TEAM W L PCT GB HOME ROAD L-10 STREAK NY Mets 32 20 .615 - 18-9 14-11 7-3 W-1 Atlanta 28 26 .519 5 13-9 15-17 6-4 L-1 Phil. 27 25 .519 5 16-16 11-9 5-5 L-1 Wash. 22 32 .407 11 10-13 12-19 6-4 W-1 Florida 17 34 .333 14.5 9-17 8-17 6-4 L-1
As I type this, the Phillies are getting thumped by the Dodgers 7-0 in the fifth inning. In a month, the Braves and Phils moved up a game. Not bad considering Pedro didn’t win a single game all month and Jose Lima made a few starts, posting a 9 ERA. That’s not bad at all.
That’s not even the good stuff. Xavier Nady had an appendectomy. Why would that be good news? Lastings Milledge, minor league stud, was called up to replace him. Milledge doubled for his first hit in his first game, playing right field against the Diamondbacks. His second game wasn’t so great, but his potential makes it exciting. He wore number 44. Beats me. He’s really only expected to be up while Nady is out - about two weeks - but hopefully he will hit well enough to get the Mets to trade Nady for anything else. As you may have read, I thought acquiring Nady was a bad move from the get go. This is a good team for Milledge to be on, as it is a good team, allowing him to hit eighth without any real expectations of production - nothing really more than what Nady could provide.
As I mentioned, Pedro went 0-1 with an ERA of 1.80 and a K:BB ratio of 10. That is terrifically poor run support. The Mets went 2-4 in those starts. Much of that is luck, but it doesn’t “even out” over the season, as Greg Maddux could tell you - some seasons one pitcher gets seven runs while another gets two. It just happens.
Speaking of which, Tom Glavine went 5-0, with seven runs per game of run support. Glavine didn’t need that much, as he posted a 2.94 ERA. With Glavine and Pedro anchoring the rotation, the Mets should be able to prevent any really bad slides.
The rest of the rotation must be watched wincingly. It’s pretty tough right now to watch the freshly acquired El Duque or “Starter Number 5 du jour.” Lefty Dave Williams was picked up from the Reds, but he has a spiffy 7 ERA coming over. El Duque has a 6 ERA, so neither has been a real steal, but it’s not Lima.
Steve Trachsel posted a poor ERA, but pitched well in two games, taking two hard losses, including a rain-shortened 2-0 “complete game” and a 1-0 loss at St. Louis. The games the Mets didn’t lose, Trax didn’t pitch well, but the Mets scored 8, 9, and 8 runs, winning all three of his NDs.
On offense, the Mets are still a bit uneven. Jose Reyes has already walked 21 times. He only walked 27 times in all of 2005. Unfortunately, he’s hitting 25 points lower than we all expect, so his OBP is still just around 0.310. Add 25 points of BA to that, and he’s passable as a leadoff guy thanks to his speed. He has stolen 20 bases already. That’s a good pace for 60 or so. Paul LoDuca still isn’t throwing anyone out defensively, but he’s hitting like he’s expected to. He’s also garnering a lot of plate appearances, and his track record is to drop like a stone after the All-Star Break, with a 2003-2005 September OPS of 0.535. Willie would be wise to get Ramon Castro more time in an effort to keep LoDuca a bit fresher later in the season. Plus Castro is pretty good.
Carlos Beltran is doing what he is supposed to - rake, and play good defense. Carlos Delgado is slumping - but Cliff Floyd is coming out of a long stink.
David Wright is awesome. That is all.
Second base for the Mets has been a terribly weak spot, but Jose Valentin has gotten new life and a few starts at second. He’s hit a few home runs and played pretty good, but not great, defense. Kaz Matsui was benched for him, so we’ll see how well Willie plays the hot hand.
The bullpen was terrific in April, but stumbled a bit in May. Billy Wagner had a godawful meltdown agains the Yankees, but has bounced back from that nicely. Aaron Heilman has struggled, and Duaner Sanchez gave up a handful of runs. Heath Bell had a nice outing, and Darren Oliver has pitched really well in a couple of marathon outings for a reliever. It looks like the pen will hold together.
