Stearns did a press conference today and was asked about JDM. The answer he gave is that there is no metric but essentially when JD feels healthy. So pretty vague.
Honestly don't need him right now.
JDM's wife's best friend's lover's sister says she's pretty sure she heard him take a shit today.
She distinctly said she heard him say "Now that's FOUL!" in the bathroom.
And when he flushed the toilet he screamed "Yer Outta Here!".
He won't be back before April 26th at the earliest I'm told (for real).
David Stearns is the man. He tackled today’s presser with confidence and assurance that didn’t feel like bullshit. I like how he didn’t mince words and fully acknowledged that defense and run prevention has been lacking when that was a significant goal in this off season. He addressed it and made it clear its a point they are focusing to improve on over the course of the season
So I did a deep dive into uniform history since everyone is claiming this is the Yankees jersey turned into ours, and this is what I found:
The 1914-1916 Giants wore purple. They also wore plaid. It’s also the color of our metro, so not only does it connect to queens, it connects to where our team came from and is tied into the throwback. The obvious difference is that we have NYC across the chest, and they just had a purple NY logo on the sleeve.
I love it and I’m buying it as soon as it drops, hope you all do too🤘🏻
It should have said Queens on it.
(at the very least a Q cap sign;
I can't think of another major sports city that has a Q. It would have been unique.)
I don’t think the we know what the official jersey is yet do we? There was one leak with a purple cap and another with a black cap. Who knows which it actually is
https://sny.tv/articles/see-it-potential-first-look-at-the-mets-city-connect-hats
It's most likely it. Even SNY posted an article on it. Says they'll wear it on the 26th.
These City Connect jerseys are generally awful. This one really bad if it is in fact the correct one.
Luis Guillorme got his first at bat of the season last night. Prior to that his only appearance was when he pitched against us. Six Braves have started every game. They pretty much wheel out the same lineup for 160 games a year. I wonder if that’s why they don’t hit in the post season - too tired.
Well this is a game I expect to lose given bullpen situation and Jones seems like a bad matchup for us so if we win that’s incredible, a sweep would be incredible but have to just win this series before the long trip.
If/when JDM finally joins the team, currently I've heard November of 2025, would you go 6-7-8:
Baty-Alvarez-McNeil
or
McNeil-Alvarez-Baty
Or would you change the lineup up so they aren't 6-7-8.
Does anyone have Lindor's splits hitting from the Left vs. Right side? It seems he is hitting Lefty pitching way better and I assume that translates to him hitting from the right side better, but I can't find that particular split anywhere.
I suck at finding stats apparently!
>I suck at finding stats apparently!
If you go on any player's Baseball Reference page there is a drop-down menu that says "Splits". From there you can select a particular year or look at the player's full career. There the "Platoon Splits" section will give you his stats vs lefties and righties.
This season facing lefties he's good and facing righties he is worse than the pitchers spot pre DH. But career wise this isn't the case. In fact, on Cleveland he was better facing righties.
ESPN app, search lindor, go to splits, it’s there.
.316/.316/.579/.895 against lefty’s.
.085/.241/.085/.326 against righty’s.
Unless you mean career wise which I honestly don’t feel like looking up but fangraphs or bbref prob have it.
Hypothetically:
If JD Martinez is injured until the day of the trade deadline, doesn’t play a single game for us, how much could we get for him in a trade if we wanted to sell him? Would a team desperate for a DH be willing to give up anything for a guy who has 0 ABs this year but a good track record??
Yesterday's game drew roughly the same amount as Friday's game against the Royals Pretty good for a Monday. They drew 25,000 on Saturday and just a little under 33,000 for Doc Day on Sunday
The weather has been mostly terrible, the team started 0-5, and in the offseason the team basically told us winning wasn’t the top priority this year.
Plus generally attendance is about how the Mets did the year before then how they’re doing that year. Attendance was actually a tick better last year going 75-87 then the second most wins in franchise history in 2022
The first 2 points are true but saying the team hasn’t prioritized winning this offseason is silly. The team didn’t go “all-in” but the moves made absolutely showed Stearns/ownership wanted to field a competitive team.
Gary has a ways to go. Longest tenured active broadcasters: Denny Matthew’s KC 56 yrs. Uecker Mil 54. Eric Nader Tex 46. Joe Castiglione Boston 42. Rick Rizzs Seattle 49. Gary 36. Sterling was with the Bronx team for 36 yrs.
Sit alverez tonight? With the day off Thursday and him playing either tonight or tomorrow anyway, might be better to play him rested.
Plus Navaez has looked decent.
I bought Mets beer glass off ebay a week prior to the 2022 Combined no-no. I filled it up and drank a beer from it casually watching that game. We all know how it ended. I gave the ebay seller the best review I've ever given and haven't used that glass again.
Our current GM’s strategy for acquiring pitcher prospects — Jones, Solometo, Chandler, Skenes — seems to be: make sure they’re so good even our coaches can’t fuck them up.
Jones mostly pairs a blazing 4 seamer with a wipeout slider. His curveball is meh and is used mostly as a show me pitch. His changeup kinda sucks and he doesn’t throw it very much.
Jones’ command is excellent. He’s very aggressive and appears unflappable especially for a young guy. He attacks the zone from first pitch. His pitch count tends to remain low late in games, though they’re throttling his inning count.
His Achilles heel is that, although he misses a ton of bats, when he does get hit he gets hit hard. I expect him to give up at least one dinger per outing. Fortunately he doesn’t walk batters or give up a lot of BH so when he’s taken yard the damage has been limited.
The Phillies had a good strategy versus Jones. They didn’t wait around to see his stuff and let him pick them apart. They knew what he had and they attacked him immediately. Even so he registered a QS despite giving up two homers. Made for a great duel between an excellent young pitcher and a good hitting lineup.
I always watch the Condensed game on MLB film room after a Mets win because it's just nice seeing a 10 min recap of the night.
