Category Archives: Mets

#PraiseBeltran

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Carlos Beltran returns to Citi Field tonight for the first time since the Mets traded him last July. Here’s what I wrote about the man then.

Now, Beltran’s leading the National League in home runs. He has a .988 OPS, which would make for the best season of his career. And anyone chalking up any of this to the change of scenery obviously was not watching the Mets from April to July last year.

Carlos Beltran is awesome. That you probably know. More, inevitably, to follow.

Reinforcements coming

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OK, so it looks like while I was gone, the Mets won some games and lost some games. R.A. Dickey and Johan Santana were awesome, the defense was bad and the bullpen was worse. So… status quo.

Josh Thole should return to the team in time for Friday’s game, which should provide a offensive upgrade over the combination of Mike Nickeas and Rob Johnson. When the Mets aren’t hitting for much power — as they didn’t until last week — guys like Thole with a knack for getting on base help maintain rallies, something that (obviously) becomes far more difficult to do when the lineup is freckled with out machines.

The Mets apparently have been hitting for some power, which is nice. They’ve got 11 home runs in their last seven games after hitting only 25 in their first 44. So that’s good. They don’t have a lot of home-run hitters in their regular lineup (especially if Ike Davis is struggling and/or not in the regular lineup), but it will be good when a few more guys start running into a few more. Since the Mets already get on base pretty well, an uptick in power would give the Mets one of the top offenses in the National League.

Elvin Ramirez will accompany Thole to New York and (presumably) join the team’s beleaguered bullpen. Ramirez has been straight-up dominant in Triple-A to the tune of 19 strikeouts, no earned runs, five hits and one walk in 14 2/3 innings. And calling on him now, given the struggles of the Mets’ bullpen, seems like a no-brainer.

But consider me something of an Elvin Ramirez skeptic, if there are such things: Outside of these last 14 2/3 innings, Ramirez has always walked too many guys at every level. Even in the early part of this season at Double-A, Ramirez walked seven batters in 13 frames. Maybe his improved control this year is something real — perhaps the product of a mechanical adjustment made while rehabbing the surgery that cost him all of 2011. Or maybe it’s something that has just happened over 14 2/3 innings, and… well, there’s a song about 14 2/3 innings.

In an ideal situation, the Mets’ bullpen would be pitching great and the club would have more time to figure out if this improved Ramirez is the real Ramirez. But Mets relievers have a 5.45 ERA and Ramirez had not allowed a run in 14 2/3 Triple-A innings.

From the mailbag: Wright, Beltran

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Ceetar writes:

You looked up streaks The Captain has had before that were this good, but has this year now surpassed those in length?

He means David Wright, for what it’s worth. And yes, it has. In a couple of earlier posts, I looked up whether Wright had any hot stretches in any of his disappointing seasons from 2009-2011 that, if isolated by arbitrary endpoints, match the production he has put up to open the 2012 season. There were 33- and 38-game stretches that matched this hot start, but by my best digging on the baseball-reference gamelogs, I can’t isolate a 41-game stretch from any of those years in which Wright was this good for this long — at least if you consider Wright’s lack of strikeouts along with his hilarious production.

In fact, the last time I can find that Wright was this hot was back in his MVP-caliber 2007 campaign, when he posted a .379/.500/.662 mark from the second game of a July 28 doubleheader through Sept. 12. And though Wright hit 10 home runs over that stretch and it was less fueled by batting average in balls in play, given the distinctions in hitting environments and league-wide offensive standards it seems reasonable to contend that an 1.128 OPS today is at least impressive as a 1.162 OPS in 2007 (to boot: Carlos Beltran’s .904 OPS with the Mets in 2011 produced a 152 park- and league-adjusted OPS+ whereas his me-first .982 OPS in 2006 yielded a 150 in the same stat).

Which is to say something you may have noticed: Wright’s first 41 games in 2012 represent about the best we’ve seen of the man. And it is, you may also have noticed, pretty spectacular.

As for calling Wright “The Captain,” this is confusing for a bunch of reasons. For one, to me “The Captain” will always refer to The Captain Dog (more frequently known simply as “Captain” or “T. Captain Dog”) my late, lovably dumb, giant-headed Scottish Terrier. Alternately, it might also refer to Captain Morgan or Kirk Nieuwenhuis.

Should the Mets name Wright their captain? I guess? If someone could tell me anything specific that a baseball-team captain does that David Wright doesn’t already do, I might be more adamant about it. He gets to wear a little “C” on his jersey? Symbolic gestures are nice, but I suspect the best way to indicate to Wright and Mets fans that the team is committed to him as a leader and player is to pony up for a long-term extension, which seems pretty likely anyway.

Tyrion writes:

Carlos Beltran leading the league in homers while not an upcoming free agent, how does this selfishly benefit him?