The bullpen coach, Guy Conti, made an interesting comment during Pedro’s last start about releivers getting loose in the bullpen. He said Billy Wagner throws 12 warmup pitches. Not eleven. Not thirteen. Twelve. He also said Heath Bell gets loose fast, and those two were the fastest. He said everyone takes 15-25 pitches to get ready. I’ve never heard how many pitches the relievers throw, and I thought that was interesting.
Going forward, the Mets have to make a West Coast trip after a three-game set with the Giants, facing the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks again. Then three more with the Phillies before Interleague play kicks in. The Mets skip the Devil Rays this season, with games against Baltimore, Toronto, Boston and another series with the Yankees.
Five game lead on June 1. Looking good - keep it up!
TEAM W L PCT GB HOME ROAD L-10 STREAK Mets 24 16 0.600 - 12-6 12-10 3-7 L-2 Philly 22 18 0.550 2 12-11 10-7 6-4 L-3 Atlanta 21 20 0.512 3.5 12-6 9-14 8-2 W-4 Wash. 14 27 0.341 10.5 3-10 11-17 4-6 W-1 Florida 11 28 0.282 12.5 3-14 8-14 3-7 L-4
The Mets have played 0.500 ball, while the Braves and Phils have crept closer. The Braves took advantage of the Fish, coming from behind in the ninth inning twice in sweeping Florida. The upcoming weekend is troubling, as the Mets face the JV squad across town, while the Braves play Arizona. The Phillies will have their hands full with the Beantowners.
What has gone Right
Jose Reyes. Yes, I’ve been annoyed about some of the “swing at the first pitch” PAs he has, but in my preview, I was saying he could get a 0.320 OBP, and we’d do okay. Well, he is at 0.324. Yes, it is annoying, but he is
Tom Glavine. 6-2 with a 2.43 ERA? That’s the Tom Glavine we paid for a few years ago. Now he’s going to be extended? Sweet.
Aaron Heilman/Duaner Sanchez/Billy Wagner. 65 IP with a 1.75 ERA.
Carlos Beltran. 0.992 OPS, and a lot of that is OBP. And he’s hit 10 home runs. He hit 16 in 2005. I’m pretty confident he’s going to be a lot better in 2006, and that’s going to lift the entire team.
Carlos Delgado. 0.956 OPS. He’s posted between a 0.907 and 1.019 over the last five seasons, and will do it again this year. That’s a lot better than the 0.750 the Mets got from first base in 2005.
David Wright. He’s awesome.
What has gone Wrong
Jose Lima has made 3 starts. He’s managed a 10 ERA. No other starter has been given this much latitude over the last couple of seasons. James Baldwin and Scott Erickson were both given the tap after two starts that sucked this bad. Lima hasn’t had any luck, but he hasn’t pitched very well either. I’d rather the Mets give a AAA pitcher that *might* suck a chance as opposed to Lima is will more than likely suck.
Fifth Starter. We got nothing. That is a large problem because it almost insures management will do something stupid with prospects in an effort to plug the gap, rather than just biting the bullet and getting the arbitration clock started early on some kids. Even if someone isn’t “ready”, how much worse can they be than Lima and Gonzalez? At least they are free, are learning on the job, and won’t cost the Mets additional prospects.
Cliff Floyd. Are you kidding me? Hitting 0.198? An OPS in the mid-0.5s? That’s brutal. He says it is all mental, and his swing is fine. Let’s hope he gets his head out of his ass real soon.
David Wright only has five home runs. He hasn’t hit one in May. Come on now, King David, let’s see some pop against the Yankees!
Paul LoDuca has a lower CS rate than Mike Piazza. Okay, that’s not true (18.8% to 11.4%). But on the other hand, he’s not Dioner Navarro, who is 0-16. That’s right; no caught stealings in 200 innings.