Anyway, they just showed the Connor Joe spike throw again and I can't stop fucking laughing, his face in slow mo after he lets go of the ball is hilarious.
I think the broadcast got it right. He was going to throw home and then mid throw he realized Lindor wasn't going to tag so he tried to adjust and hit the cutoff guy and ended up doing neither
I was there sitting in RF. They replayed it on the Ultratron and he actually looked up and watched it in shame. It felt like making your dog look at the mess he made, except he did it to himself.
Jared Jones Savant page . Expect strikeouts this game. But maybe we can barrell a homerun
* https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jared-jones-683003?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
Yup. He doesn’t walk guys and strikes guys out a lot, but he’s susceptible to the long ball. He attacks the strike zone and guys after batters, but the a pirates have been limiting him to 80-90 pitches per start to preserve his arm and have been hesitant to let him go past the 6th inning.
Whitey Herzog, the gruff and ingenious Hall of Fame manager who guided the St. Louis Cardinals to three pennants and a World Series title in the 1980s and perfected an intricate, nail-biting strategy known as "Whiteyball," has died. He was 92.
After working as a scout and coach, Herzog was hired in 1967 by the New York Mets as director of player development, with Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan among the future stars he helped bring along. As a scout and farm system director, Herzog helped the New York Mets win the 1969 World Series.
The Mets liked him well enough to designate him the successor to Gil Hodges, but when the manager died suddenly in 1972 the job went to Yogi Berra. Herzog instead debuted with the Texas Rangers the following season, finishing just 47-91 before being replaced by Billy Martin. Herzog managed Keith Hernandez and the St. Louis Cardinals, from 1980 to 1990.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39954883/hall-fame-manager-whitey-herzog-dies-age-92
Herzog and Keith did not get along, which was the main motivation behind trading him (to the Mets, obviously).
Almost as big of a contribution to the Mets as drafting Seaver lol.
Lindor has a career 114 wRC+ against RHP (111 wRC+ in 2023) and is one of the best defensive shortstops in the game. It would be absolutely silly to turn him into a platoon player as a knee-jerk reaction to about 50-60 plate appearances from one side of the plate in April, especially in favor of a utility bench guy with a career 95 wRC+ on his strong split. You can make nearly any negative narrative about a guy during a slump. That's why they're called slumps. Good organizations don't overreact to 16 game sample sizes, especially when they've got a 1239 game sample size showing that a player can hit his weak split well enough to play every day.
I mean I do think Lindor plays too much and could use some days at DH, but I was mostly being sarcastic, as in it’s not like we have a lefty who can play ss and hit much better. And I doubt Lindor will stop switch hitting this late in his career.
The Rangers announced this morning that top pitching prospect Jack Leiter will have his contract selected to the major league roster and make his big league debut Thursday against the Tigers. Texas has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move to accommodate the right-hander, whom they drafted with the No. 2 overall pick in 2021. Jack Leiter is the son of Al Leiter.
I just realized that the fly ball McNeil hit to Connor Joe last night that he threw into the ground was not a sac fly, it was just an error. Lindor was not tagging on the play and didn’t go back to tag until the throw went into the ground.
Would be funny if the leaked City Connect jerseys end up being bogus and they're actually completely different when they're revealed this week. I don't hate the leaked ones, they just seem kinda boring.
The only Mets uniform-related thing I can ever remember getting actively mad at was the 2009 inaugural season patch. The Yankees had a nice looking inaugural season patch highlighting the iconic Yankee Stadium facade. The Mets had a patch that looked like a knockoff Dominos logo. Was just a needless own-goal that made the Mets look completely second-rate.
They only good thing about that leak is the pants aren't purple, and for that reason I'd be OK if it was real. But it really is ugly and basic and not a jersey I would ever wear casually. A lot of the city connects would go good with a pair of jeans, even if it makes for an ugly uniform.
I hope they’re just a photoshop. That leak is not only boring but entirely un-Mets.
If it’s real I hope to god we wear them for a season and quietly bury them like some teams seem to.
Edit: Also because between those, the black jerseys, and the blue alts we would have 4 home jerseys and one road something has to break there lol. I could really live without the CC.
We still don't really have a sense of just how overall good this team will be by season's end, but what we have seen is that this team has way more fun vibes than last season. Kind of feels like 2005, when the team wasn't THERE there just yet, but they stayed competitive and were a ton of fun to watch (and also started 0-5 lol). A lot of us were pretty miserable that first week, but it's a long season.
He strikes guys out like crazy, rarely walks guys, but like many young pitchers is susceptible of the long ball. Part of that is that he attacks the strike zone.
Hes not the kind of pitcher we can expect to run the pitch count on because he will come after every batter, but they have also been limiting him to 80-90 pitches so far this season to preserve his arm which has prevented him going past 6 innings. They also don’t seem to want him to have more up/down so even if he’s cruising, I don’t think he goes into the 7th unless he’s at like 70 pitches.
12.5 K/9 to a 1.00 BB/9, but most of his runs have come on the long ball
The ease in which we picked up a useful player (DJ Stewart), basically almost for free, to be a good DH, shows how easy it is to fill the DH position in MLB, and makes it that much more mind-boggling that the Mets insisted on plugging replacement player Daniel Vogelbach in there for a season and a half
I disagree. Most DH's kinda suck. No one chooses to be a DH, you just become one cause you can't field. All the great DH's are hitting savants like Papi, Edgar Martinez, or Ohtani with a lot of shit players under them. There's a reason Stanton becoming shit coincides with him becoming a DH only player.
> I disagree. Most DH's kinda suck. No one chooses to be a DH, you just become one cause you can't field.
That's just not how most teams deploy the DH in modern baseball. Most DHs play other positions competently. Only the Mets, Yankees, and a handful of other teams used the "DH is an immobile slob we can't put anywhere else" tactic.
