers, and although he desperately wants to start, he’s an extremely valuable piece for the team that can close or go multiple innings in relief.
Justin Wilson was a pleasant surprise last season, and while regression is certainly possible, the 32-year-old pitched to a 2.77 ERA last year.
Finally, Brad Brach and Robert Gsellman fill out the back end of the bullpen, and while neither of them are elite by any means, they are solid pros and capable of eating innings.
Toss in whoever loses out on the fifth-starter spot (let’s say Wacha) and you have a deep, talented group of pitchers that should be able to withstand injuries and/or poor performance from one or possibly two members and still hold up. Quadruple-A guys like Tyler Bashlor, Corey Oswalt, Paul Sewald, Daniel Zamora and Drew Smith are players who appeared many times last season and will assuredly take the flight from Syracuse a few times due to injuries. However, the Mets should not have to rely on them nearly as much as a year ago.
Defense and Speed
This is one area in which there’s simply no way the Mets are an above-average team. At best, they are a below-average defensive team. At worst, they could be a complete disaster.
Only McNeil is an above-average defender among the everyday players, while Conforto can hold his own but won’t be winning any gold gloves.
From there, there are a lot of question marks. The biggest is in center field, a position in which the Mets once again failed to completely address in the offseason. Nimmo will do his best out there, but he is not a natural center fielder and will assuredly being among the lowest CFs in the league in defensive runs saved. Marisnick is an above-average defender and an upgrade over the departed Juan Lagares, but with so many players above him on the pecking order, it remains to be seen how much playing time he will actually get.
In left, the Mets will be a mess. Davis is a bad defensive player at both left field and his more natural position of third base. Dom Smith — an excellent first baseman who’s blocked from his natural spot by the prescence of Pete Alonso — tries hard but is just as bad out there. And then there is Cespedes, who is the player on the Mets — and possibly in the entire NL — who suffers the most from not having a DH. With all of his lower-body injuries, it would be insane to expect anything close to resembling his peak on the defensive side. The best the team can hope for is that his arm still holds up at least, giving him the potential to gun some guys out at home.
On the infield, Cano’s best days are well behind him at second and he has very little range. Rosario worked tirelessly to improve his disastorous shortstop play from last season’s first half, and while the second half was certainly an improvement, he’s still unlikely to ever be a plus instead of a minus on the infield.
Ramos was a disastrous -13 dRS last season behind the plate. He is capable of throwing guys out occasionally, but he is an offensive-minded player. His pitch-framing and game-calling also leaves a lot to be desired, and it’s a not-so-secret rumor that at least one prominent Mets pitcher (Syndergaard) prefers to throw to Nido when he starts.
Finally, while the concerns about how bad Alonso was going to be defensively turned out to be largely unjustified, he still struggles with awareness (he often dives for balls that could easily be played by the second baseman) and will make the occasional run-costing error.
In terms of speed, the Mets are also still very much on the low end of the league. Nimmo, Rosario, Conforto, McNeil and Davis can steal the occasional base if the opportunity is perfect for it, but the team lacks a serious problem on the basepaths that will cause opposing pitchers any real disruption.
The Manager
The Mets fired hopeless dud Mickey Callaway, which was expected — and then after a long exhaustive search in which they prioritized youth and exuberance instead of managerial experience — they landed on former Mets legend and at-one-time surefire future hall of famer, Carlos Beltran.
The idea was that Beltran– who had won a World Series with the Astros in 2017 and served as a consultant with the Yankees for two seasons, was uniquely qualified to manage the team due to the fact that he not only was well respected in the game, but that he knew the organization and the media and would not be caught off guard by the unique challenges that come from managing the Mets.
At the time, there was largely optimism from both the locker room and the fanbase that Beltran could be the Mets manager for decades to come and that he could help guide this young team to a continued run of success.
About that.
Once news broke about the Astros’ well-documented 2017 sign-stealing scandal, Beltran’s name was implicated pretty early. Once more details came out and Beltran’s role in the operation became more clear, the pressure began to mount for the organization, especially after the Astros and Red Sox both fired their managers after they were implicated.
