So What Do I Think About the Mets?
It's World Series or bust for a team that's been busting for 37 seasons
Most of the time, baseball’s offseason creeps along at its petty pace as the Winter doldrums have you longing for the warmth of Spring. But thanks to global warming, Winter isn’t cold anymore, at least not here in the Washington-Baltimore Combined Statistical Area where we’ve already seen our first daily high over 75 degrees in 2023.
It feels like yesterday that my wife and I were waiting out a weather delay at Dulles Airport before catching a plane to Dublin for a Pandemic-delayed vacation1. To while away the time, we watched television from an airport bar as the San Diego Padres finished off the New York Mets in Game 3 of their Wild Card playoff series.
With the way the Padres has crushed the Mets in Game 1 after Max Scherzer had yielded FOUR2 home runs in a 7-1 demolition, even after seeing the Mets come back to win Game 2, there seemed to be an inevitability to defeat. By the time it was over, the Mets went down without a fight in Game 3, losing 6-0 as the Padres celebrated on enemy territory.
Then again, it hadn’t hurt much at all after the Mets had been swept by the Braves in Atlanta the previous week, stealing the Eastern Division from New York thanks to a furious finish that ought to go down in baseball history as one of the best ever. Making it all the more painful was the fact that the Mets hadn’t played poorly after taking an early lead in the division, it was simply the fact that the Braves had played out of their minds after falling behind in April and May.
Slap it all together and somehow a season where the Mets won 101 games, the second highest total in regular season history, seemed like the most epic of failures.
So how the heck did this team win 101 games? The starting rotation was one of the best in baseball, even with its two best pitchers missing time to injury. The closer was virtually un-hittable, this after several seasons of being prone to epic breakdowns.
As for the bats, while there were a few sluggers, this team got through most of the season being patient at the plate and wearing out opposing pitchers rather than bludgeoning them. The Mets plated 772 runs, tied for third in the National League while only yielding 606 runs, good for second in the league. And they did it while spending over $251 million in salary, the second highest payroll in all of baseball. All in all, this team should have won 101 games and probably could have won more.
So what’s in store for this season? Follow me.
STARTING PITCHING: When my old D.C. blog buddy William F. Yurasko asked me about the Mets starting rotation last season, I expressed my doubts. But I was proven wrong as the team overcame extended absences by Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom to become the team’s strength. But thanks to free agency, the rotation had to be rebuilt. Gone are deGrom, Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker and valuable swing man Trevor Williams. Losing deGrom, a home grown prospect that the Mets converted from a shortstop to the second best starting pitcher in franchise history, really hurt. But team owner Steve Cohen opened his wallet and let General Manager Billy Eppler sign the arms the Mets needed to reload.
Arriving in New York were AL Cy Young Winner Justin Verlander, Nippon Baseball sensation Kodai Senga, and veteran starter Jose Quintana. Toss them in together with Scherzer and Carlos Carassco, who was tied for the team lead in wins last season, and the rotation looks as formidable as ever. But things never go according to plan, and that happened again when Quintana was discovered to have a lesion on his rib cage. Thankfully, the lesion was benign, but Quintana will be on the shelf for a while. Taking his place at the back of the rotation is David Peterson, a lefthander who has shown flashes of brilliance while struggling to log five quality innings per start. Stashed away at AAA Syracuse is Tylor Megill, who lost the competition to spell Quintana in his absence. Mets fans love Megill because he battles and you get the impression he’s wringing the last ounce of talent out of his body whenever he takes the mound. If Scherzer and Verlander can stay healthy and Senga lives up to the hype, the rotation will be as good, if not better than last season. Then again, Verlander is 40 and Scherzer is 38, which should give everyone pause.
BULLPEN: By now, everyone knows that Edwin Diaz, who had been signed to a record-breaking contract for a closer over the Winter, will miss the entire season thanks to a torn patellar tendon he suffered while celebrating with his Team Puerto Rico teammates at the World Baseball Classic. It’s a terrible loss, but I feel worst of all for Diaz, who deserved to follow up last year’s performance, trumpets and all.
But the Mets must plow ahead, and it looks like the duties as closer will fall to righthander David Robertson, who had 20 saves last season between stops in Chicago and Philly. Manager Buck Showalter will likely play mix and match in the late innings, so expect to see Brooks Raley and Adam Ottavino as well. As for the rest of the bullpen, isn’t it always a mixed bag? As noted above, losing swingman Williams hurts, but he wanted a chance to be a fixture in a starting rotation and even Steve Cohen’s budget has its limits. Keep an eye on this crew. If things go wrong early, Eppler might have to swing a deal to bring in an established closer.
STARTING LINEUP: The third best offense in the National League has returned intact. Leadoff man Brandon Nimmo snagged a massive new contract he’ll have to stay healthy to live up to. He’ll return in centerfield flanked by Mark Canha in left and Starling Marte in right. Marte, who’s 34, provided a nice injection of speed and extrabase power into the lineup that it couldn’t afford to lose when he missed games due to injury. Canha’s production last season was pretty much in line with what he did in Oakland in 2021, though his average and on base percentage improved.