Fun to Know
Delgado’s next home run will tie him with Larry Walker for 50th all-time. Wagner is 8 saves from 300. Glavine is 4 strikeouts from Dennis Eckersley and 39th place on the all-time list.
The Mets have played 40 games and Reyes has led off in 39 of them. That’s good.
The Mets are 20-1 when leading after 7 innings. That’s lights out for the opponent, and a good sign of a good team. The lineup isn’t susceptible to LHPs nor RHPs.
This Week
Three with the Yankees, three with Philadelphia and three at Florida.
The Phillies have three with Boston, three at Shea and three with Milwaukee (which they don’t seem to like).
The Braves have three with Arizona, three with San Diego and three with the Cubs. All of Atlanta’s games are on the road where they are 9-14 thus far.
Let’s go, Mets.
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Recently, the Boston Red Sox had a star pitcher coming to the end of his contract. He had seen his innings pitched dip, and there were signs of shoulder damage that could spell the end of his years as a dominant pitcher. He was a couple of years on the wrong side of 30, and he was seeing signs of fewer strikeouts and more home runs allowed. Naturally the press felt it was time to let go. Sure, the man had led them to a Championship and been recognized as having some of the greatest pitching seasons ever. But baseball is a business. When he left, RSN said “Good Riddance.” The pitcher was often surly with fans and the team – he was often viewed as a prima donna.
So on to free agency he went. He signed a huge contract, for his age and recent performances. The contract was viewed with one eyebrow raised – the money and the length almost meant sure albatross down the road.
What happens? Sure, enough rumors of his demise were premature. He bounced back in innings pitched, home runs, and dropped his ERA by more than a run.
Suddenly he was still the tops. Some people still held their cards close to the vest because he still was “old.”
What? No, I’m not talking about Pedro – I’m talking about Clemens.
People always underestimate the greatest players. And that’s prudent – few players follow the career path of the hall of fame players, so betting against someone being an all-time great is usually a good bet.
The all-time greats are different. A while back I pontificated on who the all-time greats were and what the greatest season was. Through some of the discussion for measuring “greatness”, if you can sort through the “Context Matters” stuff, I stumbled across ERA+ multiplied by IP. It measures both quality and quantity and is contextualized.
Looking at some of the full career HOF pitchers (16 of them in the top 50 or so career ERA+ leaders), with a decline phase, and sorting by age, I drew a bit of information about how a HOF pitcher’s career goes.
Basically, the top ERA+ pitchers with 2500+ IP from the 20th century have similar career paths, with the notable exceptions of Tom Seaver and Pete Alexander. More on that in a bit. Using these pitchers and looking at their greatness score by age, these HOF pitchers make a nice bell curve of a career path of “Greatness vs Age”:
(in theory, there is a curve to go here that is a nice parabola - Dan and I will fix it)
Equation: y = -183.09x2 + 11294x - 137199
There is the equation for the curve as well. Backtracking allows us to calculate where pitchers peak and how much the improvement or decline over the career.
Age GRT Change 19 11292 20 15445 1.368 21 19232 1.245 22 22653 1.178 23 25708 1.135 24 28397 1.105 25 30720 1.082 26 32676 1.064 27 34266 1.049 28 35490 1.036 29 36348 1.024 30 36840 1.014 31 36966 1.003 32 36725 0.993 33 36118 0.983 34 35145 0.973 35 33806 0.962 36 32100 0.950 37 30029 0.935 38 27591 0.919 39 24787 0.898 40 21617 0.872 41 18081 0.836 42 14178 0.784
So Pedro was 33 in 2005, threw 217 innings with a 148 ERA+, for a GRT of 32116. From 33 to 34, HOF pitchers show a decline of about 3%, so Pedro is moving towards a GRT of 31249. What that translates to is 220 IP at a 142 ERA+. Pedro is a decent bet to pitch that much. He got there in just 31 starts in 2005, so two more starts may get him to 230 IP. And as I expect, as his IP go up his ERA+ will go down.
