New York Mets Preview

On July 7, 2004, I attended a Mets-Phillies game in Philadelphia with Sean Forman. The Mets shelled Eric Milton and moved to within one game of first place in the NL East with a record of 43-40. The next night the Phillies beat the Mets and sent them on a spiral that saw all the Mets hopes collapse, sealing the fate of the administration.

League Standings at the end of 07/07/2004

NLE     W   L    GB      WP      RS      RA
PHI    44  39     -    .530     436     407
NYM    43  40   1.0    .518     373     347
ATL    43  41   1.5    .512     399     367
FLA    43  42   2.0    .506     362     373
MON    28  55  16.0    .337     282     392

The Mets also acquired Kris Benson from the Pirates. Can Peterson fix these pitchers that have shown flashes of stardom in their youth? That will determine where the Mets future is.

For 2005, the Mets changed managers and general managers. Relieving themselves of the joke that was Art Howe should result in a handful of wins without even trying. Strat-o-matic’s computer manager, HAL, could do a better job. The new de facto GM, Omar Minaya went after talent pretty hard and did a lot to improve the team – unfortunately he improved the team in areas of strength.

Catcher – Mike Piazza

Moving Piazza to first base was one of the dumbest moves in franchise history. Okay, it’s not Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi dumb, or trading Tom Seaver *at all*, but it was stupid from Day One. It simply goes to show that playing first base isn’t just standing there catching the ball, regardless of what Elaine Benes thinks.

Piazza won’t be able to catch 130 games, but he can catch 120, DH for 16, and play first base when Pedro pitches, in the spirit of Davey Johnson playing Howard Johnson at shortstop when Sid Fernandez pitched.

Piazza hit poorly last season, for Mike Piazza at least, and that was likely an effect of the frustration of playing out of position. If Piazza bounces back with the bat, he’ll be the best catcher in the NL. Even without bouncing back, his bat as a catcher will greatly improve the catcher “hitting” the Mets put on the field in 2004.

First Base – Doug Mientkiewicz/Andres Galarraga

I added Galarraga because he is having a pretty good pre-season, which matters for the job he’s trying to win. Mientkiewicz is a very good glove and his bat was much better (385/400 or thereabouts) prior to a wretched 2004 season. If he plays in a strict platoon with Galarraga, his numbers should be better. This position will probably be below-average against the league, but not significantly.

The biggest issues will be whether Galarraga makes the team and whether Mientkiewicz rebounds with the bat.

Second Base – Kazuo Matsui

This is Matsui’s first season at second base. He played there for a few games in 2004. From my personal observations, Matsui wasn’t cutting it at shortstop due to weak throws and a bizarre inability to backhand a groundball. His range was not good, and his apparently weak throwing arm exacerbated that. Oddly, I think his defense will be better despite moving to a new position, simply because he won’t have to throw the ball as far.

Prior to arriving to MLB, Matsu was also reported to be as fast as, if not faster than, Ichiro. Matsui never revealed that speed. He isn’t a slow runner or anything, but he is far from the advertised Ichiro speed level.

For all the criticisms leveled at Matsui, he hit pretty well for his first season in the US ending up as a middle-of-the-road for NL shortstop and that will likely improve with more US experience. Of course, now he has to hit like a 2B, which may not happen.

Shortstop – Jose Reyes

Reyes made the majors at age 20 and played very well, giving Met fans visions of sugarplums in his rookie season. Reyes’ second season was filled with the dreaded “hamstring” injury, putting his entire future as a star on hold. His speed and quickness are the key to much of his game – lose that and he may well be another “never was.”

Reyes has tremendous potential in stretching singles into doubles and doubles into triples, as well as an excellent stolen base percentage, being caught just 5 of 37 attempts in the majors. In Spring Training, Reyes looks like he’s fit and healthy. Once the Mets were out of contention, they sat Reyes for a long time and had him work with running specialists.

Reyes’ offense will be tied to his batting average. He doesn’t walk very much and slugs a reasonable amount. If he hits .300 he’ll be good. If he hits .250 he’ll be average for a shortstop.

Reyes, in my opinion, doesn’t have enough innings to tell how good of a fielder he’s going to be. Until then, I’ll assume within the standard error of average.

Third Base – David Wright

Look out, Rolen, here comes David. At age 21, David Wright hit .293/.332/.525 in the majors after destroying the Eastern and International Leagues. There is very little to say about David Wright that isn’t complimentary. Um, he could walk more?

