In this offseason, the Mets went out and signed Wilson Ramos to a two year deal hoping he will be the team’s answer at catcher. Barring injury, he will be the ninth Mets Opening Day catcher since Mike Piazza left in free agency after the 2005 season. Put another way, the Mets are still searching out a way to replace the Hall of Famer.
Can you name the eight Opening Day catchers between Ramos and Piazza? Good luck!
Paul Lo Duca Brian Schneider John Buck Josh Thole Travis d’Arnaud Kevin Plawecki Rene Rivera Rod Barajas
With just three weeks to go before Opening Day, the Mets have an interesting race for the backup catcher position between Travis d’Arnaud and Devin Mesoraco. This is a race d’Arnaud seemingly had won with the Mets trading Kevin Plawecki to the Indians, but with him not being quite ready to play early in the Spring, Mesoraco returned, and he is now arguably ahead of d’Arnaud in the competition.
Now, as organization depth, Mesoraco was a very good signing. He is familiar with the pitching staff, has some pop in his bat, and has the talent to be a backup catcher at the Major League level. In a vacuum, the Mets opting to carry Mesoraco as the backup catcher is a fine decision. However, this decision isn’t being made in a vacuum. It’s a decision between him and another player.
Understandably, Mets fans have been quite frustrated with d’Arnaud. He has yet to have a real healthy season in his career. He never took the next step forward from what should have been a springboard 2015 campaign. He aggravates most fans with his inability to throw out base stealers, a problem brought to light all the more when Noah Syndergaard is on the mound.
Still, despite the areas of the game where d’Arnaud struggles and the frustration over him not becoming what we hoped he would be, he is still a better Major League catcher than Mesoraco.
First and foremost, d’Arnaud is a better pitch framer – always has been and always will be. With the exception of the 2017 season, d’Arnaud has always been a good pitch framer, and in fact, he has routinely been one of the better pitch framers in the game. That’s important for a team built on pitching. For his part, Mesoraco has always been middling to just plain bad in that department.
Of course, not every pitch is a borderline call. Sometimes you just need a catcher to stop the ball to prevent it from going to the backstop and permitting the batter to take the next base. Since 2015, d’Arnaud has yielded just seven passed balls in 1995.1 innings whereas Mesoraco yielded eight just last year in 484.1 innings with the Mets.
Expanding it further to wild pitches, d’Arnaud has a combined 77 wild pitches and passed balls since 2015. For his part, Mesoraco has yielded just 57 in the same time frame albeit in approximately fewer 900 innings, which means Mesoraco yields a higher percentage of passed balls and wild pitches.
Now, it should be mentioned that d’Arnaud is not as good as Mesoraco is at throwing out base runners. For his career, d’Arnaud has only thrown out 21 percent to Mesoraco’s 24 percent, which includes 21 percent last year. Suffice it to say, this a strength in neither player’s game, and there is really a de minimim difference in their abilities in this department.
It may also be surprising to learn d’Arnaud is a much better hitter. Since 2015, d’Arnaud has hit .251/.309/.419 (96 OPS+). For his part, Mesoraco has hit .206/.297/.356 (77 OPS+).
Those numbers may come as a surprise due to the outburst Mesoraco had when he first joined the Mets. In fact, in his first 15 games with the Mets, he hit .261/.358/.630. The problem is after those 15 games, he hit .210/.290/.344.
Even after all of that, many may still point out to how well Mesoraco seemed to click with deGrom in what was a great Cy Young campaign for the Mets ace. What is odd is how people will raise that point while neglecting how d’Arnaud was deGrom’s catcher during deGrom’s 2014 Rookie of the Year campaign, and how he was deGrom’s catcher during the 2015 postseason. Fact is, deGrom pitched great last year because he is a great pitcher, and really when you break it down, people should at least contemplate whether deGrom could have actually been better with a better receiver last year.
Overall, once d’Arnaud is ready to play behind the plate, he should be the backup catcher over Mesoraco. He is a better catcher, and he is a better hitter. Really, when you break it down, the only thing Mesoraco has over d’Arnaud is he’s healthy. Of course, Mesoraco has the same checkered health record d’Arnaud has, so it may only be a matter of time before the Mets need to turn to a Tomas Nido anyway.
During this offseason, the Mets have certainly made splashes hiring David Wright, John Franco, Al Leiter, and now Jessica Mendoza in a player development role for the organization. These are all intelligent baseball people, who if utilized properly, can have a profound impact upon the Mets organization.
Seeing how three of these hires were popular Mets players, the team should consider doing the same and bringing back Johan Santana.
There are plenty of superficial reasons why the Mets should bring Santana back to New York. He is the only pitcher in Mets history to pitch a no-hitter. His 2008 season was great, and he would pitch the last great game seen at Shea Stadium. To this day, he remains popular with the fanbase. All that said, the real reason the Mets should bring back Santana is his change-up.