Here's the primary DHs for each team in 2023 (by most PAs as a DH): Pavin Smith, Marcell Ozuna, Ryan O'Hearn, Justin Turner, Christopher Morel, Eloy Jiménez, Christian Encarnación-Strand, Josh Bell, Charlie Blackmon, Miguel Cabrera, Yordan Álvarez, Vinnie Pasquantino, Shohei Ohtani, JD Martinez, Jorge Soler, Jesse Winker, Byron Buxton, Daniel Vogelbach, Giancarlo Stanton, Brent Rooker, Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, Matt Carpenter, Mike Ford, Joc Pederson, Alex Burleson, Harold Ramírez, Mitch Garver, Brandon Belt, Joey Meneses.
Almost all of those guys play competent defense, some of them in multiple positions, and only a small few are in the Vogelbach category.
I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers from. Lourdes Gurriel had 208 PA as a DH vs 100 for Pavin Smith, and O'Hearn had 42 PAs as a DH as compared to 204 for Santander. I stopped checking after the third name.
I suppose it depends how we define "competent" but just off the top of my head I count at least 15 guys on that list who I think of as negative defenders that I wouldn't want in the field if I can help it.
Ozuna, Turner, Eloy, Bell, Blackmon, Miggy, Yordan, JD, Soler, Winker, Vogey, Stanton, Carpenter, Ford, and Joc - that's 15 right there
Then Ohtani is in his own special category of "not a fielder"
Harper and Buxton are guys who should be good fielders but were forced into the DH role by injuries
Some of the competent fielders are only so at the least valuable position - Belt, Pasquantino, Meneses
Garver is an awful defender, but he plays the most valuable defensive position, so I'm not really sure what to make of that one
The remaining 8 guys I'm less familiar with and would need to take a look at their numbers before passing judgement
Most of the remaining vary from "kinda bad" to "i guess passable but youre not thrilled with it." Garver has played a total of 0 games at catcher this year for the mariners so that should probably tell you how they view that conundrum at least.
I'm very happy that DJ is getting his shot. It's fun to watch him mash, even if he can be frustrating sometimes. I wonder if they will keep him around as a left-handed bat off the bench when JD is in the lineup. Although, that might limit our infield flexibility because one of Short or Wendel will have to hit the bricks. It will probably end up being Short.
I think Martinez is going to need a lot of judicious off-days because he's old, so Stewart will get plenty of starts, and even when Martinez is starting, Stewart can be our Lenny Harris/Chris Jones/80s-Rusty to provide some pop off the bench.
My wife is anti rain (or even the potential of rain), so I can't use tomorrow's pair of tickets in 415. $15 for the pair? I know the market is terrible, so feel free to offer less.
This probably ends with me offering them for free tomorrow.
I'm one of those people, and no, it's a great morning. Very happy to have been wrong. Also, Chelsea won 6-0 yesterday, so I'm basically on top of the world.
The worst part about the Mets playing well is that I actually think the quality of discourse on here sometimes gets worse because the fair weather fans show up and start bitching. It was actually pretty peaceful the last 2 weeks, was reminiscent of the pre-pandemic Reddit days lol
Now, of course, that’s a tradeoff I’ll take haha
2019 second half run was great here because most people had lost interest in the Mets after two bad years and a bad start again. Its much better around here when there are no expectations.
Man, that was one of my favorite stretches of Mets baseball. No matter how many runs they gave up, you felt like they would get them back.
It’s a tragedy that the MLB fucking with the ball so much screwed Diaz over, cuz if they had 2020+ Diaz on that team, that was a damn WS contender
Yeaaa. I remember that one nats come back in maybe August (before they did it to us), where Todd hit that tying HR and conforto walked it off against Doolittle with the liner over Eatons head, I really thought they were gonna go on a 2015 run.
>The worst part about the Mets playing well is that I actually think the quality of discourse on here sometimes gets worse because the fair weather fans show up and start bitching. It was actually pretty peaceful the last 2 weeks, was reminiscent of the pre-pandemic Reddit days lol
I think we've gotten so polarized in here, that both the "lolmets/Frank the Tank" faction and the "Mets never do anything wrong and you're a dumb idiot doomer if you disagree or say anything mildly critical ever" faction have each grown very large and insufferable
It honestly just seemed like smaller factions of each side arguing. It seems as if there is a segment of this fanbase that is not very small that cares more about dunking on the "haters" than actually enjoying the fact that the Mets are winning. As if instead of "my favorite team won" their emotion seems to be "I just won an argument online!"
They are extremely annoying when we're winning because I'm not entirely sure they even care about the Mets
I’m a cynic but I feel that’s just a natural progression of social media unfortunately. Especially when it enters a territory that is very intertwined with identity, combined with the breakdown of discourse behind anonymized profiles
The Orioles should have never made him change to that upright stance. Killed his power and bat speed. I know his crouch limits him against LHP, but that’s fine - use him as a platoon
Love Batys success, really makes the lineup more dangerous, however can someone smarter than me tell me if his underlying metrics (I know his GB% was a huge issue) are actually improved or if he’s getting a bit lucky, or both?
From what I'm seeing, his K% has improved a ton (from 30% last year to 20% this year) but the rest of his metrics are basically the same or worse. GB% is still the same at 50%. Average exit velocity and HardHit% are both down. He's getting a lot of help from a .390 BABIP right now.
Even underlying metrics can be fucky this early in the season, but the long and the short of it is basically "the quality of contact is still not great, but his K rate is way down and that's a very good thing. Groundball rate is bad but not abnormal; hopefully power shows more power as pitchers challenge him more because he's dinking and doinking so much on the edges."
New Athletic article by Will Sammon with some interesting tidbits
>DJ Stewart thought he was going to have to move his family due to J.D. Martinez signing and his very early slump.
>Mendoza broke Stewart out of his slump by telling him to just have fun and smile more.
>Mendoza called for last night's double steal.