Amazingly, the Mets may have found a third baseman that can play the position for a career, rather than the goofy revolving door they have had there since franchise inception. Wright is the real deal and he’s going to easily be an above-average player for the Mets.

Left Field – Cliff Floyd

I should add another player as Floyd is likely to be out of the lineup for 40 games or so. Floyd was signed after back-to-back seasons of at least 145 games and OPS+ marks of 150 and 143 and it looked like as if Floyd had gotten over the hump with respect to missing large chunks of seasons due to injury. Alas, that has not been the case since the Mets signed him. Floyd’s 2004 bat was also a big disappointment, and his OPS+ marks have now gone: 150, 143, 132, 110.

That’s a terrible sign for the Mets. Floyd will be 32 and will need to bounce back, or the Mets will face a deficit in left. The Mets reportedly tried to trade Floyd this off-season, but his contract and decline make that a difficult proposition.

As it was in 2003 and 2004, left field is likely to be a sore spot with Met fans, and without improvement, either from Floyd or from his replacement, the Mets aren't likely to move very far up the food chain.

Center Field – Carlos Beltran

GM Omar Minaya went out and signed one of the top free agents on the market. Beltran has been a rising star player for several years and absolutely busted out during the playoffs in 2004. Will he continue his improvement?

Oddly, CF was one of the positions the Mets had a good player.

However, Beltran should improve the offense by a good margin and his Runs Created rate should result in some 25 extra runs. His defense will be a somewhat less than Cameron’s, but not by much.

Right Field – Mike Cameron

Cameron has played a very good centerfield his entire career and should be an excellent right fielder defensively. His offense will be something less than the top right fielders, but he should still come in about average despite the likely BA. Cameron had a sore wrist in 2004, which will hopefully be healed before too much of the season passes.

Overall, the offense should improve by a good margin. Joe McEwing and other assorted non-players sucked up a tremendous number of plate appearances in 2004. The Mets should score closer to 800 runs, rather than 700 runs. In addition, as good as the Mets defense was in 2004, and it was solid, the defense improved. Having Cameron in right and Reyes at short and Matsui at second and not Mike Piazza at first should result in a non-trivial number of runs saved – possibly close to 50.

The Pitchers

Starters – Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine, Victor Zambrano, Kris Benson

Last year the top four starters for the Mets allowed roughly half of the Mets’ 731 runs. The Mets should improve at three of those slots, and in two cases by large numbers.

The addition of Pedro Martinez should see an immediate decrease in runs allowed by the Mets. Pedro throws plenty of fly balls and he has some very good defense behind him in New York. He is aging, so he isn’t likely to win the pitching Triple Crown. However, a pitcher like Pedro has a long way to fall before he isn’t a great pitcher.

Tom Glavine rebounded strong after a poor debut in Shea. The last five years, Glavine has averaged an ERA of 3.60 and I suspect he’ll repeat that. He threw better, in general, increasing his strikeout rate from 2003, and decreasing his walk rate. He basically performed at his “aged” establish rates in 2004, and he should repeat it, or at least approximate it, but this time with a better defense behind him, boosting his win percentage.

Glavine has 262 career wins and has two years left on his Mets contract. He’ll need another year somewhere to chase down 300 wins.

Victor Zambrano and Kris Benson are chock full of potential. Well, they were in 2000. Now they are in their prime and just scream “Unfulfilled Potential." But there is still time, and the Mets have laid their faith, and the team success, at the feet of Rick Peterson and his expectations that he can take turn them from league average pitchers into world beaters.

Zambrano had tendinitis at the end of 2004, and hasn’t pitched very well this spring. Yes, it isn’t very many innings, but you would hope to see if he's fully recovered. With Steve Trachsel being injured for the season, and the pick up of Kaz Ishii, an ineffective Zambrano could spell trouble for the Mets’ season. I doubt the Mets are going to get a strong season from Zambrano.

Benson has pitched pretty well in ST. He had a good sophomore season, but has just leveled off just below “mediocre.”

I don’t know if Peterson can actually “fix” anyone, but if these guys don’t out-perform their career averages, the Mets aren’t going anywhere.

Steve Trachsel came up with a herniated disk and will be lost at least after the All-Star Break.