Johan Santana, Changeup release (scratchtreel/@coachbethards request). #SRGif pic.twitter.com/JCZtSUOaUS
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 29, 2017
Santana’s changeup was a truly great pitch. It was a pitch he used to win two Cy Young awards in what was a borderline Hall of Fame career. It was a pitch which earned him a massive contract with the Mets. It was the final pitch he threw to strike out David Freese to end his no-hitter. It was the pitch he taught to Jacob deGrom, which forever changed the trajectory of deGrom’s career.
Back in 2011, deGrom was rehabilitating from Tommy John surgery, and Santana was rehabilitating from shoulder surgery. As the two worked at the team’s rehabilitation facility in Port St. Lucie, their paths would cross. As reported by the New York Times, Santana would teach deGrom the pitch that made Santana a Cy Young award winner and would one day make help make deGrom one as well:
[W]hile doing his rehabilitation work at the Mets’ rehabilitation facility in Port St. Lucie, Fla., deGrom fell into conversation with Johan Santana, the Mets’ injured ace. Santana proceeded to teach deGrom his famous changeup, how to grip the ball, how it should look the same as a fastball coming out of his hand. Santana told him to practice throwing at 180 feet. If he threw it correctly, the ball would fall well short.
As noted by the Fangraphs, deGrom’s changeup was the second most valuable changeup in all of baseball last year making it his best pitch last year. According to Brooks Baseball, opposing batters hit just .139 off of his changeup. The pitch is a large reason why deGrom was second in the league in getting batters to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone, and why he had the fifth most swings and misses against him.
Much of what deGrom accomplished began when he was rehabbing at the same time as Santana. If the Mets were wise, they would bring back Santana to have a profound impact on someone else’s career. He may help Corey Oswalt or Chris Flexen go to that next level. It’s possible David Peterson, Anthony Kay, and Thomas Szapucki each take a huge step forward in their development.
Perhaps, there is some pitching prospect who is not well known at this time who could learn Santana’s changeup and have his career take off. After all, that’s what happened to converted shortstop and former ninth round pick Jacob deGrom.
In Pete Alonso‘s first two at-bats of Spring Training, he hit a home run and a double. It seemed those two hits were the beginning of something special, and regardless of service time, Alonso was going to force his way onto the Opening Day roster. After that double, Alonso cooled off a bit at the plate. He would go three for his next 12. With him not hitting tape measure shots, Dominic Smith would begin to grab some headlines.
Through his first seven games, Smith was actually out-hitting Alonso going 8-for-16 with a big three run homer. Mets Manager Mickey Callaway spoke glowingly about Smith. There were articles written about how Smith has turned the corner, and some were suggesting Smith had a real chance to win the Mets first base job.
Yesterday, Alonso reminded everyone why he’s a top prospect and why people were excited about the possibility of his playing first base for the Mets this season:
Pete Alonso slammed his second home run of Spring Training earlier today in West Palm. #Mets pic.twitter.com/Pl133MKrLm
— Jacob Resnick (@Jacob_Resnick) March 4, 2019
In the game, Alonso was 2-for-3 with a double, homer, and an RBI. As noted by MMO‘s Michael Mayer, Alonso’s OPS is now 1.356 putting him not too far ahead of Smith’s 1.256. Put another way, there is little separation between the two. The reason is both players spent all offseason preparing to give themselves the best possible chance of winning the Mets first base job.
As a fan, this is fun to watch. Alonso starts off with big power numbers, and Smith responds with great defense and a .500 batting average. Alonso then hits another tape measure shot while Smith maintains his .500 Spring batting average. This is exactly what everyone wants to see. They want this to be a difficult decision, not just for Spring Training but for the future.
This is not too dissimilar from 2014 when the Mets had to choose between Ike Davis and Lucas Duda. The Mets decision there may not have been popular, but it proved to be the correct one. That decision would play a role in the Mets going to the World Series. As Mets fans, we can only hope the same thing happens with this team.
Editor’s Note: this was originally published on MMN
With a -1.8 WAR and 79 wRC+ through his first 105 games at the Major League level, the building consensus has been Dominic Smith was a first round bust putting him in a ground of renown Mets bust. Mets fans can cite them in their sleep – Alex Ochoa, Fernando Martinez, Bill Pulsipher. The list goes on and on.
It is a large reason why Pete Alonso has surpassed him on the depth charts heading into Spring Training. Truth be told, it probably happened some time prior to that. After all, while Alonso was becoming the first ever Mets minor leaguer to lead the minors in home runs, Smith was having a nightmare season.
The narrative had become he was lazy. He contributed to that by struggling to keep in shape. He would be late for the first Spring Training game last year, one he was slated to start. He didn’t hit well with the Mets, and he didn’t hit well in Las Vegas. To hear many tell it, he was a lazy player and his laziness had led him to be a bust.
