Brandon Nimmo
Hearkening back to the maddening pitcher Zack Wheeler was before his breakout, he needed 95 pitches to get through five innings. In those five innings, he allowed four earned on six hits. On the surface, this was reason to get concerned not just about Wheeler, but his and the Mets prospects for the 2019 season.
However, when you go deeper than the surface, there wasn’t much of a reason to overthink things. For starters, Wheeler’s stuff looked as good as it ever has. Also, for a pitcher who has long had control issues at at times has had difficulty putting batters away, he walked just one and struck out seven. When you break it down, this was just one of those starts pitchers have from time to time.
One of the issues was Trea Turner hits Wheeler well. Turner has hit .375/.444/.625 off of Wheeler including yesterday’s three run homer. Really, when you go up-and-down that Nationals lineup, they have all faired well against Wheeler:
- Anthony Rendon .357/.486/.357
- Ryan Zimmerman .320/.370/.560
- Adam Eaton .615/.706/.692
Combine that with Wheeler pitching to a 4.24 ERA and 1.441 WHIP at Nationals Park, and you realize this was more of a bad matchup for Wheeler than anything else. Still, despite the tough matchup, Wheeler was largely effective against anyone not named Trea Turner.
In addition to Turner’s three run homer, he would steal a base in the fifth, and he would score on a Rendon two out RBI single. Turner was a one man wrecking crew in this game, and he would beat not just Wheeler, but the entire Mets team.
What was interesting about the Mets was how they got back into this game.
Through five innings, the Mets only plated one run off of Patrick Corbin due to a Pete Alonso double in the third. In the top of the sixth, the Mets would get a rally started with runners at the corners and no outs after a J.D. Davis double and a Michael Conforto single. The promising rally ended there when Davis scored on an Amed Rosario double play.
The Mets seemed like they were going to be getting back into this game, especially with how poor the Nationals bullpen already looks. However, Robert Gsellman was not good himself giving the one run the Mets got right back with him allowing a pair of doubles to Yan Gomes and Victor Robles in the bottom of the sixth.
This is where things got a bit dicey for Mickey Callaway.
In Saturday’s game, Davis misplaced a routine grounder, and the end result was instead of the Mets getting out of the inning, Callaway had to bring in Seth Lugo to bail Jeurys Familia out of a jam. Lugo would then have to get bailed out himself. The end result of this was Lugo and Familia basically being unavailable yesterday.
With yesterday’s game close, Callaway opted to chase the game. This meant utilizing Luis Avilian to get Juan Soto instead of allowing Gsellman to pitch an entire second inning. In Callaway’s defense, Gsellman created that situation too by allowing a hit to Rendon.
In that seventh inning, Callaway used Gsellman, Avilan, and Tim Peterson. It became an issue because the Mets went to work against the Nationals bullpen in the eighth.
With the heart of the lineup up, Dave Martinez went to Tony Sipp. Sipp bracketed retiring the right-handed hitting Davis by allowing singles to the left-handed hitting Robinson Cano and Conforto. Martinez brought in Trevor Rosenthal to pitch to Rosario, who, this time, delivered an RBI single.
With the Mets now down by just two, the Nationals went to Sean Doolittle, and Callaway emptied his bench. With the combination of durability history, the left-handed starter, and just trying to get guys into a game to start the year, Jeff McNeil and Wilson Ramos did not get the start. They would be two in a wave of four consecutive players who started the game on the bench getting key at-bats in the inning.
While McNeil struck out, Ramos and Juan Lagares would deliver RBI singles to tie the game at 5-5. Unfortunately, Dominic Smith could not get that big hit the Mets needed to take the lead.
With Callaway having to pinch hit for Peterson to try to take the lead, he would have to go to Justin Wilson for more than an inning. Wilson would mow down the first four Nationals he would face before Turner hit the walk-off home run.
By no means was this a perfect game for the Mets. The Nationals continued to run on them with five stolen bases in the series. Wheeler didn’t look like the ace he was in the second half. Corbin looked like last year was no fluke, and the Mets bullpen was as creeky as the Nationals bullpen looked in the series. Moreover, Callaway did not look like a manager who was taking a step forward this year.
