Meet the Mets (For Mets Fans Only!)

jfinnegan said:

Eh, he would have stayed. It was an adjustment seeing Zeile there. 

 it's never been clear whether the Mets ever bothered to make a competitive $$ offer to keep Olerud. 

He was a great player on the Mets. I'm pretty sure that if his career averages were as good as his only-Mets averages he would be in the HOF. 


jimmurphy said:

Not sure what this means. Please explain.

I must confess that I had a gap in my rabid Met-fandom from ‘89 to ‘98. I was in the Army/stationed out in CA and access to games wasn’t what is is now. Following box scores wasn’t the same and let’s face it, that was a lost decade. I barely saw Olerud.

 The Mets never made him a reasonable offer. They signed Zeile instead to play 1st for 3 years, $18 million. The Mariners signed Olerud for 3 years, $20 million. If you compare the stats of both of them over the next 3 years I would say Olerud was worth $10 million more at least, not that Zeile was bad.


Olerud's OPS during his three seasons in New York was .925. It's no disrespect to Zeile to say Olerud was a lot better player for the Mets. 


They also had the best fielding infield during that time and a lot of it had to do with Olerud's play at 1st. He and Piazza back to back were a nice tandem. I used to live in the same town as Alfonzo. I was surprised he bought a house with an apartment building overlooking his backyard. He had no privacy and then he had a batting cage put in his basement and painted it the Mets colors. Less than a year later he ended up going to the Giants.  


All in all that was a disappointing 5 game series.


DanDietrich said:

All in all that was a disappointing 5 game series.

So tough when the starting pitching is so slim. Not sure how much more we can expect right now. Team psychology is interesting. 


I'm looking at all of these trades and I find myself a little surprised at how much teams are paying for guys not having great seasons, or guys who can walk at the end of the season.  I hope the Mets don't overpay just to make a trade.


I hope not as well. Most of the guys that aren't hitting are still going to be playing. Berrios would have made the most sense to me since they would have had control next year. Seems like Baez and Lindor want to play together. I love Baez in the field, but I hate his approach at the plate.


DanDietrich said:

I'm looking at all of these trades and I find myself a little surprised at how much teams are paying for guys not having great seasons, or guys who can walk at the end of the season.  I hope the Mets don't overpay just to make a trade.

they're not in dire need of a trade.  In part because their rivals haven't done much to improve and don't appear they will.  If the Phils had picked up some bullpen help (and just a closer, who looks like it will be Ian Kennedy probably won't have been enough to make a difference for them), it would be concerning if the Mets stand pat.  But the Mets' issues right now are short-term because as of tonight they have 3 solid veteran guys in the rotation right now and 1 promising rookie.  They need to stay afloat until deGrom returns.  And then they'll have Syndergaard to give them some innings.  Maybe he's a 3-inning "opener" when he returns. 

For this team, it's really about winning the division.  After that, they'll be as dangerous as any other NL team provided their frontline starters stay healthy from here out.  I'd like their chances against anyone with deGrom, Stroman, Carrasco and Walker as starters with Megill and Syndergaard the first guys out of the pen.

And as I finish writing this, Twitter is telling me the Mets have made a deal for Baez and Trevor Williams.  So we shall see.


Wow.  I just have a completely different view of this team.  First, I don't expect to see Syndagaard.  Second, I think the teams'  inability to hit second rate pitching is going to help them exit the playoffs in the first round.  It's just the first year of new ownership.  I expect them to improve in the off-season.  


DanDietrich said:

Wow.  I just have a completely different view of this team.  First, I don't expect to see Syndagaard.  Second, I think the teams'  inability to hit second rate pitching is going to help them exit the playoffs in the first round.  It's just the first year of new ownership.  I expect them to improve in the off-season.  

 I guess it all depends on how they match up.  If the season ended today they'd be playing Milwaukee in the NLDS.  I'd like their chances there.

All signs point to 2 of the 3 NL West teams having to get knocked out, leaving one in the NLCS.  Cincinnati could possibly crash that party as the 2nd wild card, but it doesn't seem likely given how strong the teams in the west have been.


You are assuming that DeGrom is returning and will pitch 6 innings per start through the end of the season, and into the playoffs, and that this team will hit every day in the playoffs against good pitching at a rate that they are not hitting now against third place bullpens.  I'd love to be wrong, but every playoff team is going to be playing with energy.


