Category Archives: Mets

Does Mike Pelfrey suck now?

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No. Pelfrey wasn’t as good as he pitched earlier this season and he certainly isn’t as bad as he pitched last night. The Diamondbacks smacked him around, no doubt, but he didn’t get much help from his defense either. Keep in mind that’s always an issue with Pelfrey, who generally pitches to contact.

Pelfrey is the “head case” du jour on the Mets’ roster, so everyone will extrapolate and psychoanalyze and everything else. And yeah, pitching is both a physical and mental pursuit, and for all I know Pelfrey’s struggling with the latter half right now. But the hiccup, whatever it may be, more likely requires a mere adjustment and not any sort of massive overhaul. It’s hardly like he’s throwing every pitch to the backstop.

Pelfrey’s struggles have been examined in detail by Eno Sarris at Amazin’ Avenue and Joe Janish at Mets Today. No one’s crying doomsday. These things happen. Pelfrey has been bad, but will be good again.

The tone on the Internet and in the papers has turned to desperation and outright vitriol because the Mets have lost seven of their last nine. Deep breaths. Teams struggle. If you believed the Mets were good enough to contend last week, a few losses shouldn’t change anything.

Of course, there are roster moves all over the place the team could undertake to improve its chances of winning, and those are important.

Unless Rod Barajas proves he can hit anytime soon, Josh Thole should probably be catching until he proves he can’t.

Raul Valdes appears to be a better pitcher than Fernando Nieve and perhaps steathily one of the better pitchers in the Mets bullpen. Nieve, not Valdes, should be dispatched if the Mets can’t bring themselves to cut bait on Ollie Perez, which they inevitably won’t. Yes, it will leave them with three lefties in their bullpen, but Valdes has been better against righty hitters in his small sample.

But the whole Perez thing is a different issue for a different post, and a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it.

For the first time in over a year, the Mets have Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and David Wright in the same lineup. Jason Bay will eventually hit. Angel Pagan is still really good. Luis Castillo can at least get on base. Ike Davis will smash some more homers.

There’s just no way the Mets are as bad as they’ve looked for the past week. Starting pitching may prove to be the problem everyone thought it would be before the season started, but the offense should soon pick up some of the slack. The team might benefit by adding an arm, but again, that’s another blog post for a time when heads are a bit cooler.

Johan Santana waging war on sabermetrics

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Johan Santana doesn’t strike out hitters like he used to. Walks more of ’em, too. Judging by his peripherals, Santana is on a steep career decline, cruising toward a collapse into mediocrity. His FIP is a pedestrian 3.54, and is hugely benefited from an unsustainably low HR/FB rate. His xFIP is a weighty 4.65, Kevin Slowey category. He’s losing it, no doubt, or he has already lost it.

Just one issue, really: He’s still getting results. Santana boasts a 2.87 ERA, 10th in the National League. And he’s third in the league in innings pitched. When you only look at what Santana has done in 2010, without trying to use the numbers to extrapolate how he will do moving forward, Santana appears to be one of the best pitchers in the league. Still.

So what’s happening? Well, there are a few places to check when looking for indicators of good luck. Santana’s batting average on balls in play — .275 — is a bit lower than his career .286 rate, but not enough to account for his maintained success despite the drop in peripherals. His strand rate is right around where it has been his whole career, so no dice there either.

The big red flag is Santana’s HR/FB rate which, at 4.3%, is half of where it was last season and well below his career 9% mark. A big reason Santana’s xFIP is so high is because the stat normalizes HR/FB rate. It assumes Santana will allow homers at a rate aligned with the league average, and that pitchers don’t have a whole hell of a lot of control over the distance of the flies they induce.

But I wonder if there’s a relationship between Santana’s decreased strikeout rate and decreased HR/FB rate. Granted, if he’s inducing more weak contact, it’s not showing up in his percentage of line-drives or infield flies, both have which have held more or less steady with his career norms.

Still, Santana’s contact rate jumped from 73.2% in 2007 to 77% in 2008, his first with the Mets. And it has steadily climbed from there.