Despite the issues you may want to glean from the loss, the fact of the matter is the Mets fought to get back into this game. It was a tough loss, but it was one where the Mets showed character. It’s one where the team showed they have fight in them, and they are ready to take it to the Nationals and the rest of the National League East. While you hate a loss like this, you should really like how this team handled the situation.
Game Notes: With Avilan and Peterson pitching in the game and Tomas Nido starting at catcher, Luis Guillorme is now the only Mets player on the Opening Day roster who has yet to play in a game. Brandon Nimmo broke his hitless streak to begin the season with a hit off Corbin.
When the Mets were winning the 2015 pennant, there was a push in some circles to refer to that team as Omar’s team. Depending on your point of view, it was intended to either credit Omar Minaya for his leaving behind a better than advertised talent base, or it was to deride Sandy Alderson, who never gained traction with some Mets fans.
Even if it was said in jest, there was a nugget of truth to it. The core of that team, the pitching, was mostly there because of Omar Minaya. In fact, Minaya was the General Manager who drafted Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, and Steven Matz. The other key starter, Noah Syndergaard, was obtained in exchange for R.A. Dickey, a pitcher who was brought to the organization by Minaya on a minor league deal.
Minaya was also the General Manager who drafted Lucas Duda and Daniel Murphy. Jeurys Familia, Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares, Hansel Robles, and Ruben Tejada came to the Mets as international free agents signed during Minaya’s tenure. Minaya’s impact on the team went further than this with Sandy Alderson utilizing players brought to the organization during Minaya’s tenure to acquire Travis d’Arnaud and Addison Reed.
Taking it a step further, Minaya was the Assistant General Manager when David Wright was drafted, and he was the General Manager who gave Wright his first contract extension.
Overall, Minaya’s fingerprints were all over that 2015 team much in the same way Alderson’s fingerprints are all over this year’s Mets team.
Yesterday’s starting lineup featured four former Alderson draft picks (Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil) and the player who his regime gave the second highest international signing bonus in team history (Amed Rosario). Robinson Cano came to the Mets when Brodie Van Wagenen traded two former Alderson first round draft picks (Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn) and two players Alderson had signed in free agency (Jay Bruce and Anthony Swarzak).
Looking further, the lineup also had two Minaya holdovers, one of which in Lagares who Alderson gave a contract extension.
Really, when you truly break it down, the only player on the Mets Opening Day lineup who has zero ties to any previous Mets regime was Wilson Ramos.
When you break it down further, the only Mets players who have no ties to previous regimes were Ramos, Luis Avilan, Justin Wilson, and Jed Lowrie, a player who opened the season on the Injured List and who currently has no timetable to return. Considering Familia was a free agent signing, you could potentially credit him solely to Van Wagenen even if he was seeking to return to the team. The other 20 players on the Opening Day roster were either players brought to the team by Alderson, or they were players who were acquired utilizing players Alderson brought to the organization.
Given the narrative which was in place four years ago, the question should be presented whether the 2019 Mets are Sandy’s or Brodie’s team.
The answer is this is definitively Brodie’s team. As the General Manager, he was the one who set into course a series of transactions made to build the Mets in his image. It was he who decided to extend deGrom and to bring in Cano. When you are the General Manager, you are the one making the decisions, and you should receive the credit or blame if your decisions succeed or falter.
As for Sandy Alderson, Mets fans should be appreciative of the talent he acquired during his tenure. Alderson not only left behind a talented group of players, but he left behind a very likeable group of players. In the end, the Mets were better off for him having been the General Manager, and we can only hope we can say the same when Van Wagnen’s tenure as the Mets General Manager ends.
Even though it took far too long to get done, the Mets stepped up and did the right thing by signing Jacob deGrom to a five year contract extension worth $137.5 million. With the extension, the Mets are going to keep arguably the best pitcher in baseball with the Mets for the next five years, and they are keeping a player who is popular with both the players and the fans.