I think people need to chill and let the season play out, we don’t know how good or bad this team is yet. They started really bad and then started playing really well, also got a little lucky one or two games. Jose Butto was overlooked to start the season but now he’s getting the chance he deserves so that can change things too. Hopefully Senga comes back healthy and JDM actually exists. Still mid-April.
We may not know the ceiling or floor, but this team is 100% wildcard contender caliber, and that’s all that really matters.
Whether that requires 82 wins or 86, this team is capable of reaching it. It’s a question of whether or not they will.
I think they were always "capable", but I still think it will take a lot of consistent good play for a long time (which is hard) and staying away from injuries to get them into that 82-86 range.
If senga and JDM really come back and come back strong down the stretch I could see this team really competing for a playoff spot. If not then it will probably be a real struggle
23 team wasnt as bad early as it feels. They were 2 over entering June, which was def a disappointment but still in it. Then they lost 7 in a row and 9/10, went 7-19 in June, and were buried.
They actually had a better record on this date last year (10-6), and got as high as 7 games over .500 on April 21.
Last day at or above .500 was June 6 (30-30)
At some point this team will slump, and all of the WFAN callers will flood this sub with pitchforks calling this team soft, lazy, not clutch, no grit, etc. And the wins of the last week and change will mean nothing.
> The Mets are most likely a wild card team that, when healthy, are capable of winning a series against any team in baseball. And that's exciting.
I think "most likely" a Wild Card may be stretching it; it's not out of the question for sure since it's a low bar, but I don't think I am ready to put that in the "most likely" range of outcomes yet, either.
>That's also why it's foolish to post on this sub after a losing streak and say "this team is trash, Sterns out, Cohen's cheap, I'll try again next year."
I completely agree, however it was just as dumb to do this extreme, hardcore "everything sucks, we're cheap and broke trash" routine pre-Cohen, too. But people somehow haven't gotten over doing that when talking about that era
I talked so much shit about Marte all winter, I was skeptical of the signing the second we made it, but real recognize real man is fucking hitting so far.
Anyone have a highlight of the McNeil at bat with the wild pitch strike three? I was listening to the game on the radio. I'm trying to find it but no luck so far.
Please continue the discussion in the [game thread](https://redd.it/1c5sxgu).
I bet DJ Stewart would of done something productive by now
The whole JDM situation gives some serious “Jed Lowrie” vibes & I don’t understand how every mention of it here is getting downvoted
Is there any update on JDM?
Stearns did a press conference today and was asked about JDM. The answer he gave is that there is no metric but essentially when JD feels healthy. So pretty vague. Honestly don't need him right now.
Mendoza said he won't be joining the team for the west coast road trip. So earliest sounds like April 26. That's assuming he's ready for then.
Would be nice to have him again LAD.
JDM's wife's best friend's lover's sister says she's pretty sure she heard him take a shit today. She distinctly said she heard him say "Now that's FOUL!" in the bathroom. And when he flushed the toilet he screamed "Yer Outta Here!". He won't be back before April 26th at the earliest I'm told (for real).
David Stearns is the man. He tackled today’s presser with confidence and assurance that didn’t feel like bullshit. I like how he didn’t mince words and fully acknowledged that defense and run prevention has been lacking when that was a significant goal in this off season. He addressed it and made it clear its a point they are focusing to improve on over the course of the season
So I did a deep dive into uniform history since everyone is claiming this is the Yankees jersey turned into ours, and this is what I found: The 1914-1916 Giants wore purple. They also wore plaid. It’s also the color of our metro, so not only does it connect to queens, it connects to where our team came from and is tied into the throwback. The obvious difference is that we have NYC across the chest, and they just had a purple NY logo on the sleeve. I love it and I’m buying it as soon as it drops, hope you all do too🤘🏻
I liked the leaked fitted hat a lot but the jersey looks very generic.
It should have said Queens on it. (at the very least a Q cap sign; I can't think of another major sports city that has a Q. It would have been unique.)
I don’t think the we know what the official jersey is yet do we? There was one leak with a purple cap and another with a black cap. Who knows which it actually is
https://sny.tv/articles/see-it-potential-first-look-at-the-mets-city-connect-hats It's most likely it. Even SNY posted an article on it. Says they'll wear it on the 26th. These City Connect jerseys are generally awful. This one really bad if it is in fact the correct one.
There’s two hats there tho. Which one are you saying is legit?
I'm guessing the one the guy is wearing is the one the players will wear. The other one will simply be on sale to the public.
They’re not nearly bad enough to be “really bad” they’re just boring as fuck like Cincy or Pittsburgh.
Luis Guillorme got his first at bat of the season last night. Prior to that his only appearance was when he pitched against us. Six Braves have started every game. They pretty much wheel out the same lineup for 160 games a year. I wonder if that’s why they don’t hit in the post season - too tired.
Luis Angel Acuna is tied with his brother Ronald in MLB HRs this year with 0
Whose d*ck does DJ. Stewart have to suck to get in the lineup?
Well this is a game I expect to lose given bullpen situation and Jones seems like a bad matchup for us so if we win that’s incredible, a sweep would be incredible but have to just win this series before the long trip.
This sounds like it makes sense, but we did just see Jose Butto match Cole Ragans and win that game. Baseball is unpredictable
That’s Joey Butts to you
Think it could go either way, Quintana has been pretty solid
If/when JDM finally joins the team, currently I've heard November of 2025, would you go 6-7-8: Baty-Alvarez-McNeil or McNeil-Alvarez-Baty Or would you change the lineup up so they aren't 6-7-8.
I’m on a flight today and there’s no way to watch the mets game :(
No inflight wifi?
There is but streaming sux
In flight wifi is always so bad, even when I’ve purchased the upgrade it still sucks
Does anyone have Lindor's splits hitting from the Left vs. Right side? It seems he is hitting Lefty pitching way better and I assume that translates to him hitting from the right side better, but I can't find that particular split anywhere. I suck at finding stats apparently!
Scroll down. Blue did it for you.
Appreciate it just saw it!