Is it conceivable that Santana consciously began inducing more contact upon switching to a more pitcher-friendly park, and to a league where a growing pitch count is more likely to get him yanked for a pinch hitter? Is it possible that Santana, with elbow issues affecting the velocity of his fastball, decided to begin approaching hitters differently as he realized he couldn’t blow pitches by them anymore?

I don’t know. I tend to have a lot of faith in the numbers, but I also have a lot of faith in Santana. And while I realize I’m biased in all sorts of ways — first and foremost as a Mets fan — I’m open to the possibility that something besides luck is guiding Santana’s excellence in 2010.

Simply put: I will believe Johan Santana sucks when I see him suck. Until then, I would rather try to figure out why he’s succeeding than dismiss him as fortunate.

On-base is a big help

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The Mets’ struggling lineup will receive a reinforcement Monday, as the team expects second baseman Luis Castillo to be ready for Monday night’s game against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix. Castillo has been on the disabled list since June 4 with a bruised foot, and was 2-for-13 with three walks in four rehabilitation games for Single-A St. Lucie.

“On-base is his big help,” Jerry Manuel said. “His ability to see a lot of pitches. It’s kind of something we have lacked. … There are not many guys that see many pitches. When Castillo is back there, there is that sense that the pitch count can go up from the opposition.”

– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.

Jerry’s spot on here. On-base is Luis Castillo’s big benefit to the Mets right now. For a while, I thought Ruben Tejada might be able to hold his own with the bat enough to make him a worthwhile play over Castillo thanks to his better defense, but Tejada has since slumped and the Mets can’t score runs.

It’s not hard to figure out why: Last night’s lineup featured three guys with OBPs under .300. Different personnel, but same deal on Saturday.  The Mets have a number of good hitters in their lineup, but few teams can shoulder 3-5 out machines in their lineup every night.

Obviously these are suboptimal conditions. Castillo and Jose Reyes are hurt and Carlos Beltran cannot yet play in every game. Adding those three to the regular lineup will help, not only because of their offensive contributions, but because it will mean fewer at-bats for Tejada, Alex Cora and Jeff Francoeur.

And actually, if Castillo and Reyes are back tonight and Beltran and Angel Pagan start, the Mets will likely reduce the total to one out-machine in the lineup.

That’s kind of the thing: Everyone on the team and around the team raves about Rod Barajas’ contributions to the pitching staff, and those I don’t doubt. What I will continue to wonder, though, is if what Barajas adds defensively can make up for his downright putrid offense over the past couple of months.

Check it out: Since June 1, Barajas is hitting .169 with a .229 OBP and a .202 slugging. A .431 OPS. As a point of comparison, Mets pitchers have a combined .425 OPS in 2010.

It’s not good. It’s a burden the Mets might be able to carry if Beltran returns to being something like Carlos Beltran and David Wright remains awesome, but the frustrating thing is it appears the Mets actually have an in-house upgrade available. Generally when a starter struggles or gets hurt, the Mets must turn to guys like Cora and Tejada.

But young catcher Josh Thole has torn the cover off the ball in his short stint with the team, just as he did after a rough April in Triple-A. Thole’s not going to maintain his .524 batting average and isn’t even likely to match his cumulative .783 mark in Triple-A. But at this point, he’s a pretty safe bet to represent a significant offensive upgrade over Barajas.

Don’t get on me about the importance of a catcher’s leadership and game-calling and staff-handling. I know about that stuff. I promise. What I’m trying to say is that there are several ways to win baseball games, and scoring lots of runs is a solid one. The Mets would certainly lose something behind the plate by starting the inexperienced Thole more often, but they’d probably make up more than the difference on offense. That’s the point. Net gain.

Thole has options, so he’ll likely be shipped out of town at some point during the upcoming spate of roster moves. That’s a shame, as the Mets will likely be dispatching an upgrade to their Major League team.

Last night’s sandwich

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A small upside to Beltranzaa beginning on the West Coast last night was that, thanks to time zones DVR, I was able to take in the band CAKE in Connecticut and still catch the entire Mets game without first finding out what happened.