Finally, the Mets broke and let Beltran go. Although my initial reaction to the firing was that of annoyance (would anyone really be talking about this if the Mets were in first place come July?), I’ve since come to the determination that they really had no other choice — an unfortunate and unpredictable thing that seemingly could only happen to them.
Luis Rojas, an unproven but well-liked figure in the organization was tapped to replace him. And while Rojas has never managed a big-league game before, there is the same level of optimism for him that there was for Beltran, and Callaway before him. As of now, there’s really no telling how he will perform. But in typical Mets fashion — he was thrust into the role with minimal time to prepare and with the knowledge he was not ownerships first choice.
Rojas does have the pedigree, being a member of the Alou family and son of legendary manager Felipe and brother of former-Met Moises. He also is well-liked by the clubhouse, having managed a good chunk of them when they were coming up through the Mets minor-league system when he managed the Binghamton Mets/Rumble Ponies.
Again, it’s simply way too early to tell if Rojas was the right hire. It’s best to give him the benefit of the doubt for now with some extra rope given due to the unprescedented circumstances behind his hiring. Certainly, having someone like, say, Joe Girardi in place right now sounds more appealing than having a first-time manager at the helm, but there’s no way of knowing if it will work out or not until the season gets under way.
How do the Mets stack up against the rest of the division?
To put it bluntly, the NL East is stacked. Like last year, four of the five teams in the divisions have legitimate championship aspirations — and like last year — it will be tough for all four to meet expectations.
The Braves, two-time defending NL East champions are still young, talented and eager to make a deep postseason run. They supplemented their already talented roster with additions like Cole Hamels, Travis d’Arnaud and Will Smith but they did lose their cleanup hitter in Josh Donaldson, who went to Minnesota.
The Nationals of course won the World Series last year, and while losing Anthony Rendon makes their lineup significantly weaker, they do still bring back their trio of aces that got them the pennant in Max Scherzer, Stephen Straburg and Patrick Corbin. Also still there is Juan Soto, who is quickly developing into a superstar.
The Phillies made some big moves this offseason after finishing a disappointing fourth in the division last year. Girardi was brought in to manage, a significant upgrade over the hopeless Gabe Kapler (who somehow got another job in San Francisco). Former Yankee Didi Gregorius could be an under-the-radar great signing if he can stay healthy, and, most notably, the Phillies overpaid to take Wheeler from the Mets, and if he can duplicate his performance in the second half of the 2018 and 2019 seasons, watch out.
The Marlins are still the Marlins, and while they will assuredly finish last, they at least did some things to show they’re not completely tanking. Miami added veterans like Jonathan Villar, Corey Dickerson and Jesus Aguilar to shore up their lineup and they have a group of formidable young pitchers manning their rotation. Beating the Marlins won’t be the cakewalk this year it was a season ago.
Prediction
Right, so after all that, the only question that needs to be answered is: Do the Mets have enough?
My back of the napkin math says something like 10 teams in the NL (the Mets, Phillies, Nats, Braves, Cubs, Reds, Cardinals, Brewers, Padres and D-Backs) will be competing for four playoff spots, with the mighty Dodgers being all but locked in, and the Pirates, Marlins, Rockies and Giants figuring to be largely uncompetitive.
In terms of the division, I’m still not a big believer in Philadelphia. It’s hard to believe they’ve done enough to address their pitching issues from a season ago and their bullpen is looking rough. Meanwhile, the Nats appear to be in position to be in for a mean World Series hangover, with the loss of Rendon in their lineup and the inevitable fatigue/age of many of their top players possibly catching up to them.
The Braves are the team that scares me. They handled the Mets with ease for most of last season and they are loaded and hungry.
I think the Mets will be improved and have a top-five offense in baseball with a top-10 bullpen, but injuries and too many question marks in the rotation stop them from getting over the top.
Still, this feels like a playoff team to me. I’ll project them officially to finish with 92 wins, 2nd in the NL East behind Atlanta. They will host the NL Wild Card game against the Cardinals at Citi Field.
#LFGM.
The One Who Knocks 