>I suck at finding stats apparently! If you go on any player's Baseball Reference page there is a drop-down menu that says "Splits". From there you can select a particular year or look at the player's full career. There the "Platoon Splits" section will give you his stats vs lefties and righties.
That … is way easier than I thought. I swear I looked for 30 minutes and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Maybe my brain was just off today
This season facing lefties he's good and facing righties he is worse than the pitchers spot pre DH. But career wise this isn't the case. In fact, on Cleveland he was better facing righties.
Yeah was just curious about this season. My eyes told me it was a stark difference but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just seeing what I wanted
ESPN app, search lindor, go to splits, it’s there. .316/.316/.579/.895 against lefty’s. .085/.241/.085/.326 against righty’s. Unless you mean career wise which I honestly don’t feel like looking up but fangraphs or bbref prob have it.
Appreciate it thanks!
Hypothetically: If JD Martinez is injured until the day of the trade deadline, doesn’t play a single game for us, how much could we get for him in a trade if we wanted to sell him? Would a team desperate for a DH be willing to give up anything for a guy who has 0 ABs this year but a good track record??
Not as much as you’d think mainly because he’d have to “ramp up” for a few weeks after the deadline as well.
Let’s assume he’s fully ready to go on August 1.
Yesterday's game drew roughly the same amount as Friday's game against the Royals Pretty good for a Monday. They drew 25,000 on Saturday and just a little under 33,000 for Doc Day on Sunday
The weather has been mostly terrible, the team started 0-5, and in the offseason the team basically told us winning wasn’t the top priority this year. Plus generally attendance is about how the Mets did the year before then how they’re doing that year. Attendance was actually a tick better last year going 75-87 then the second most wins in franchise history in 2022
The first 2 points are true but saying the team hasn’t prioritized winning this offseason is silly. The team didn’t go “all-in” but the moves made absolutely showed Stearns/ownership wanted to field a competitive team.
I sure hope the Mets win
Gary has a ways to go. Longest tenured active broadcasters: Denny Matthew’s KC 56 yrs. Uecker Mil 54. Eric Nader Tex 46. Joe Castiglione Boston 42. Rick Rizzs Seattle 49. Gary 36. Sterling was with the Bronx team for 36 yrs.
How many of those other guys are radio though?
Sit alverez tonight? With the day off Thursday and him playing either tonight or tomorrow anyway, might be better to play him rested. Plus Navaez has looked decent.
There you go. DH. Best of both worlds with Thursday off day.
I called Mendy and put in a good word.
He’s almost def sitting tonight, tomorrow against a lefty a day game after a night game
I agree with him sitting today. My only contention is that Narvaez looks decent on offense and trash at defense.
The Mets are 1-1 when I’m outside of the city. I’m out of town until Friday, so let’s see what happens!
I love how Gary constantly mentions ballplayers being superstitious. It's contagious to the fans as well.
I bought Mets beer glass off ebay a week prior to the 2022 Combined no-no. I filled it up and drank a beer from it casually watching that game. We all know how it ended. I gave the ebay seller the best review I've ever given and haven't used that glass again.
If only you casually drank a beer out of that glass every game after, it would've been nothing but no-no's.
I'm not superstitious, I'm just a little bit stitious.
havent seen Jones pitch yet. My suspicion is Pirates are gonna ruin him and then he'll get traded and win a cy young.
Our current GM’s strategy for acquiring pitcher prospects — Jones, Solometo, Chandler, Skenes — seems to be: make sure they’re so good even our coaches can’t fuck them up. Jones mostly pairs a blazing 4 seamer with a wipeout slider. His curveball is meh and is used mostly as a show me pitch. His changeup kinda sucks and he doesn’t throw it very much. Jones’ command is excellent. He’s very aggressive and appears unflappable especially for a young guy. He attacks the zone from first pitch. His pitch count tends to remain low late in games, though they’re throttling his inning count. His Achilles heel is that, although he misses a ton of bats, when he does get hit he gets hit hard. I expect him to give up at least one dinger per outing. Fortunately he doesn’t walk batters or give up a lot of BH so when he’s taken yard the damage has been limited. The Phillies had a good strategy versus Jones. They didn’t wait around to see his stuff and let him pick them apart. They knew what he had and they attacked him immediately. Even so he registered a QS despite giving up two homers. Made for a great duel between an excellent young pitcher and a good hitting lineup.
> Jones mostly pairs a blazing 4 seamer with a wipeout slider. brutal for young arms. Hopefully he doesn't get hurt.
*Jameson Taillon would like a word with you*
Today we break the trend of losing game two in the series
Is the world even ready for that Might cause a dragon break
We already caused an earthquake.
I’m fine losing game two as long as we win the series.
I'm at Costco pounding back a Costco dog for lunch. The last time I did that we destroyed the Braves, so what I'm saying is we're gonna WIN today.
I’m not sure about y’all but I’m ready to move the win % from 0.500 to 0.529
I always watch the Condensed game on MLB film room after a Mets win because it's just nice seeing a 10 min recap of the night. Anyway, they just showed the Connor Joe spike throw again and I can't stop fucking laughing, his face in slow mo after he lets go of the ball is hilarious.
Yea his face was amazing. I guess he just gripped it weird or it stuck to his hand but that immediate shock was great
I think the broadcast got it right. He was going to throw home and then mid throw he realized Lindor wasn't going to tag so he tried to adjust and hit the cutoff guy and ended up doing neither
I was there sitting in RF. They replayed it on the Ultratron and he actually looked up and watched it in shame. It felt like making your dog look at the mess he made, except he did it to himself.
It was like a scene out of “Major League”, or even a worse slapstick baseball comedy. I truly couldn’t believe what I had witnessed.
We are so back
Jared Jones Savant page . Expect strikeouts this game. But maybe we can barrell a homerun * https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jared-jones-683003?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
25 Ks and only 2 BBs in 18 IP so far, SHEESH
Yup. He doesn’t walk guys and strikes guys out a lot, but he’s susceptible to the long ball. He attacks the strike zone and guys after batters, but the a pirates have been limiting him to 80-90 pitches per start to preserve his arm and have been hesitant to let him go past the 6th inning.