It’s not the greatest projection system invented by mankind, but it’s got pizazz.
What was my comment about Seaver and Alexander? Their curves indicate they should have been in the pros years earlier. They have no bell curve, just a slope down. Seaver started in 1967 at age 22 and Pete started at age 24. They have no ML development curve – they were dominant out of the gate. Of the pitchers I looked at, and it wasn’t all of them, they were the only ones like that. Nearly all had a nice smooth curve, some more “early” weighted, some more shallow increase and decline, but only Tom Terrific and Pete had this “no early struggle” portion in their career. As best as I can read that, it means they were both really late to the majors. That probably isn’t a surprise, but the graphs really are remarkably different.
Rookie Brian Bannister has been throwing 100 pitches in five inings so far in his starts. Today he only got to 86 because he strained a hamstring running the bases. That’s right, the Mets pitcher had two doubles, drove in two runs and sore the go-ahead run in the sixth inning. He came up lame as he got to third base, but staggered home to give the Mets a 4-3 lead. Bannister toughed it out with a busted leg better than many everyday players, who would have taken the opportunity to sit down on third base.
That wasn’t the only highlight. Rickey Henderson (I told you there were hot dogs) was in attendence as he is helping coach Jose Reyes on the fine art of leading off. Reyes walked to lead off the game, gave Rickey a wave of acknowledgement, and got picked off. It’s a work in progress. Reyes also got two hits and two walks, each time giving a wave to Rickey. Reyes stole two bases as well. It was a great performance from Jose. Hopefully, Rickey can keep up the encouragement.
They interviewed Rickey, and Rickey was asked about teaching Jose to be more patient. Rickey said (and I am paraphrasing here) “no, that isn’t Jose’s game. He’s a contact hitter, and we talk about him swinging at better pitches.” It was interesting. Yes, I know swinging at better pitches means better plate discipline but let’s not nitpick. Reyes may have more luck with more regular interaction with Rickey.
It was just a fun game. Carlos Delgad-it, hitting a long bomb into the bay. Floyd hit the ball hard a few times. Ramon Castro got three hits *again*. Endy Chavez bunted almost every PA. David Wright struggled some - both in the field and at the plate, but he did double and walk. Julio Franco singled *and* stole a base - the oldest player to steal since Arlie Latham in 1909. Latham stole his base, ironically, on the day/year Franco was born.
The Mets got 17 hits. This was just a day after getting 10 hit. They are hitting again, and that should spell truble for upcoming opponents.
On the flip side, Aaron Heilman had an inning of great relief, and an inning of not so great relief. Duaner Sanchez was outstanding. Chad Bradford looked good. Darren Oliver gothe win with some good work as well.
The apple pie portion of the program was courtesy of Billy Wagner against Barry Bonds with two outs in the ninth and the Giants down by two runs, and a runner on second. Wagner brought heat, and Bonds brought maple. Bonds hit one to the power alley for a home run, number 711, to tie the game and send it to bonus frames. Mmmmmm, nice warm apple pie à la mode.
It’s no secret that I am a Bonds fan, and a Mets win where Bonds hits a significant blast, both historical and within the context of the game is just fantastic for me. fortunately I was TiVoing the game while I watched and could replay that home run a few times.
Those of you that think Bonds’ knees are going to be too torn up for him to get around or be productive, I hope the last few games have given you cause to re-think that. He’s one of the all-time greats, and I expect him to lead the league in OPS+ this year. All he needs is 502 PAs, and he looks good enough to do it.
On the downside, with Bannister out, I don’t know who is going to take his slot if he can’t. Could be Heilman, but I hope not. Could be Jose Lima, but I hope not. I’m not sure there are any good options. Bannister has won ugly, but he’s won, and he swings the bat well.
Darren Oliver and Tom Glavine are pretty good hitting pitchers. I think it’s a cool feature of this year’s team. I would use Oliver as the occassional pinch-hitter.
I hope you get the chance to watch today’s game. It was outstanding and had me cheering quite a bit.
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