While the Mets should be happy they got this done, they cannot act like they are done. Really, when you break it down, there is a lot of work still ahead of the Mets with much of their core hitting free agency over the next few seasons:
2020 Zack Wheeler
2021 Michael Conforto, Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard
2022 Seth Lugo, Brandon Nimmo
That’s a lot of young talent who could be leaving the Mets over the next three seasons. This should provide the team with the impetus they need to lock up these players to keep their window for competition open for deGrom’s Mets tenure.
That’s two front line starters in Wheeler and Syndergaard, two top of the line corner outfielders, and a relief ace. If handled and juggled properly, the Mets have the ability to keep them around and be the envy of baseball over the next 5-10 years. If the Mets do not take advantage of the opportunity before them, they are going to make a lot of teams happy by the team not only getting worse, but also because they will be adding a top end talent.
Is it fair to expect all of them to be extended? Perhaps not. That is a lot of money for those players. However, given how the Mets have traded away some of their prospects this year, there is more pressure to keep these players because the organizational depth is not what it was when Brodie Van Wagenen took the job.
Overall, there is a real balancing act the Mets need to undertake. They need to assess who they can and cannot extend. They need to see who in their system can help them sustain the loss of one of these players. Can Anthony Kay and David Peterson be what they need to sustain the loss of Wheeler or Syndergaard? Will Desmond Lindsay have that breakout year to allow them to move on from Conforto or Nimmo?
Whatever the balance, the Mets have to not only guess right, but they are going to have to handle each of these players properly. If they cannot extend some of these players, they should maximize each player’s value by getting a good return from them in a trade. Really, the Mets decisions on each of these players will dictate the Mets future and World Series window.
Yesterday was a very good day for Luis Guillorme. After an offseason where he put in a lot of work, he had a very good Spring Training. If yesterday is any indication, he’s overcome long odds and took advantage of Jed Lowrie‘s and Todd Frazier‘s injuries to claim a spot on the Opening Day roster.
It was a very good day for him indeed. By the same token, it was not a good day for Mets General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen.
First and foremost, the Mets assigned Devin Mesoraco to minor league camp. In response, he told the Mets if he was not released he was going to retire. He also said he expected to make the Opening Day roster.
Devin Mesoraco has told the Mets he won’t go to Triple-A. His expectation was he would be on the club. He is now pushing for the Mets to release him. If that doesn’t happen he will be placed on the restricted list.
— Mike Puma (@NYPost_Mets) March 23, 2019
Expectation is a funny word. It could be Mesoraco thought he was better than Travis d’Arnaud and Tomas Nido, and as such, he expected to make the team. It could also be his expectations were if d’Arnaud were to start the year on the IL, he would make the team. Neither are the case here.
It’s also possible overtures were made by Van Wagenen that Mesoraco was going to make the team, and those overtures might have induced Mesoraco to sign with the Mets over seeking another opportunity or waiting it out a little longer to see if a catcher (like Salvador Perez) suffered an injury.
You do wonder if it was the latter as Adeiny Hechavarria did not make the roster. With respect to Hechavarria, he was taken to dinner by Van Wagenen and Mickey Callaway, who sold him on their vision for him with this club. Aside from the fact it’s odd to wine-and-dine a 29 year old replacement level player, it would seem strange Hechavarria was enticed to sign with the Mets over another team because he thinks Syracuse is a great city.
Between the Mesoraco and Hechavarria situations, the more likely scenario is they were asked to sign minor league deals with the expectation the Mets would make a 40 man move at the end of Spring Training to add them to the Opening Day roster.
It’s the most likely but not the only possible explanation. However, the problem with the others is it would require a more plausible explanation why Mesoraco seems so upset and why Hechavarria would want to play in Syracuse.
And no, we should not cite Spring Training stats. They’re meaningless, especially for veteran players. The Mets know the level of production these players would provide over the course of a 162 game season. A poor Spring doesn’t change that.
As bad as that is the Mets brought back a lot of old friends from years past. The team signed Ruben Tejada and Travis Taijeron, each of whom was a dubious signing. Really, neither serve as MLB depth, and in reality, their presence only serves to take at-bats away from younger players like Gavin Cecchini, i.e. players who could still have a chance to improve and make an impact on the Major League level.