Lost in that narrative was the fact Smith was still just 23 years old, a little more than six months younger than Alonso. Really lost in all of that was the fact Alonso was not lazy. Rather, he was just young and trying to find his way.
As Smith would tell Kyle Glasser of Baseball America, he used his time in the majors well. He watched players like Bryce Harper play, and he learned he needed to make changes. That meant not just losing weight but also getting into shape. He wanted to be an athlete first and a baseball player second. He also needed to make his swing more mechanically sound.
Smith has also learned the importance of sleep in his routine. He has refitted his sleep apnea mask.
Seeing Smith report to Spring Training detailing his diet, workout routine, and the importance of sleep, you are seeing a much more mature person. As a result, you are also seeing a better baseball player, the player the Mets believed him to be when they drafted him in the first round (11th overall) of the 2013 draft. Right now, you are seeing the best hitter in baseball.
Dom Smith right now = ??? #Mets pic.twitter.com/R1fbAW9Cx8
— Jacob Resnick (@Jacob_Resnick) March 3, 2019
As noted by Mathew Brownstein of MMO, Smith is the leading hitter in the majors this Spring with a .500 OBP and .579 OBP. Overall, he is 8-for-16 with three walks, a homer, and five RBI.
Looking at it, Smith is a much different player than he was last year. Remember, last year, Mickey Callaway said of Smith, “I think we had expectations for guys, and if they don’t meet that expectation, we have to hold them accountable.” He would also say how he was shocked how someone fighting for a job could do what Smith did.
Now? Well, now, Callaway has this to say about Smith, “Obviously, the defense is always gonna be there and the offense looks special right now. He’s putting great swings on the ball. He’s got great energy and I love what I see so far.”
Everyone has to love what they are seeing with Smith right now. Somewhat unexpectedly, he is making this a first base battle. More than that, he’s just battling. This was a young player, who had been knocked down and been humiliated. He struggled, and he’s seen perceptions of him change dramatically. He’s now much more mature, and like the mature person he is becoming, he is using his past experiences to make himself better.
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.
Checking ZiPS, after the Phillies went out and signed Bryce Harper, the Mets are now the fourth best team in the division, and they are on the outside looking in when it comes to the postseason. Ultimately, this projection shows how the Mets chances of winning the division and making the postseason are that much more difficult.
It does not mean the Mets season is already over before it has began. No, the Mets still have a real shot and a clear path to a division title.
The first part of winning the division starts with the bullpen. Looking at last season, the top five bullpens by ERA all made the postseason. This includes the Brewers and Athletics who surprised many by utilizing their bullpen strength and questionable starting pitching to reach the postseason.
In 2017, the top six bullpens by ERA made the postseason. In 2016, five of the top six bullpens by ERA made the postseason. Overall, in an era with increased bullpen usage, we are beginning to see a correlation between strong bullpens and winning.
The Mets have the makings of a top bullpen. Among relievers with at least 50 innings pitched, Edwin Diaz had the fifth best ERA. Not too far behind him was Seth Lugo was the 13th best. In addition to those two, the Mets have Jeurys Familia, who has previously led the majors in saves. There is depth behind them with Justin Wilson, Robert Gsellman, and a series of power arms in the minors with Tyler Bashlor, Eric Hanhold, Ryder Ryan, and Drew Smith.
If each reliever pitches the way they could, the Mets could very well have a top five bullpen, which we have seen is becoming an increasingly important factor in teams’ performance.
More impressive than the Mets bullpen is their starting rotation, at least four-fifths of it. Jacob deGrom is coming off a historically great season, and we can reasonably expect him to vie for a second consecutive Cy Young next season. As good as deGrom was, Zack Wheeler might’ve been better in the second half last year. In fact, Wheeler’s second half 1.68 ERA was just a hair better than deGrom’s.
As good as both pitchers are, Noah Syndergaard may just have the best stuff on the entire pitching staff. We have certainly seen him when he has put it all together, and we have seen how well he pitches in big games. If you add a healthy and improved Steven Matz, a pitcher who made 30 starts for the first time in his career last year, and the Mets have dominant starting pitching even with Jason Vargas struggling since the 2017 All Star break.
Even with the improved and strong bullpen, the Mets are going to need health from their starters. Behind them is a group of pitchers who have struggled at the Major League level. Now, it’s possible Chris Flexen is much better with a better physique and healthy knee, and it is possible Corey Oswalt is better for his struggles last year. It’s even possible David Peterson and Anthony Kay have a meteoric rise. Certainly, any of these things are possible, but if the Mets are counting on more than one of their young starters to step up, they are in trouble.
Health is also going to be a key factor among the position players. That is highlighted all the more with the injuries suffered by Jed Lowrie and Todd Frazier as well as Travis d’Arnaud‘s and T.J. Rivera‘s difficulty returning from Tommy John surgery.