The show was at a gorgeous outdoor venue called the Ives, so the wife and I packed sandwiches and got there a little early to sit outside and enjoy them, the pleasant weather, and the bevy of hippies performing in various styles of equilibristics.

The sandwich I ordered: A modified version of the Berg’s Pepper Barge, my signature sandwich at the deli where I used to work: Pepper ham, pepper turkey, hot soppresata, fresh mozzarella, and oil and balsamic vinegar dressing on a hard roll. While the O.G. Berg’s Pepper Barge came from DeBono’s in Rockville Centre, I ordered this one from an A&S, which has various locations in the New York Metro area.

The sandwich I received: Pepper turkey, hot soppresata and fresh mozzarella on a whole wheat roll (they were out of regular rolls).

Important background information: Last night made me realize how important the human element is in sandwich rating. Unless you’re frequenting an eatery pretty often, there’s no way to know if you’re getting a true sandwich artist or a poser, or even some guy just working there for the paycheck with no distinct love of sandwiches. And heck, maybe the dude who made my sandwich at A&S last night is generally excellent and just had a bad day — or maybe made one anomalously bad sandwich. Even Albert Pujols strikes out sometimes.

I like to think I was a great and consistent deli man back in my day, but for all I know I screwed up people’s sandwiches with some regularity and never found out about it. How many times have you gotten the slightly wrong order someplace, and how many times have you actually taken it back? I was a half hour away by the time I realized I got the wrong sandwich last night.

What it looks like:


How it tastes: Too dry. As you can see from the photo, there’s a ton of meat on there. And I know the instinct is to say that a ton of meat is necessarily a good thing, but again, I can’t stress the importance of sandwich balance enough. And that the bulk of the meat was turkey left this sandwich begging for moisture.

That’s why the sandwich, as conceived, had oil and vinegar on it, not to mention pepper ham. Ham is a moister, fattier deli meat than turkey, so it alone would have cut the dryness by replacing some of the turkey’s volume. Also, pepper ham is a wildly underrated deli meat — it’s crusted in black pepper, which looks almost ridiculous and too peppery from the outside but works perfectly when it’s sliced nice and thin.

The mozzarella and soppresata ensured that the sandwich was still decent. Fresh mozzarella, if it’s good, is straight-up unbelievable on just about anything, and A&S makes it as well as anywhere. And hot soppresata is a spicy, fatty, flavorful meat that guarantees a sandwich will not be bland.

But as I ate it, I yearned for some sort of sauce, something to dip it in so it wouldn’t parch my mouth. Even without the ham a little oil and vinegar would have added a ton of flavor and much-needed wetness to the thing. But alas, it was not to be.

What it’s worth: $9 is steep for a sandwich that’s not what you wanted. Since the A&S is extremely close to my house and was essentially on the way to the concert venue, there wasn’t a lot of other costs though. Still, if I didn’t want the pepper ham I could have gone elsewhere and gotten a sandwich for less.

The rating: 42 out of 100. Above replacement level, but not what I hoped for and nowhere close to matching its potential. Elements of an excellent sandwich, but missing too many crucial aspects of greatness. Jeff Francoeur.

First night of Beltranzaa brings few gifts

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Here’s Carlos Beltran’s first hit of the 2010 season:

Nice to see and good for Beltran for getting off the schneid in only his second at-bat. His later plate appearances were less impressive, but it’s hard to look good when facing Tim Lincecum.

The part that stung was the caught stealing, a few pitches after that hit. Ike Davis swung on the pitch, so I’m not sure if it was a botched hit and run or Beltran taking advantage of his perpetual green light. Jerry Manuel said before the game that he wouldn’t be sending Beltran anywhere, so I guess it was the latter.

Carlos Beltran — the Carlos Beltran we love and appreciate — never gets caught stealing. Beltran is a historically great base-stealer. Even last year, hobbled as he was, Beltran only got thrown out once in 12 attempts.

And yeah, maybe it’s just an unfortunate coincidence that this year’s first caught stealing should come in his first game back. Buster Posey made a great throw, after all.