The Mets panic-traded catcher Jason Phillips to the Dodgers for Kaz Ishii because Peterson doesn’t like Jae Seo. Ishii hasn’t made it through a complete season of innings, though the fractured skull was hardly his fault, and he has a career ERA+ of 93. The Mets already have that on the roster. Seo can match that, and throw more innings. It was a questionable trade at best. Not that Jason Phillips is a great player, but that the Mets traded for a player they effectively already had.

Pedro should out-perform Al Leiter’s 2004. Tom Glavine will stay about the same. Zambrano/Benson/Ishii/Seo shouldn’t have too much trouble being better than Trachsel/Seo/Yates and company. I don’t expect them to be very much better than that, either. The Mets will probably allow fewer runs on defense, but it is going to be closer to 20 runs than 50.

The Bullpen

Last season, the Mets had a pretty good bullpen. John Franco was terrible and Mike Stanton made it a point to allow as many inherited runners as he possibly could, but overall, the bullpen’s ERA was relatively strong. Braden Looper is a solid closer, and he has several good set-up men. Heath Bell, one of Baseball Prospectus’ predicted “break-out” players, pitched pretty well, but was susceptible to the long ball. Mike DeJean came over in mid-season after stinking up OPACY. The Mets traded disappointment with the cross-town Yankees, dumping Stanton for Felix Heredia. The Mets also picked up Dae-Sung Koo, a 36-year old lefty from South Korea.

The relief corps should be about the same as well.

All things considered, the Mets could improve by 10 games. For them to challenge for the division crown, they’ll need a bunch of “possibles” to come through. I see the Mets getting home at 81-81.

2005 ZiPS Projections

Name          ERA   W   L   G  GS     INN    H   ER   BB    K  HR 
Martinez     2.65  17   6  31  31   207.0  162   61   54  247  13 
Looper       3.51   4   4  74   0    82.0   78   32   23   56   5 
Moreno       3.53   6   4  42   0    51.0   43   20   21   49   3 
Roberts      3.71   2   1  29   0    34.0   32   14   13   23   1 
Bell         3.78   3   3  53   0    69.0   61   29   25   74   8 
Nelson       3.83   3   2  39   0    47.0   34   20   27   60   4 
Stewart*     3.88   3   3  62   0    58.0   54   25   22   52   5 
Padilla      3.90   4   3  59   0    83.0   82   36   24   67   9 
Ginter       3.91   4   4  36  14   106.0  108   46   28   67  10 
Benson       4.01   9  10  27  27   164.0  162   73   56  113  14 
McGinley     4.01   6   6  43   0    83.0   78   37   27   81  10 
DeJean       4.14   4   4  66   0    74.0   67   34   36   66   6 
Strickland   4.14   5   6  51   0    50.0   44   23   24   49   5 
Fortunato    4.43   4   5  45   2    67.0   57   33   39   74   7 
Keppel       4.45   5   6  19  18    97.0  106   48   30   45  10 
Koo*         4.46   6   8  20  18   123.0  117   61   47  118  18 
Seo          4.47   7  11  29  27   155.0  165   77   47   88  19 
Feliciano*   4.50   3   4  50   0    68.0   69   34   26   49   8 
Petit        4.54   7   8  23  23   111.0  101   56   48  125  18 
Glavine*     4.55  11  15  34  34   200.0  213  101   73  104  20 
Bevis        4.64   3   4  50   0    66.0   57   34   41   70   7 
Run Fairy    4.72   2   3  59   0    61.0   63   32   28   37   6 
van Poppel   4.79   4   5  45   9   107.0  115   57   31   77  17 
Trachsel     4.86   9  16  32  32   189.0  201  102   76  110  23 
Santiago     4.86   7   6  56   2    87.0   93   47   36   43   9 
Junge        4.87   5   7  26  22   135.0  140   73   62   92  15 
Heilman      4.92   7  11  30  29   161.0  159   88   80  126  21 
Zambrano     4.92   7  12  32  23   150.0  142   82   93  122  14 
Yates        4.94   4   8  36   8    71.0   67   39   43   59   7 
Matthews*    5.02   2   4  60   0    52.0   54   29   26   37   6 
Hernandez    5.05   3   4  62   0    57.0   58   32   30   44   7 
Hamulack*    5.10   5   4  43   0    60.0   61   34   33   40   6 
Lindstrom    5.12   5  10  26  25   123.0  127   70   60   86  17 
Ring*        5.68   2   6  50   0    57.0   59   36   31   46  10 
Hill         5.75   2   6  47   0    61.0   57   39   51   56   7 
Strayhorn    6.23   2   7  42   0    52.0   55   36   34   41  10 