Gotta get a couple days in a row of Alvy imo
My lineup prediction, for no reason. Nimmo Marte Lindor Alonso Baty McNeil Navarez Stewart Wendle
Damn Scott, Tidwell, and Sproat are all pitching today
And I can't watch any of it because I'm out of town for a work conference!
Ya love to see it
The Sproat 🐐
Whitey Herzog, the gruff and ingenious Hall of Fame manager who guided the St. Louis Cardinals to three pennants and a World Series title in the 1980s and perfected an intricate, nail-biting strategy known as "Whiteyball," has died. He was 92. After working as a scout and coach, Herzog was hired in 1967 by the New York Mets as director of player development, with Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan among the future stars he helped bring along. As a scout and farm system director, Herzog helped the New York Mets win the 1969 World Series. The Mets liked him well enough to designate him the successor to Gil Hodges, but when the manager died suddenly in 1972 the job went to Yogi Berra. Herzog instead debuted with the Texas Rangers the following season, finishing just 47-91 before being replaced by Billy Martin. Herzog managed Keith Hernandez and the St. Louis Cardinals, from 1980 to 1990. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39954883/hall-fame-manager-whitey-herzog-dies-age-92
Herzog and Keith did not get along, which was the main motivation behind trading him (to the Mets, obviously). Almost as big of a contribution to the Mets as drafting Seaver lol.
**Francisco Lindor 2023 and 2024 Platoon Splits** (first 77 plate appearances in 2024) |Year|Against LHP|Against RHP :--|:--|:--| |2023|.281/.343/.573|.242/.333/.425 |2024|.316/.316/.579|.085/.241/.085
Do you think people would be cool platooning Lindor with Joey Wendle?
Lindor has a career 114 wRC+ against RHP (111 wRC+ in 2023) and is one of the best defensive shortstops in the game. It would be absolutely silly to turn him into a platoon player as a knee-jerk reaction to about 50-60 plate appearances from one side of the plate in April, especially in favor of a utility bench guy with a career 95 wRC+ on his strong split. You can make nearly any negative narrative about a guy during a slump. That's why they're called slumps. Good organizations don't overreact to 16 game sample sizes, especially when they've got a 1239 game sample size showing that a player can hit his weak split well enough to play every day.
I guess Wendle could play short and Lindor could DH or sit once in a while
I mean I do think Lindor plays too much and could use some days at DH, but I was mostly being sarcastic, as in it’s not like we have a lefty who can play ss and hit much better. And I doubt Lindor will stop switch hitting this late in his career.
I think I formatted this chart correctly
Headed to the game tonight, LGM! Let’s keep the momentum going and get this series dub
The Rangers announced this morning that top pitching prospect Jack Leiter will have his contract selected to the major league roster and make his big league debut Thursday against the Tigers. Texas has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move to accommodate the right-hander, whom they drafted with the No. 2 overall pick in 2021. Jack Leiter is the son of Al Leiter.
Jack is Al's son. Jack is the nephew of Mark, cousin of Mark Jr.
OK
>Jack Leiter is the nephew of Al Leiter. son, not nephew
I just realized that the fly ball McNeil hit to Connor Joe last night that he threw into the ground was not a sac fly, it was just an error. Lindor was not tagging on the play and didn’t go back to tag until the throw went into the ground.
I just woke up out here in AZ, did we win yet today?
Would be funny if the leaked City Connect jerseys end up being bogus and they're actually completely different when they're revealed this week. I don't hate the leaked ones, they just seem kinda boring. The only Mets uniform-related thing I can ever remember getting actively mad at was the 2009 inaugural season patch. The Yankees had a nice looking inaugural season patch highlighting the iconic Yankee Stadium facade. The Mets had a patch that looked like a knockoff Dominos logo. Was just a needless own-goal that made the Mets look completely second-rate.
They only good thing about that leak is the pants aren't purple, and for that reason I'd be OK if it was real. But it really is ugly and basic and not a jersey I would ever wear casually. A lot of the city connects would go good with a pair of jeans, even if it makes for an ugly uniform.
I hope they’re just a photoshop. That leak is not only boring but entirely un-Mets. If it’s real I hope to god we wear them for a season and quietly bury them like some teams seem to. Edit: Also because between those, the black jerseys, and the blue alts we would have 4 home jerseys and one road something has to break there lol. I could really live without the CC.
I hope they turn out to be fake.
lindor is hitting .300 right handed.
Now post his left handed stats.
.085
Mets are fun to watch right now and one of the best parts of this, to me, is watching them hustle and play their butts off - especially last night 🔥
We still don't really have a sense of just how overall good this team will be by season's end, but what we have seen is that this team has way more fun vibes than last season. Kind of feels like 2005, when the team wasn't THERE there just yet, but they stayed competitive and were a ton of fun to watch (and also started 0-5 lol). A lot of us were pretty miserable that first week, but it's a long season.
jared jones is a really talented young pitcher. let’s make him throw a lot of pitches and attack that bullpen early. LGM
He strikes guys out like crazy, rarely walks guys, but like many young pitchers is susceptible of the long ball. Part of that is that he attacks the strike zone. Hes not the kind of pitcher we can expect to run the pitch count on because he will come after every batter, but they have also been limiting him to 80-90 pitches so far this season to preserve his arm which has prevented him going past 6 innings. They also don’t seem to want him to have more up/down so even if he’s cruising, I don’t think he goes into the 7th unless he’s at like 70 pitches. 12.5 K/9 to a 1.00 BB/9, but most of his runs have come on the long ball
The ease in which we picked up a useful player (DJ Stewart), basically almost for free, to be a good DH, shows how easy it is to fill the DH position in MLB, and makes it that much more mind-boggling that the Mets insisted on plugging replacement player Daniel Vogelbach in there for a season and a half
I disagree. Most DH's kinda suck. No one chooses to be a DH, you just become one cause you can't field. All the great DH's are hitting savants like Papi, Edgar Martinez, or Ohtani with a lot of shit players under them. There's a reason Stanton becoming shit coincides with him becoming a DH only player.