But, well, I don’t know. It was a little bit sad, is all. Like the time Donny didn’t bowl a strike, right before his untimely death in The Big Lebowski. And for it to come at the hands of Posey, a player heralded as part of the next crop of Major League stars, seemed devastatingly perfect. Carlos Beltran’s run of being one of the very best baseball players in the world is probably over.

Not because of one caught stealing, mind you. Because he’s now 33 years old with an irreparable bone-on-bone condition in his right knee. Some things are just too heavy for Superman to lift. The march of time is a real bitch.

Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Baseball players have certainly remained exceptional deeper into their 30s. And Beltran, even if he’s not the player he used to be, will likely still be a very good player whenever he’s healthy.

I just get a feeling we’re never going to see the player he used to be again, and that’s a difficult thing to bear. It was such a sight to see, that minimalist art thing he did. And even though I know having him back is best for the Mets, I hate the idea of new images of a lesser Beltran clouding my memory of such a wonderful ballplayer.

Greatness is fleeting, is all. And fragile. And that sucks.

Carlos Beltran playing baseball

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Here is, as per GilbertP’s request, Carlos Beltran hitting a grand slam off Kevin Gregg from 2008. This was actually the day after my nephew C.J. was born. Carlos Beltran knows how to welcome a young Mets fan into the world.


I couldn’t find the Sept. 2, 2006 catch that Jake requested. For some reason we didn’t cut any highlights that night — not sure what happened. Anyway, here’s a play Beltran made a few days later, on Sept. 8.

This is, for whatever reason, the play that always comes to my mind when I think of Beltran playing center. Obviously it’s a nice catch, but the impressive part, I think, is how quickly he closes on the ball and how much ground he covers so effortlessly. By the time the ball’s coming down the catch looks almost routine. But look at him in the pursuit. Amazing:


Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever see that Beltran again. The guy who played center field for the Mets last year hit the crap out of the ball and was still a great baseball player, but by all objective and subjective reports he didn’t cover the same amount of ground in the outfield and his once-phenomenal baserunning slipped a bit, too. The bone-on-bone grinding in Beltran’s knee was probably taking its toll, and surgery or no, I imagine that knee will continue to hamper him a bit going forward.

But it will take a lot more than a bum knee to prevent Carlos Beltran from being better than Jeff Francoeur, the man he’s essentially replacing in the Mets’ outfield. That’s the good news. Outside of his fluky, injury-riddled 2005, it’s been a long, long time since Beltran played anything short of excellent baseball. He may no longer be the best defensive center fielder and best baserunner in the game, but in all likelihood he’ll still be awesome.

And also, don’t forget about the time Carlos Beltran did this

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I couldn’t find the walk-off job off Madson discussed in the comments section below. It turns out SNY.tv only started getting Mets highlights in mid-June of 2006, which is exactly when I started working on the site. I figured it had been that way since Day 1. Anyway, in lieu of that, here’s this, from June 11, 2008:


And for kicks, a Twitter exchange with Mets fan @gregpomes (with a little help from Baseball Prospectus injury expert Will Carroll) that I decided not to let die:

OGTedBerg: Remember when Carlos Beltran did this? http://tinyurl.com/3xpoh3q
gregpomes: @OGTedBerg I remember Beltran looking at strike 3 in the 2006 NLCS.
OGTedBerg: @gregpomes Do you remember that they wouldn’t have been in the 2006 NLCS without Beltran?
gregpomes: @OGTedBerg when it was time for him to step up he didn’t. He just stood there. He’s a soft player.
OGTedBerg: @gregpomes You know he had three home runs in that series, right?
gregpomes: @OGTedBerg and when it mattered he struck out looking. He’s great at padding stats but he’s a choke artists when the game is on the line
OGTedBerg: @gregpomes The entire series mattered, as did the entire season. Striking out in one at-bat does not make a choke artist. Baseball is hard.
gregpomes: @OGTedBerg that at bat was the most important at bat in the series for them and he didn’t come through. #Mets
OGTedBerg: @gregpomes That much is true. Doesn’t make him soft.
gregpomes: @OGTedBerg what makes him soft is that he’s constantly hurt.
injuryexpert: @gregpomes @OGTedBerg I wonder how soft you’d be if your knees were grinding with every step.