Beltran has figured it out, Tyrion. He knows that we know he’s only playing for his next contract, so he’s playing really well in a non-contract year as misdirection so it doesn’t seem suspicious when he plays really well in a contract year. He pulled the same act with the Mets in 2006, 2007, 2008, the first half of 2009, and the last month of 2010. It’s utterly depraved.

From the mailbag: Baxter, Hamels, Nieuwenhuis

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The Mets-heavy edition. Here we go.

Scott writes:

What’s your opinion on how the Mets should utilize Mike Baxter at least for the immediate future?

It has been good to see Baxter get some starts over the past week, and he’s earned some more. Plus, though Baxter has seen very few opportunities against left-handed pitchers in 2012, he didn’t really demonstrate much of a platoon split in the Minors. So if Baxter is on the bench for a game, I might rather see him left in to face a lefty specialist in a pinch-hitting spot than see him pulled for one of the Mets’ lesser-hitting righty bench bats (i.e. anyone but Scott Hairston).

We talked about this some on the podcast that just rolled out: Jason Bay’s probably going to play every day when he returns, at least to start. There are a bunch of reasons for this, some better than others. His contract and veteran status don’t seem like good reasons to play him every day, but they do seem like likely factors. One last effort to get him straightened out so the Mets can part ways with that contract without eating the whole thing does seem like a decent reason.

But if and when Bay struggles against righties — as he did in 2011 and the first couple of weeks of 2012 — the Mets will have to face platooning Bay if they want to win as many games as possible. They’ve got three lefty-hitting outfielders (with varying amounts of upside) who are under team control way longer than Bay and who could feasibly play some role on future Mets contenders. Baxter, older and less-heralded than Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Lucas Duda, is probably the lowest priority for regular at-bats. But he has also performed the best in his tiny sample in 2012.

Unless Baxter is somehow one of the top five hitters in the Majors he’s not going to keep hitting at this clip, obviously. But 27-year-olds with histories of good Minor League hitting do sometimes come out of the woodwork to become productive Major League regulars, so it doesn’t seem imprudent to give Baxter as many opportunities as possible to prove himself. It’ll just be tough to do that, given how many lefties the Mets have in their lineup and how many seem to also merit regular at-bats. The task becomes easier if the Mets do decide to demote Ike Davis.

Paul writes:

Hey Matt,

Big fan of the blog. I was wondering do you think the mets should trade David Wright? and what sort of prospecs could they get in a deal for wright? chipper jonas is retiring, would the Braves be willing to give3 up some of their arms in a package for Wright?

Hey Paul: You misspelled “traid.”

Speaking of which, C. Hamels writes:

If you could traid Val Pascucci straight up for me, would you pull the trigger?

Well, yeah. C’mon now. I hope it’s clear by now that I realize Cole Hamels is about as awesome at pitching as he is at posing for embarrassing photos. Plus, as much as I dislike the Phillies, I’m rooting for Pascucci to get more Major League chances anywhere, and the Phillies could use a bat right about now. Ty Wigginton, of the .639 OPS and the not-very-good defense, is the righty half of their first-base platoon. You’re telling me Pascucci can’t outproduce that?

The Mets could use a starting pitcher, the Phillies could use a power bat and Pascucci could use another crack at big-league pitching. It just makes sense. GET IT DONE SANDY.

Steve asks:

Kirk Nieuwenhuis (spelled it without looking it up, how’d I do?) has been striking out in 30% of his at bats. You think he’ll still turn out to be a solid regular?

Nieuwenhuis’ 30.3 percent strikeout rate is nothing extraordinary by his standards; he struck out in 27.4 percent of his plate appearances in Triple-A. He will likely have to improve that if he aims to become a solid regular.

The outstanding baseball-reference play index for whatever reason doesn’t seem to search by strikeout percentage, but to date there have been only 17 full seasons in Major League history in which a hitter suffered an at-bat to strikeout rate as low as Nieuwenhuis’ current 2.9 with an OPS+ above 100 (i.e. league average). Most of them are by three-true-outcomes type mashers: Three by Jack Cust, two by Jim Thome, two by Mark Reynolds, two by Rob Deer, two by Adam Dunn, etc.

Of course, there’s probably some selection bias in play. Ten of those 17 seasons have come since 2006, so maybe, as the Major Leagues warm to the idea that strikeouts aren’t so awful, we’ll see more guys succeed despite extremely high strikeout totals. And maybe, somehow, Nieuwenhuis is one of those guys.

But since Nieuwenhuis is currently the benefactor of the Majors’ second-highest batting average on balls in play, it seems like he’ll have to put more balls in play to keep his batting average and on-base percentage up when that normalizes a bit. But he’s 24 and these are only his first 144 Major League at-bats, so there’s hope yet.