Why have the Amazins been Amazing?

You can count on three things in life: death, taxes, and the Mets giving their fans multiple heart attacks before the season ends. The Mets have been on an insane hot streak as of late, right after being on a pretty bad losing streak.

So let’s break it down, why have the Mets been so good?

Let’s start with some misconceptions on the topic. Social media will tell you that the Mets are 20-5 with Daniel Vogelbach on the team. This isn’t basketball, though, one player can’t make that great of an impact, especially when he’s not at the superstar level. It’s a cool stat, though, but Big Dan didn’t inject the Mets with any special sauce.

The Mets offense has also been in a slumber, waking up occasionally to put up the rare 8+ spot in a game and then go back to the average 3-4 runs per game. You can group the Mets offense into one group, with their ups and downs but note that each player has ups and downs with freaky consistency. Starling Marte hit two homers last night against the Braves. When will be the next time we see one leave the yard off Marte’s bat? Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, or in three weeks. No in between. To show you I’m not exaggerating, our power hitter, Pete Alonso hasn’t hit a homer in his last 50 at-bats, but watch him go off for a three-home run game tomorrow. The catcher, James McCann’t, hasn’t barreled up a baseball since before I was born (unfortunately, this isn’t going to change). But hey, only like 5% of catchers are used for offense, we use ours for defense. James McCANNON has a registered firearm attached to his shoulder.

The two main reasons for the Mets' success that I can see are the insane squad depth they have and the unreal pitching they have.

Everyone, minus the catchers and the pitchers can hit somewhat. The Mets have no weaknesses. The Mets can afford to platoon players in the right position and rest the starters. That’s a premium not a lot of teams have. Like I said in my last blog, the Mets knew that squad depth wins a lot of baseball games for you, and they made good on that, by trading for a lot of backup hitters. This is even raised to a power when you look at the Mets’ top prospects and you see the first seven are position players. Two days ago, the first eight were position players until third baseman Brett Baty was called up. Boy did that guy make a difference. He hit a home run on the first swing he took as a big leaguer. And this is exactly my point, Baty was called up because Eduardo Escobar and Luis Guillorme, the starting and backup third basemen, were both just put on the IL.

The Mets’ pitching has been top five in the league since Jacob DeGrom made his debut. Whether it be Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard as the supporting cast, or Zach Wheeler and Syndergaard, or the oddballs like Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha, or this year where the supporting cast is the other four starters playing out of their minds, Jacob DeGrom has always been a staple. No, probably not just a staple, more like a nail, but not a regular nail, like a railroad nail, he’s that important. This year, the Mets have the two best pitchers in baseball when they’re at their best, Jacob DeGrom and Max Scherzer, and the three other starters, Chris Bassitt, Carlos Carrasco, and Taijuan Walker, the Mets would easily be the top 2 on any team in baseball other than the Dodgers.

Almost every night, you can get a solid 5 innings out of any of the starters, and usually, they’ll give you more. It’s demoralizing for any team to know that you aren’t going to touch any of the starters, especially DeGrom and Scherzer until you finally run them out of the game in the sixth or seventh inning, they have health concerns or it’s the ninth inning and the bulldog in the ‘pen wants to be unchained.

Let’s move on to the bullpen, specifically the closer because there isn’t much to talk about with the rest of the bullpen. As with every bullpen nowadays, the closer is the shining star of every bullpen, without fail, no team has that lockdown set-up, man or 6-7th inning guy.  

The Mets have been blessed with really good closers for a while now. First, it was Jeurys Familia, who would be the most imposing closer in baseball for quite a while, and then there was a limbo period in which no one was really “that guy” for the Mets. Then came Edwin Diaz. He started out rough, but he’s the best closer in baseball now. Period, end of the discussion, no debate. Not only does he have the scariest walk-up song – as a pitcher – that’s going viral everywhere, he will cut you open with only two pitches: his triple-digit fastball or his slider that cuts and drops at 90 MPH and is purely unhittable.