DanDietrich said:

You are assuming that DeGrom is returning and will pitch 6 innings per start through the end of the season, and into the playoffs, and that this team will hit every day in the playoffs against good pitching at a rate that they are not hitting now against third place bullpens.  I'd love to be wrong, but every playoff team is going to be playing with energy.

 of course.  If deGrom is not healthy, none of what I wrote applies.  It's wait 'til next year time and they may not even win the division if he's not back 100%.  But the hitting doesn't need to be all that good if the pitching is on point.  


If they end up facing the Brewers the Brewers would have better starters in 3 out of 4 games. And Woodrfuff is no slouch. I would have preferred Bryant over Baez. Baez strikes out 36% of the time. Figure against a good pitcher in the playoffs that goes up to 50%. He is unable to layoff the slider down and away.  


jfinnegan said:

If they end up facing the Brewers the Brewers would have better starters in 3 out of 4 games. And Woodrfuff is no slouch. I would have preferred Bryant over Baez. Baez strikes out 36% of the time. Figure against a good pitcher in the playoffs that goes up to 50%. He is unable to layoff the slider down and away.  

I like the idea of going into the postseason with two gold glove caliber guys up the middle in the infield. We've seen so much bad fielding on this team over the years. So I can live with the strikeouts if he's playing like a gold glover at SS and hitting HRs. 


deGrom shut down for two weeks. Thinking maybe Berrios should have been the target even if it took another prospect.


ml1 said:

jfinnegan said:

If they end up facing the Brewers the Brewers would have better starters in 3 out of 4 games. And Woodrfuff is no slouch. I would have preferred Bryant over Baez. Baez strikes out 36% of the time. Figure against a good pitcher in the playoffs that goes up to 50%. He is unable to layoff the slider down and away.  

I like the idea of going into the postseason with two gold glove caliber guys up the middle in the infield. We've seen so much bad fielding on this team over the years. So I can live with the strikeouts if he's playing like a gold glover at SS and hitting HRs. 

 I agree with ML1 here, and I'll add that adding a good shortstop now is a bigger upgrade than adding a good third baseman.  I'm happy with Villar at third, less so with Davis, but this year Bryant is not a huge step up.  Also, he will be available as a FA in the winter.


jfinnegan said:

deGrom shut down for two weeks. Thinking maybe Berrios should have been the target even if it took another prospect.

 this changes everything 


We won't see him again this season, I think.  Unless it is for three two inning starts.


What's Cole Hamels up to these days?


He might be going to the Phillies. He did have a showcase a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure which teams were there, but the Mets and Phillies were.


I know.  I just think the Mets should have signed him by now.  


Given that he's still sitting out there I can't believe his showcase could have been that impressive. 


They could use a pitcher, but their big issue is they can't consistently score. I'm starting to wonder if they'll even bother giving Conforto a qualifying offer. 


jfinnegan said:

They could use a pitcher, but their big issue is they can't consistently score. I'm starting to wonder if they'll even bother giving Conforto a qualifying offer. 

 it's this.  the last couple of games looked like blowouts in the final score, but if they had been closer going into the last couple of innings, there likely would have been better relievers out there.

As bad as Megill's first inning was, he was impressive in how he kept it together and gave the team five innings and only gave up one more run.  When he left, the team was only down a run, but they didn't even come close to scoring again after that.


They are simply not a good team.  The Yankees swept the Marlins.  We are at best going to split with them, and that's not written in stone.


Why would McCann get the green light 3-0 leading off the inning? Even worse, why would he swing? I'm not sure how they fix this unless they can find a hitting coach that could work some magic. I was certain the current hitting coach bringing in the Homerun Horse was going to really ignite them. 


Maybe a team psychologist would help.  They just can't stop swinging for the fences.


DanDietrich said:

Maybe a team psychologist would help.  They just can't stop swinging for the fences.

until Jacob deGrom returns and pitches 7 innings in a game, I've lost my optimism.  I have enjoyed this team, and how they didn't make excuses for all the injuries and positioned themselves in first place thus far.  But without Jake, this is not a team that can get out of an NLDS.  Without Jake I'm not sure it's a team that can hold off the Phillies.


Gary C. touched upon this but the essential mediocrity of the Met is reflected in their run differential.  Not only is it negative, and leaps and bounds below the best teams, but it is actually worse than Miami and Atlanta.  How Atlanta has a losing record despite a healthy plus 54 run differential is astonishing.

https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/run-differential  


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