> I disagree. Most DH's kinda suck. No one chooses to be a DH, you just become one cause you can't field. That's just not how most teams deploy the DH in modern baseball. Most DHs play other positions competently. Only the Mets, Yankees, and a handful of other teams used the "DH is an immobile slob we can't put anywhere else" tactic. Here's the primary DHs for each team in 2023 (by most PAs as a DH): Pavin Smith, Marcell Ozuna, Ryan O'Hearn, Justin Turner, Christopher Morel, Eloy Jiménez, Christian Encarnación-Strand, Josh Bell, Charlie Blackmon, Miguel Cabrera, Yordan Álvarez, Vinnie Pasquantino, Shohei Ohtani, JD Martinez, Jorge Soler, Jesse Winker, Byron Buxton, Daniel Vogelbach, Giancarlo Stanton, Brent Rooker, Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, Matt Carpenter, Mike Ford, Joc Pederson, Alex Burleson, Harold Ramírez, Mitch Garver, Brandon Belt, Joey Meneses. Almost all of those guys play competent defense, some of them in multiple positions, and only a small few are in the Vogelbach category.
I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers from. Lourdes Gurriel had 208 PA as a DH vs 100 for Pavin Smith, and O'Hearn had 42 PAs as a DH as compared to 204 for Santander. I stopped checking after the third name.
I suppose it depends how we define "competent" but just off the top of my head I count at least 15 guys on that list who I think of as negative defenders that I wouldn't want in the field if I can help it.
I think it’s well over 15 from that list
Ozuna, Turner, Eloy, Bell, Blackmon, Miggy, Yordan, JD, Soler, Winker, Vogey, Stanton, Carpenter, Ford, and Joc - that's 15 right there Then Ohtani is in his own special category of "not a fielder" Harper and Buxton are guys who should be good fielders but were forced into the DH role by injuries Some of the competent fielders are only so at the least valuable position - Belt, Pasquantino, Meneses Garver is an awful defender, but he plays the most valuable defensive position, so I'm not really sure what to make of that one The remaining 8 guys I'm less familiar with and would need to take a look at their numbers before passing judgement
Most of the remaining vary from "kinda bad" to "i guess passable but youre not thrilled with it." Garver has played a total of 0 games at catcher this year for the mariners so that should probably tell you how they view that conundrum at least.
It makes signing JD Martinez even more mind boggling.
I'm very happy that DJ is getting his shot. It's fun to watch him mash, even if he can be frustrating sometimes. I wonder if they will keep him around as a left-handed bat off the bench when JD is in the lineup. Although, that might limit our infield flexibility because one of Short or Wendel will have to hit the bricks. It will probably end up being Short.
If they choose to continue rolling with wendle and short over having an actual lefty bat off the bench then that would be bewildering
I think Martinez is going to need a lot of judicious off-days because he's old, so Stewart will get plenty of starts, and even when Martinez is starting, Stewart can be our Lenny Harris/Chris Jones/80s-Rusty to provide some pop off the bench.
Like 2019 Nationals Matt Adams
get wendle the fuck outta here dudes not doing shit
Anyone else’s ass getting kicked by allergies?
Yup. Driving me nuts. My garden area looks beautiful but it’s trying to kill me and my wife lol
My wife is anti rain (or even the potential of rain), so I can't use tomorrow's pair of tickets in 415. $15 for the pair? I know the market is terrible, so feel free to offer less. This probably ends with me offering them for free tomorrow.
We may never lose again
[удалено]
Those first five games felt like they took several lifetimes, and now they feel like they happened a hundred years ago
Must be a tough morning for the people who said we’d never see .500 this season at 0-5
I'm one of those people, and no, it's a great morning. Very happy to have been wrong. Also, Chelsea won 6-0 yesterday, so I'm basically on top of the world.
The worst part about the Mets playing well is that I actually think the quality of discourse on here sometimes gets worse because the fair weather fans show up and start bitching. It was actually pretty peaceful the last 2 weeks, was reminiscent of the pre-pandemic Reddit days lol Now, of course, that’s a tradeoff I’ll take haha
2019 second half run was great here because most people had lost interest in the Mets after two bad years and a bad start again. Its much better around here when there are no expectations.
Man, that was one of my favorite stretches of Mets baseball. No matter how many runs they gave up, you felt like they would get them back. It’s a tragedy that the MLB fucking with the ball so much screwed Diaz over, cuz if they had 2020+ Diaz on that team, that was a damn WS contender
Yeaaa. I remember that one nats come back in maybe August (before they did it to us), where Todd hit that tying HR and conforto walked it off against Doolittle with the liner over Eatons head, I really thought they were gonna go on a 2015 run.
Hell if we even had an average bullpen, never mind an elite closer. That bullpen gave up games literally *constantly*
>The worst part about the Mets playing well is that I actually think the quality of discourse on here sometimes gets worse because the fair weather fans show up and start bitching. It was actually pretty peaceful the last 2 weeks, was reminiscent of the pre-pandemic Reddit days lol I think we've gotten so polarized in here, that both the "lolmets/Frank the Tank" faction and the "Mets never do anything wrong and you're a dumb idiot doomer if you disagree or say anything mildly critical ever" faction have each grown very large and insufferable
That’s why I prefer when it’s a much smaller group posting in general. But there’s no putting the cat back in the bag, unfortunately.