There are injury question marks beyond them with Wilson Ramos having his own injury history, one which rivals Juan Lagares‘. While Robinson Cano has been healthy throughout his career, he’s also 36 years old, and there are plenty of skeptics who will point out how Frazier went from a healthy player to an increasingly injury prone one once he put on a Mets uniform. Truth be told, injuries are part of the game, and the Mets are going to have to find ways to mitigate against them. Their best bet on that front is to have some young players step up.
The Mets need Amed Rosario to have that breakout season he seems primed to have. The team needs Pete Alonso to be what they believe he can be, and if he isn’t, they need Dominic Smith to be the player they once thought he would be. They will also need J.D. Davis to at least take over the Wilmer Flores role as a utility player who mashes left-handed pitching. It also couldn’t hurt to see the re-emergence of Gavin Cecchini, Luis Guillorme, or David Thompson.
Fact is there is talent on this Mets roster, but to overcome their odds, they are going to need a combination of health and players stepping up. If they get enough of a solid combination of the two, they have the top end talent in players like deGrom and Michael Conforto to capture this division and to even win a World Series.
Will it happen? Well, it is going to be fun to find out.
On January 16, Mets General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen stood up at a press conference introducing Jed Lowrie at Citi Field, and he issued a challenge to the rest of the National League East. With the bravado Van Wagenen has held since taking over the position, he uttered the boastful words, “Come get us!”
At that time, the Mets had made some bold moves. The team had added not just Lowrie on the infield but also Robinson Cano. The bullpen was largely remade with Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia. Not too long thereafter, the Mets would add Justin Wilson making their bullpen potentially the best in all of baseball.
On January 16, you could understand a bit of the Mets bravado. The Braves really stopped short of improving their club by adding just Josh Donaldson and Brian McCann. The Nationals did add Patrick Corbin and Kurt Suzuki in addition to bolstering their own bullpen, but they were likely losing Bryce Harper. As for the Phillies, well, despite their proclamations they were going to spend stupid money, it didn’t seem anyone wanted it.
While we know the Phillies call to action largely existed prior to Van Wagenen’s declaration, and it being very likely the Phillies were not going to make decisions predicated on what Van Wagenen said at a press conference, they did possess the ability to make the Mets General Manager to eat his words.
The first bold move was to acquire J.T. Realmuto from the Marlins. It’s worth noting Realmuto was a prize fish Van Wagenen had expended much effort to bring aboard only to have to eventually cut bait and sign Wilson Ramos after Yasmani Grandal purportedly rejected the Mets contract offers.
Yesterday, well yesterday was the big one. The Phillies signed Harper to a 13 year $330 million contract. With it being worth $5 million more than Giancarlo Stanton‘s contract, the Phillies went out and gave Harper the largest contract in baseball history.
Harper and Realmuto were part of a larger offseason for the Phillies. In addition to those two All-Stars, the team also signed Andrew McCutchen and David Robertson. They also made a blockbuster trade to obtain Jean Segura, Juan Nicasio, and James Pazos. All told, the Phillies added over $148.55 in new contractual obligations, and that is before factoring in Harper.
When taking into account the money owed Harper, the Phillies have added nearly half a billion in payroll obligations. Apparently, when their owner John Middleton said they were going to spend stupid money, he meant it. This is a Phillies team who is all-in, and they may not even be done adding pieces.
Notably, at the time the Mets signed Lowrie, they were projected as a team who was neck-and-neck with the Nationals for the division with them being in position to claim a Wild Card. Now, according to Dan Szymborski of Fangraphs, the Mets are now projected to be the fourth best team in the division, and their pre-season odds of making the postseason dropped from 31.2 to 26.7 percent.
It should also be noted while the Phillies have been moving past the Mets, the Mets have had to deal with injuries to both Lowrie and Todd Frazier with neither one having a timetable as to when they can return. The team has also seen Travis d’Arnaud and T.J. Rivera struggle in their attempts to return from Tommy John surgery.
With all that has happened in little over a month, Van Wagenen still believes the Mets can win saying, “I believe we can beat any team, any time.” However, it is noteworthy he has fallen short of calling the Mets the best team in the division, and he is no longer challenging the other teams in the division to come get the Mets.Perhaps, it is because he knows the Phillies already have.
With Bryce Harper signing with the Phillies, his career with the Nationals has come to a close. In that time, he has posted a 27.4 WAR. If Harper did that with the Mets, that would have ranked as ninth best in Mets history. Can you name the Mets who have posted a higher WAR with the team than Harper did with the Nationals? Good luck!
Tom Seaver David Wright Dwight Gooden Darryl Strawberry Sid Fernandez Jacob deGrom Edgardo Alfonzo Jerry Koosman Carlos Beltran
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.