The infield looks the same, with Franciso Lindor at shortstop, defending NL batting champ Jeff McNeil (his glove still gives me pause, though he at least seems to be on the same page as Lindor, which wasn’t the case in 2021) at second base, slugger Pete Alonso at first base and Eduardo Escobar at third. Eppler did his best to snag free agent third baseman Carlos Correa from Minnesota, but the Mets got cold feet, just as the San Francisco Giants did, when they got a closer look at his x-rays. So Escobar returns, rather than being sent to the bench and perhaps serving as a right handed bat in a designated hitter platoon. If not for a late season surge, Escobar wouldn’t have hit 20 home runs last season. One wonders how much he had left in the tank.
The big change is behind the plate. James McCann, who hit just .195 last season was traded to Baltimore. The new face is Omar Narvaez, a free agent acquisition from Milwaukee. He’s not fearsome at the plate, but he calls a good game, including framing strikes better than any other catcher in the game. With the Mets starting rotation, that seems like a good investment. Returning is Tomas Nido, who seems to be able to stick around and get at bats no matter who else the Mets try to wedge into the position. I’m guessing Nido will continue to get playing time, and not just Sunday afternoon games where a starting catcher typically takes the day off.
DH and BENCH: Daniel Vogelbach, a midseason acquisition in 2022, is firmly ensconced as the lefthanded side of the DH platoon. “Milkshake” seems like a poor man’s version of retired lefty slugger Darrel Evans. He can’t hit for average, but he’s got some pop and knows the strike zone. As for the right handed side, the Darin Ruf3 experiment is over. Acquired from San Francisco for J.D. Davis and some minor league pitching, Ruf never seemed to be able to get on track vs. lefthanded pitching. One would suspect that those at bats will now be split between veteran Tommy Pham and Escobar, depending on how Showalter needs to play cut and paste the lineup. Seeing the Mets struggle to find a right handed DH is perplexing. How tough can it be to find a slugging veteran right handed batter? Apparently very tough. Can’t anyone spare a Don Baylor, Dave Kingman or Chili Davis? Rounding out the bench will be slick fielding4 Luis Guillorme and speedster Tim Locastro, who snagged the final roster spot over Ruf. One wonders if Locastro got the call after Eppler tired of seeing Miami's Jon Berti burn the Mets on the basepaths over and over again.
PROJECTION: Could the Mets repeat their 101 win season? Absolutely. Could they just as easily drop to 90 wins and sneak into a Wild Card spot? You better believe it. Could they miss the postseason entirely? I can’t discount that possibility either. The division is slightly improved over 2022 where three teams qualified for the postseason. The Phillies, who ditched their manager midseason and got all the way to Game 6 of the World Series, managed to add shortstop Trea Turner and ex-Met Walker to the rotation. The Mets stomped all over Philadelphia early in the season, but I don’t expect that to happen this year. Those games will be absolute dog fights. Both Turner and ex-Nats teammate Bryce Harper love beating the Mets. The Braves added slugging catcher Sean Murphy from the Oakland A’s, as if they didn’t have enough offense already and they’ll be getting full seasons out of centerfielder Michael Harris and starting pitcher Spencer Strider (who won’t be starting the season in the bullpen). No one expects much out of Miami, but they can’t be bad forever. Washington, looking at a very long rebuild as the Lerner family seeks to unload the team, will be a punching bag again.
So what’s my best guess? Pencil the Mets in for 93 wins and a Wild Card playoff berth which will likely send them on the road for a best-of-three playoff series. As the Phillies demonstrated last season, once you’re in, there’s no telling how much damage you can do if your team gets hot at the right time. If they do make it, it’s all going to be about Scherzer and Verlander and whether or not they can shut down the opposing team. As much as I like the Mets offense, this is not a team that can outslug the opposition and their run scoring can disappear without a trace, just as it did down the stretch last season. Could they win it all? They sure could, but so could 4-5 other teams (mathematically everyone has a 1/32 chance of winning, but you know what I mean). Get ready to strap in starting tomorrow in Miami. It’s the Mets, so you’re always in for a bumpy ride. #LOL!
Mets fan favorite Daniel Murphy, who showed up at the team’s Oldtimers Day last season has decided to try to revive his major league career, signing a contract with the Long Island Ducks. There’s only one reason anyone plays for the Ducks and that’s because they want to get back to the majors. If the Mets didn’t already have Vogelbach at DH, they probably would have taken a phone call from Murphy.
Remember on Tuesday I asked if it was safe to see a game in the District?
Asked and answered.
Eric McErlain lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area. He blogged at Off Wing Opinion regularly from 2002-2009. In addition to writing at Off Wing, his work has appeared at The Sporting News, AOL FanHouse, NBC Sports.com, Deadspin, The Hockey Writers and Pro Football Weekly.
I’ll have more to say about that later. Let’s just say that it isn’t your run of the mill, boredom-inducing vacation yarn. Trust me on this, I kept the receipts.
My friends in the Washington area had warned me that Scherzer’s fastball had a tendency to flatten out in the postseason. Boy, did it ever.
Note to Mets fans: some of the online chatter about Ruf this Spring was excessive. Yes, his time in New York was a failure, but he’s still a human being who’s probably contemplating the end of his baseball career. Let’s not be Yankees fans. More on that on Friday.