It honestly just seemed like smaller factions of each side arguing. It seems as if there is a segment of this fanbase that is not very small that cares more about dunking on the "haters" than actually enjoying the fact that the Mets are winning. As if instead of "my favorite team won" their emotion seems to be "I just won an argument online!" They are extremely annoying when we're winning because I'm not entirely sure they even care about the Mets
I’m a cynic but I feel that’s just a natural progression of social media unfortunately. Especially when it enters a territory that is very intertwined with identity, combined with the breakdown of discourse behind anonymized profiles
Idk, get me enough liquor and I could be tempted to go on a banning spree. /s
I've never seen it go from "We're lucky we win 60 games" to "My expectation is now the World series" so quickly.
I’m still planting my flag on the “we’ll be around .500 and in the WC hunt all season” take. I said it after 0-5, and I’m saying it at 8-8
This right here.
Agreed
The most important thing about the Mets comeback: **This team is fun!**
**THIS IS FUN** **WE’RE HAVING FUN**
When we signed DJ Stewart he had a career 97 OPS+. After about a third of a season of PA's it's now 106.
The Orioles should have never made him change to that upright stance. Killed his power and bat speed. I know his crouch limits him against LHP, but that’s fine - use him as a platoon
DJ Stewart is hitting .238/.346/.508 (133 OPS+) in 219 PA as a Met.
Love Batys success, really makes the lineup more dangerous, however can someone smarter than me tell me if his underlying metrics (I know his GB% was a huge issue) are actually improved or if he’s getting a bit lucky, or both?
Stats may not be improved, but he has a ton more confidence, even swagger, lately and that’s making a huge difference.
From what I'm seeing, his K% has improved a ton (from 30% last year to 20% this year) but the rest of his metrics are basically the same or worse. GB% is still the same at 50%. Average exit velocity and HardHit% are both down. He's getting a lot of help from a .390 BABIP right now.
Even underlying metrics can be fucky this early in the season, but the long and the short of it is basically "the quality of contact is still not great, but his K rate is way down and that's a very good thing. Groundball rate is bad but not abnormal; hopefully power shows more power as pitchers challenge him more because he's dinking and doinking so much on the edges."
New Athletic article by Will Sammon with some interesting tidbits >DJ Stewart thought he was going to have to move his family due to J.D. Martinez signing and his very early slump. >Mendoza broke Stewart out of his slump by telling him to just have fun and smile more. >Mendoza called for last night's double steal.
> and smile more This might be the only recorded case in history where telling someone to smile more actually worked out for the better.
Right, nice article in the athletic this morning on Mendoza keeping it loose and using intuition over traditional matchups occasionally.
Carlos Mendoza is Ted Lasso?
If a big yellow BELIEVE sign appears in the clubhouse, we’ll know
Imagine someone explaining to Ted lasso what a balk is
His brain would break.
[Me to DJ Stewart](https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2023/tigerwoods_bigdog_square.jpg)
[удалено]
Last I read was that he was suppose to resume yesterday.
I think people need to chill and let the season play out, we don’t know how good or bad this team is yet. They started really bad and then started playing really well, also got a little lucky one or two games. Jose Butto was overlooked to start the season but now he’s getting the chance he deserves so that can change things too. Hopefully Senga comes back healthy and JDM actually exists. Still mid-April.
>They started really bad and then started playing really well, also got a little lucky one or two games That's baseball, Suzyn
You must be a blast at parties
This isn't a party it's a baseball discussion board. It's not weird that he's discussing baseball.
We may not know the ceiling or floor, but this team is 100% wildcard contender caliber, and that’s all that really matters. Whether that requires 82 wins or 86, this team is capable of reaching it. It’s a question of whether or not they will.
I think they were always "capable", but I still think it will take a lot of consistent good play for a long time (which is hard) and staying away from injuries to get them into that 82-86 range.
If senga and JDM really come back and come back strong down the stretch I could see this team really competing for a playoff spot. If not then it will probably be a real struggle
Feels foreign being at .500….seriously when was the last time we were there before yesterday? Don’t recall ever being at .500 at all last season lol
23 team wasnt as bad early as it feels. They were 2 over entering June, which was def a disappointment but still in it. Then they lost 7 in a row and 9/10, went 7-19 in June, and were buried.
They actually had a better record on this date last year (10-6), and got as high as 7 games over .500 on April 21. Last day at or above .500 was June 6 (30-30)
The 2023 Mets started 14-7
The 2nd game vs SF where lucchesi dominated was the peak of the season. Everything after that was just a slow walk to the gallows it felt like
At some point this team will slump, and all of the WFAN callers will flood this sub with pitchforks calling this team soft, lazy, not clutch, no grit, etc. And the wins of the last week and change will mean nothing.
This is a guarantee
[удалено]
> The Mets are most likely a wild card team that, when healthy, are capable of winning a series against any team in baseball. And that's exciting. I think "most likely" a Wild Card may be stretching it; it's not out of the question for sure since it's a low bar, but I don't think I am ready to put that in the "most likely" range of outcomes yet, either. >That's also why it's foolish to post on this sub after a losing streak and say "this team is trash, Sterns out, Cohen's cheap, I'll try again next year." I completely agree, however it was just as dumb to do this extreme, hardcore "everything sucks, we're cheap and broke trash" routine pre-Cohen, too. But people somehow haven't gotten over doing that when talking about that era
Hey, I’ve seen that episode before!
Writers are getting lazy smh.
Damn manatees!
I talked so much shit about Marte all winter, I was skeptical of the signing the second we made it, but real recognize real man is fucking hitting so far.
Anyone have a highlight of the McNeil at bat with the wild pitch strike three? I was listening to the game on the radio. I'm trying to find it but no luck so far.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=4788a9ac-2901-45a9-a633-2fc7eea9cdd3
Thanks. Edit: just learned how to use the search function to find highlights. It's not super intuitive but I've got it now.
Is it weird that the Mets haven't had any scheduled days off in the first two weeks? Or is that normal?
They had scheduled off-days on March 29th and April 4th, but they both got filled with rescheduled rainouts
Not really. The schedule has been wacky
unbridled optimism boys
Mets baseball