Name         P    AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   H 2B 3B HR   R RBI  BB   K SB CS 
Beltran#     cf  .278  .373  .504 158 607 169 34  8 29 102  93  88 105 38  5 
Wright       3b  .290  .360  .491 155 552 160 37  1 24  91  86  57  92 28 10 
Diaz         rf  .292  .334  .472 150 551 161 29  2 22  83  88  31 139 10  6 
Cameron      cf  .244  .336  .449 146 517 126 31  3 23  75  79  67 146 21  7 
Floyd*       lf  .274  .370  .496 120 419 115 31  1 20  61  71  57  93  9  3 
Matsui#      ss  .273  .341  .404 126 510 139 33  2 10  71  57  49 109 11  2 
Mientkiewicz 1b  .272  .369  .397 137 448 122 33  1  7  48  48  66  59  2  3 
Piazza       c   .258  .351  .449 118 414 107 19  0 20  45  63  59  70  0  1 
Daubach*     1b  .249  .356  .442 122 382  95 26  0 16  58  61  61 110  1  0 
Redman       cf  .253  .313  .407 133 474 120 33  2 12  68  56  39 113 14  9 
Garcia       1b  .248  .295  .423 128 475 118 24  1 19  56  65  28 105  1  2 
Brazell*     1b  .257  .289  .412 127 495 127 21  1 18  58  66  19 108  2  1 
Dominique    c   .261  .334  .401 112 406 106 24  0 11  47  53  42  80  1  1 
Nye          3b  .263  .331  .373 129 437 115 28  1  6  50  47  41  87  3  2 
Hansen       2b  .236  .324  .409 113 406  96 18  2 16  57  52  50 109  7  5 
Keppinger    2b  .281  .329  .353 127 459 129 17  2  4  65  42  31  30  9  6 
Valent*      rf  .236  .312  .375 144 445 105 28  2 10  55  51  48  94  0  1 
Garcia       2b  .255  .315  .355 137 471 120 25  2  6  61  49  38  82 10  6 
Phillips     1b  .261  .336  .397 121 383 100 22  0 10  39  49  37  43  0  1 
Anderson*    2b  .260  .316  .374 136 431 112 24  2  7  49  47  34  54  9  3 
Reyes#       ss  .288  .327  .396  87 351 101 14  6  4  63  33  21  47 33  5 
Hall*        cf  .284  .350  .341 115 405 115 10  5  1  63  29  39  75 15 13 
Basak        ss  .229  .293  .352 134 471 108 26  4  8  60  45  39 130 15 11 
Baldiris     3b  .249  .307  .313 132 457 114 13  5  2  57  36  35  74  7  5 
Cairo        2b  .282  .335  .402 113 316  89 17  3  5  35  29  16  41  7  3 
Pagan#       cf  .242  .295  .316 123 462 112 16  6  2  67  36  31 103 30 17 
Lydon        cf  .230  .288  .285 130 492 113 12  3  3  68  34  37 116 48 22 
Jacobs*      c   .251  .288  .384 104 375  94 20  0 10  44  46  18  69  0  2 
Calloway*    lf  .243  .311  .348 115 362  88 16  2  6  40  39  34  78 11  8 
Duncan*      cf  .239  .320  .316 116 373  89 14  3  3  49  27  42  96 20 13 
Hernandez#   ss  .233  .273  .291 131 468 109 15  3  2  59  27  22 107 21  9 
Woodward     ss  .254  .314  .388  89 299  76 16  3  6  37  34  25  64  1  2 
Galarraga    1b  .240  .305  .361 107 288  69 14  0  7  28  34  21  79  1  3 
Bacani       2b  .249  .329  .340 102 285  71 13  2  3  35  26  32  56 10  9 
Pachot       c   .243  .270  .332  86 304  74 18  0  3  25  29   9  41  1  0 
Robinson*    lf  .279  .325  .343 124 251  70  9  2  1  40  21  16  27 17 13 
Wilson       c   .217  .280  .321  84 240  52 11  1  4  19  21  20  39  4  3 
McEwing      2b  .232  .290  .294 100 211  49  8  1  1  23  17  16  46  3  1 
Hietpas      c   .186  .246  .264  89 280  52 16  0  2  23  22  20  84  1  1 
Castro       c   .176  .269  .341  39  91  16  3  0  4   9  12  11  25  0  0