The Amazins are off to a very inauspicious start – Every single Met
To start off, one of the greatest Mets struggles in my lifetime is getting a hitter to score. The biggest
struggles are, specifically, knocking in someone with runners in scoring
positions and hitting home runs. The Mets have three home runs this season, one
from Dominic Smith, one from Pete Alonso and the last from Jeff McNeil. Mister $341 million has a ripe .176 average with one batter driven
in. Keep in mind, I’m not trying to throw a monkey wrench into the machine (if
you can call it a machine with this start) that the Mets are, I’m just saying
what I think.
A question that I had right when Steve Cohen brought in Francisco
Lindor was “Who is the new Mr. Smile?” As you know, Brandon Nimmo loves to smile and so does Lindor. With Lindor’s
horrible start to the year, I’ll grace Nimmo with the title. No question,
Lindor is the better player, but Nimmo is batting .412 from the bottom of the
order. Usually being demoted from the top of the order to the bottom will
plummet your morale, but as Nimmo took a ball, that I thought was ball 2, on
the inside half for strike three, I told my dad, “This guy’ll take a ball four
feet outside, the ump will call it a strike, and Brandon will turn around and
walk right back to the dugout, he’s just so happy.”
A player that is also slumming to start the year is Michael Conforto batting a riper .143
and that is the baseball-bat-to-the-knee for Mets fans, I’ll explain why.
Conforto has been amazing since 2015, in seasons that he’s played more than 100
games, he’s hit on average 25 homers and 71 RBIs, and, since 2019, and he’s
obviously gotten better so, with inflation for the sake of argument, that’s 30
homers and 90 RBIs. In 5 games, he hasn’t even knocked in a runner or scored
himself. A player that has been making the most of his opportunities is Luis Guillorme, a soft-handed infielder
and who isn’t known for offense. Guillorme has three hits and a .500 average
and earned the starting role (because JD Davis got beaned with a pitch a few
games earlier) before the umps called the game due to rain on Saturday. What’s
just sad is that Jacob DeGrom has a
.600 average, and that’s leading the team for players with 5 or more at-bats.
The starters have been weirdly good this year, well, Jacob
DeGrom is Jacob DeGrom, what can I say, the only run given up was a home run to
Jazz Chisholm Jr. and that was 100%
a fluke. He has a 0.64 ERA with 21 punchouts, yes, 21 but the catch is he
doesn’t have a win, BUT, does have a loss. Starter no. 2 has also been
impeccable, Marcus Stroman has a
1.42 ERA with only 3 strikeouts BUT HE GETS A WIN. Taijuan Walker, who had the biggest difference between ceiling and
floor for the pitchers coming into this year in my opinion, knocked the Marlins
dead in his first start. He tallied only four strikeouts but only four hits
given up. Then, a potentially really good Mets pitching prospect, David Peterson went out on the mound
and was really bad. In four innings of work, he allowed six runs, 7 hits and he
walked two batters. Atrocious.
Now, this is the part of the blog that I wanted to avoid,
because it’s the part about the bullpen, great going, boys! Trevor May and Aaron Loup are two amazing pickups for the Mets, Steve Cohen really
hit the ball on the nose for these pickups. Before I sound off on the worse end
(which really means the whole Mets bullpen minus one guy), I’ll talk about the
only half-decent pitcher in the pen, Miguel
Castro. Castro has an ERA of 3.00, he allowed only one run, 4 hits, and no
walks in 3 games/innings of work. Somehow, Edwin
Diaz got the win yesterday, and he got it by some force created by the
baseball gods. He gave up 2 earned runs, 3 hits, and two walks. When he was
called in from the bullpen, I knew this was going to happen, it’s a coin flip
for Diaz on whether he has a good outing or not. Now, I can’t decide whether to
be more scared of Trevor May, Edwin Diaz,
Dellin Betances, Jacob Barnes, Jeurys Familia or Aaron Loup. I’ll go with Trevor May, because his
first two games have been comically bad. Familia has always been “eh” because
he was one of the most dominant closers in baseball for a period and then he
just fell off, but, hey, we’ve seen that story at least one more time, right?
He’s also on the Mets. He has a weird windup to deliver the pitch. I clown him
at every chance I get on this blog. Yes! You guessed it, Edwin “Hellen Keller
could pitch better than me” Diaz. I wanted Dellin Betances to get the set-up
man role on the Mets like he did on the Yankees,
but, last year was inauspicious and this year had a few bumps for him. Jacob
Barnes never had a great career anywhere and I guess we brought him in for 5/6th
inning man but he never brought anything to the table. And when I’m building a
team I want every player to produce something, no hole-fillers on a squad.
Now, here are my playoff prediction and award race winners
(yes, I reserve the privilege of revising this forecast):
Wild Card:
AL: White Sox vs. Red Sox: Red Sox
NL: Mets vs. Padres: Mets
ALDS:
Yankees vs. Red Sox: Yankees
Astros vs. Twins: Astros
NLDS:
Dodgers vs. Mets: Dodgers
Reds vs. Braves: Braves
ALCS:
Yankees vs. Astros: Yankees
NLCS: Dodgers vs. Braves: Dodgers
World Series:
Yankees vs. Dodgers: Dodgers
MVP
NL: Ronald Acuna Jr.
AL: Mike Trout
Cy Young:
NL: Jacob DeGrom
AL: Shane Bieber
ROY:
NL: Ke’Bryan Hayes
AL: Wander Franco
Manager of the Year:
NL: David Bell
AL: Tony La Russa
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