As bad (or even overblown) as all this is, there’s Jacob deGrom.
Jacob deGrom says he's "probably not as" optimistic as he once was that he and the Mets will complete a contract extension before Opening Day.
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) March 23, 2019
Like all of us, he sees the extensions the other players are getting, specifically Chris Sale and Justin Verlander. Now, deGrom isn’t as optimistic his former agent can get him the deal he told him he was worth.
This could mean at a time when all of baseball is pushing to extend their stars, the Mets are shut out, or in the best case scenario, only lock up deGrom.
This means time was wasted which could have been allocated towards extending Michael Conforto, Seth Lugo, Brandon Nimmo, and/or Noah Syndergaard.
All told, what was a great day for Guillorme was a very bad day for Van Wagenen and the Mets.
During Spring Training and especially, over the past week, there have been pieces posted on this site detailing exactly how the Mets could beat the odds and actually go out and win the division. While Brodie Van Wagenen has preached on eliminating ifs, the fact of the matter is they exist, and the Mets are going to have to hope it all goes their way.
With respect to the division favorite Washington Nationals, the hope is they are no different than the team Dave Martinez led last year. This means Max Scherzer can be dominant while Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner perform like MVP candidates. However, if Patrick Corbin reverts, Stephen Strasburg is hurt again, and the veterans which they are relying upon (Brian Dozier, Yan Gomes, Ryan Zimmerman) don’t turn back the clock, a terrific year from Victor Robles may not be enough for them.
The Philadelphia Phillies arguably improved their team the most with the additions of Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, J.T. Realmuto, David Robertson, and Jean Segura. That’s all well and good, but this is a dangerous mix for a team which fell apart partially due to their Fortnight obsession and the face Gabe Kapler has shown himself to be a poor leader. Absent Aaron Nola repeating last year and Jake Arrieta going back to his 2015 form, it’s possible this team could fall apart.
While the Nationals and Phillies are widely regarded as the best teams in the division, it was the Atlanta Braves who actually won the division last year. What is remarkable about the Braves was despite the team having as much money coming off the books as they did, their only real upgrade was signing Josh Donaldson. However, when you consider Johan Camargo was actually better than him last year, it was likely a downgrade. Beyond Donaldson, the team is essentially all glove up the middle (Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson, Ender Inciarte) with an incredibly average pitching staff. If the middle of their team doesn’t figure it out offensively, they’re going to need Freddie Freeman and Ronald Acuna to be even better in 2019 in order to carry the team forward.
As for the New York Mets, the key seems to be their bullpen. In recent years, there has been a correlation between strong bullpens and records. With the Mets having Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia, Justin Wilson, and Seth Lugo, they have the makings of what could be the best bullpen in baseball. When you add Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Zack Wheeler, this may be the best pitching staff in all of baseball.
This means the Mets will need Michael Conforto, Robinson Cano, and possibly Brandon Nimmo be the MVP candidates they can be while Amed Rosario figures it out. Beyond that, the Mets have what it takes. It is just up to Mickey Callaway to get the most he can from the team while Brodie Van Wagenen makes the key trade when needed.
If all that happens, and it very well could, the Mets win the division and go on to win the World Series. If not, the Mets may find themselves fighting for the second Wild Card. It should be fun to see what happens.
One of the narratives which is beginning to emerge is the Mets need Pete Alonso to be on their Opening Day roster because the Mets are a win-now team. Considering how tight the National League East race is going to be the argument is it’s worth carrying him for 16 days and foregoing control over him for the 2025 season. In essence, those 16 days are worth much more than one year of Alonso’s prime.
Putting aside the fact Dominic Smith could potentially be a better option than Alonso to open the season, especially with the Mets facing Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg twice, the question is why has Alonso become ground zero for the Mets doing everything they can do to win?
Since the 2017 All Star Break, Jason Vargas has a 6.04 ERA, and opposing batters have hit .278/.351/.506 against him. At the moment, he is slated for 30 plus starts. Behind him, the Mets pitching depth constitutes a group of pitchers who have posted an ERA over 5.00 as a starter over the last year.
