Mets Should Reasonably Stand Pat Today
The New York Mets are five games out of the Wild Card. The two teams immediately ahead of them, the Diamondbacks and the Giants, appear to be selling. After the dust clears today, it would appear the Wild Card race is going to be the among the Cardinals, Brewers, Cubs, Nationals, Phillies, and maybe the Mets.
On the National League Central front, it is three teams fighting for the division. There will be a lot of head-to-head games between them, and it is possible one of those teams fall way out of the race. Reasonably speaking, that could be the Brewers who have a -17 run differential and don’t have the pitching they did last year. It should also be noted after a big May, the Cubs have been a sub .500 club.
In the National League East, the Mets have six games each against the Nationals and Phillies putting the Mets fate in their own hands. For that matter, they also have three at home against the Cubs. As things stand, the Mets can really help themselves against everyone against the Cardinals and Brewers.
This doesn’t mean the Mets have a good chance. They are four games under .500, and they are still without a real center fielder. With Dominic Smith on the Injured List, they are down one key bat. We have also seen Pete Alonso slump in the second half. And yet, the Mets still have a viable chance to claim a Wild Card.
After all, at the moment their starting five is Jacob deGrom–Noah Syndergaard–Marcus Stroman–Zack Wheeler–Steven Matz. There is no better starting five in baseball. With the pitchers going deeper into games, and with their bullpen arms being healthier, the bullpen has been better of late. Of course, it helps that the team has Seth Lugo, who is phenomenal.
The question for the Mets today is what do you do? Do you add, sell, or stand pat?
If the Mets are willing to give Wheeler a qualifying offer, the team should keep him unless they are getting an offer for a player significantly better than the player they could draft with their compensation pick. The team should not trade Edwin Diaz unless they are going to be like the Indians and get a package similar to Yasiel Puig, Franmil Reyes, Logan Allen, Scott Moss, and Victor Nova. Short of that, pass.
Under no circumstances should the Mets trade Syndergaard. It’s not worth it. You’re not going to improve the team this year or the next by doing it.
Overall, the Mets could trade Todd Frazier, but it would seem odd to do that when they just obtained Stroman who needs a good infield defense. The Mets could put Jeff McNeil at third, but they don’t have anyone to put in the outfield. The team should trade Wilson Ramos for whatever they can get. He’s not helping this year or the next. He’s a hindrance. Perhaps, the Mets could look for cost controlled relievers like Mychal Givens but only for the right price.
Overall, the Mets are in a limbo right now. They’re in a position where they could contend this year, but probably won’t. Still, their schedule will allow them to make a run. With Stroman, they are setting themselves up to compete next year, so they can’t purge long term pieces, and with them having a chance now, they shouldn’t be just salary dumping players like Frazier.
In the end, the Mets just need to stand pat. That is unless they are blown away with an offer for Diaz, or they could make an offer to get that center fielder not in their system or on the free agent market this offseason. There are so many different possibilities, but in the end, perhaps the best choice is just to do nothing and ride this out.
The novice GM continues to kill the team’s chances. He’s killing them now, and killing them in the future. The Mets have only a trivial chance of contending. When we run the numbers it’s clear they are hugely unlikely to shoulder aside 10 other teams, particularly five of the six who are well ahead of them in order to pinch one of the 2 wildcard spots.
It’s not just that to make the postseason they have to play better than any MLB team has this season, including the patently strong teams headed for 100 wins–something completely beyond the Mets’ weak offense and absurdly poor bullpen–they also have to hope that none of the 10, particularly the aforementioned six, don’t play commensurately well.
In short the Mets have to play incredibly well, far beyond their projectable ability. They have to get incredibly lucky, too, just in terms of their own wins and losses. They also have to get incredibly lucky wrt to nearly every other team in the NL. It’s not happening.
Even .600 ball won’t get them close, given it leaves them at 84 or 85 wins at the end of the season–and BBRef gives them only a 1 in 10 chance of getting as many as 85 wins. It will probably take at least 88 wins to make the postseason. Last year it took, what, 91? These Mets would have to go 40-16 to get to 91 wins. That’s a .714 pace. That’s 116 wins over a full season. It’s not 1973–the Mets aren’t going to sneak in with 82 wins. It’s not 2016, when the Mets at this point were 55-51, not 51-55. The 2016 Mets also had a better rotation, with 4 starters with an ERA under 4.00. The 2019 Mets have 1 starter with an ERA under 4.00. The 2016 Mets also had a far better bullpen, with 5 guys with an ERA+ over 145. The 2019 Mets have 1 guy with an ERA+ over 145.
Then there’s the matter of the 2016 Mets at this point, after 106 games, being more than 1.5 games behind all of 1 team. It was a completely different race. The Mets gave no favors from the schedule, either. They face an average schedule from here on out.
On top of that, the 2019 Mets just dealt away their starting pitching depth, the starter with the 2nd best ERA on the team, just to save less than 2% of payroll. It also means they plan to have a worse pitcher than Vargas in the #5 spot in 2020 since they had his option and he was cheap.
Worse, the Mets aren’t keeping both Syndergaard and Wheeler this offseason, and may cut ties with both, meaning they dealt away two promising minor league arms just to get a cheaper replacement, for a single year, for one of NS and ZW. The Mets will be worse in 2020 than they are today, and they will be worse by the measure of at least Wheeler, Frazier, and Vargas contrasted with the addition of Stroman.
The second wildcard is a headfake by MLB, meant to take shameless advantage of new fans by making it look as though bad teams are still in it. As for who has the best rotation in the majors the Astros, with the best record in the AL, and which already had far better pitching than the Mets, just added a HOF starter still in his prime, in Greinke. Just imagine what we could do if we were in a market as big as Houston’s.
The disaster continues…
Way too much angst over losing Vargas. Losing him was addition by subtraction.
I’d also note the Mets have a real shot with the Cubs and Brewers not really improving themselves, and the Mets having a weak schedule with a lot of head-to-head matchups remaining.
Your hatred of Vargas has made you thoroughly irrational, in addition to causing you to misstate my emphases. I couldn’t begin to unpack the motivation for your comments about him.
Vargas had the second best ERA among Mets starters, and has been obviously better than Matz this year, but you think dealing him away is a good thing, and improving the Phillies rotation is also a good thing for the Mets. You’ve become insensate on the subject.
The Mets don’t have a weak schedule remaining, of course. Just search by any one of the main sites that evaluate [remaining strength of schedule]. I’m sure you can look that up and stop endlessly repeating your error.
Please tell me how his BABIP asks LOB% are sustainable.