It would seem to be contradictory to say every game counts as a justification to play Alonso 14 games while trotting out well below league average pitching for over 30 games. They’re doing this despite Gio Gonzalez and Dallas Keuchel still being free agents.
The Mets entered the offseason with a need for a center fielder. They traded for Keon Broxton, who hit .179/.281/.410 last year while playing in a very hitter friendly park. That would be the only outfielder they added to the 40 man roster this offseason. This left them to consider playing Juan Lagares more, a player who has averaged 68 games over the past three years.
This has led the Mets to consider playing Jeff McNeil in left field, a position he played all of 17.0 innings in Triple-A last year. This has forced Brandon Nimmo into center, a position the Mets had purportedly decided he shouldn’t play at the Major League level. A -5 DRS in 434.2 Major League innings there seem to substantiate the Mets previous decision on that front.
It may not matter anyway because Spring Training injuries to Todd Frazier and Jed Lowrie, two players who are over 33 years old, have forced McNeil to third base, a position the Mets did not want him to play last year. Of course, this puts the Mets back towards relying on Lagares and Broxton, which they clearly did not want to do.
Oddly enough, for a Mets team putting a premium focus on 14 games, they ignored the other 148 when it came to building their outfield. In fact, they stood aside when the Braves signed Nick Markakis and the Phillies signed Bryce Harper and Andrew McCutchen. Don’t forget the Braves also added Josh Donaldson too, which is something to consider if the Mets wanted to go the route of putting McNeil in left field.
The overriding point here is the Mets ignored and cut corners on various part of their roster. They’re gambling with over 30 starts from their rotation. They’re playing an infielder in the outfield hoping he will be able to get up to speed quickly gambling on 162 games at that position. Overall, the Mets are gambling at two key positions over the course of the season.
Yet somehow, the Mets are potentially going to tell us they desperately need those 14 games out of Alonso at first base because, you know, those 14 games at first base matter much more than the fifth starter spot and a starting outfield position over the course of full season.
With reports Brandon Nimmo getting sick from cooking his own chicken dinner, it does inspire many to say, “Same old Mets!” Certainly, the Mets have had their fair share of bizarre injuries and illnesses over their 57 year history. There are plenty of stories, and the Mets bloggers share some of the more infamous in Mets history:
Michael Baron
I love Noah Syndergaard, but the hand, foot and mouth disease is easily the standout injury in recent memory for me.
Michael Ganci (Daily Stache)
Valley Fever…and it’s not close. Single-handedly ended Ike Davis‘ career.
Metstradamus (Metstradamus Blog)
I’ll bring up Ryan Church here. Not that a concussion is bizarre, but putting him on an airplane to Denver and then Snoop Manuel surreptitiously chastising him for not being tough enough to handle it will always be the benchmark for bizarre in Flushing.
Greg Prince (Faith and Fear in Flushing)
Gotta go with what happened to reliever Ken Sanders between innings one Sunday afternoon in 1975: “I was taking my warm up pitches and lost the return throw from John Stearns and it hit me directly in my right eye. I never touched it. It actually knocked me out. There was no action on the field at the time of the accident.”
Tim Ryder (MMO)
Do Mackey Sasser‘s yips count? I’d have to go with Matt Harvey‘s bladder infection due to holding in his pee. Only the Mets.
Sasser hit .297/.328/.416 from 1988 thru 1990. Once his head got the best of him, everything came crashing down. The conventional injuries didn’t help either.
Bre S. (That Mets Chick)
Weirdest Mets illness: Ike Davis, valley fever in 2012. Valley Fever is an infection that is released from the dirt in desert regions of the Southwest and is inhaled. It can be stirred up by construction and winds.
Fast forward to 2014 and Davis still complained about having Valley fever! Its mind boggling how that infection stayed with him throughout the years. “You have no energy, no nothing. It was definitely a weird one. It’s supposed to go away on its own, but when I had an X-ray last year, it showed I still had it. I’m hoping that’s over and done with.” – Ike Davis
James Schapiro (Shea Bridge Report)
It’s gotta be “Valley Fever,” for me…it’s got all the hallmarks of a Mets injury. It’s a disease that sounds fake, like it’s almost a parody, and also sounds like a cruel act of God.
Strangely enough, Ike’s other injury is high on the list too — the time the training staff had him wear a walking boot nonstop, and it turned out the boot was basically suffocating his ankle, and it turned into him missing the 2011 season and pretty much ended his career. That…that’s the Mets right there.
Mets Daddy
Jerry Blevins slipping over a curb and re-breaking his arm. Sure, you can understand his arm breaking when he was hit with a comebacker, but a professional athlete breaking the arm again slipping on a curb takes the cake.
What’s interesting here is we had no mention of Tom Glavine losing his front teeth in a cab ride. What’s interesting to note with him is that while he thought that to be heart breaking, he was not devastated after killing the 2007 Mets season. Speaking of cab rides, we should never forget Duaner Sanchez.
There are many, many more here to list. We all know them, especially those who have participated in these roundtables. They know much more than the injuries, which is yet another reason to visit their sites and read their quality work.
Years ago, the Mets actually had a team cookbook available for sale entitled “GourMets.” Unfortunately, that book is no longer in publication leaving Brandon Nimmo on his lonesome when attempting to make himself a piece of chicken for dinner. Things did not end well:
Brandon Nimmo says he lost four pounds throwing up from his chicken and sweet potato dinner. He confirms he was NOT smiling while throwing up… but he can laugh about it now. pic.twitter.com/ufelZJJurq
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) February 28, 2019
In typical Nimmo fashion, we see him smiling and laughing about an ordeal which saw him throwing up all night and losing four pounds. We should also note it’s typical Mets fashion to see a player go down with something as simple as cooking and eating chicken. After all, as we have seen with Tom Glavine and Duaner Sanchez, Mets players can’t be trusted with so much as a cab ride.
While Glavine’s and perhaps Sanchez’s ordeals seemed to be not their fault, it would seem like Nimmo’s ordeal is completely avoidable. With that in mind, let’s review what Nimmo should have done differently.
First and foremost, if you have no idea what you are doing, don’t start with chicken. If you really want chicken, order out. If you don’t want to order out, get in touch with someone who knows what they are doing. Don’t try to cook the chicken yourself and risk food poisoning.
If you are undeterred and really want to cook that chicken, then by all means do it, but make sure you are handling it properly. The chicken you are looking to cook should be properly stored in the refrigerator. If you picked it up on your way home, just make sure it wasn’t sitting in your car too long, especially in a warm Florida climate. Chances are if it smells off before you even thing of cooking it, you’re going to get sick.
Also, you need to be really careful how you handle the chicken. If you are handling it and seasoning it before you cook it, you should be washing your hands. You should also be cleaning and disinfecting the area where you prepared the chicken. After all, even if you have cooked the chicken properly, you can still get sick from what you did before you cooked the chicken.
If you are cooking for the first time, put it in the oven where you can reduce the amount of times you actually handle it. If you are cooking at 350 degrees, it will probably take 25-3o minutes. It could take more. The best way to tell if it is done is to insert a thermometer to make sure it is cooked to 165 degrees. If not, cook longer. If you don’t have a thermometer, just cut it in half and look to see if it is cooked all the way through.
If you don’t want to use an oven, you can use things like a grill, Foreman grill, or even a pan. The best bet for any of those is to look online for a recipe and instructions on cooking temperature or time.
Ultimately, when cooking a chicken the most important thing to do is to make sure it is properly stored, and you are keeping your hands and all surfaces clean. To hear Nimmo tell it, the chicken looked cooked through and tasted good. If that is truly the case, the chances are he either mishandled or improperly stored the chicken.
At the end of the day, considering this is the Mets, all the players should probably avoid cooking their own meals all together. They should probably avoid taxi cabs to go out and get the food. Really, they should be ordering food to be delivered while sitting in their hotels or homes in bubble wrap.