When Michael Conforto declined the qualifying offer, the presumption has been that ended his New York Mets career. If so, that’s a mistake.
Over his seven year career, Conforto has a 124 OPS+. He’s also put up 5 OAA in RF and a 9 OAA in left. On any given season, you can and should expect that 120+ OPS+ with a 1+ OAA.
That’s a good MLB player. Yes, we get Mets fans wanted more and got frustrated. Nonsense narratives emerged that he’s not good or clutch because of it. Many just sang a new player for its own sake.
People say that despite getting burned again and again with that juvenile mindset. It’s really better to be somewhat frustrated with a good player who can handle New York than a simply worse player.
We also know Conforto is capable of greatness. We saw it in the World Series. We saw it before his injury in 2016. We saw it in 2017. After that injury, we saw it begin to re-emerge at the end of 2019 and all of 2020.
He’s coming off a year where he got off to a slow start due to COVID and injuries. It took a while, but Conforto was Conforto again to close out the season.
In the second half, Conforto hit .252/.347/.445. Over his last 53 games, he hit .275/.372/.461. We know that Conforto and know he can be that for a full season. We know he can and probably will grow from there with a much better hitting coach.
Assuredly, Mets fans want the flashier makes. They don’t quite make sense for the Mets.
Nick Castellanos can’t play the outfield (-42 career OAA in RF), and he had startling home/road splits. Like Castellanos, Kris Bryant is a better hitter, but he has similar defensive issues. Over the last three years, Bryant has a -7 OAA at third and -4 OAA in the outfield.
For a team whose success last year was mostly predicated on pitching and defense, Castellanos and Bryant present a step backwards.
Starling Marte is an interesting option as he’s still a terrific fielder and base runner. The pause on him is his exit velocities haven’t been great, his launch angle is declining, and much of his offensive success this year was BABIP driven.
Marte has the profile of a player who will regress. That’s very problematic for a player turning 34 next year and looking for a big contract. Worse yet, past Marte, there really isn’t another everyday option on the free agent market, at least not one who can replicate or improve on Conforto.
All told, we know what Conforto can be, and he’s coming off a bad year. The Mets will likely get a discount (albeit not a home town one) from what they’d get if Conforto was coming off a big year, which he’ll likely have in 2022.
The Mets and their fans can be frustrated Conforto didn’t prove to be more than he was all they want. However, truth be told, Conforto is still the best fit for this team, and the Mets should take all reasonable measures to keep him.
Eduardo Perez announced the shocking and sad news that former Mets reliever Pedro Feliciano died in his sleep. While the cause of death was not known, we do know on the eve of what proved to be his final MLB season, Feliciano was diagnosed with a non-life threatening heart condition causing an irregular heartbeat.
We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Pedro Feliciano. ?https://t.co/Y1DARwiMbc
— New York Mets (@Mets) November 8, 2021
The irony is with the New York Mets you never had to question Feliciano’s heart. The man was always at the ready, and it would eventually lead to him being dubbed by Gary Cohen as Perpetual Pedro. Time and again, Feliciano took the ball, and he would deliver.
With the passing of Feliciano, the Mets have lost the greatest LOOGY in team history. He may go down as one of if not the best ever. Consider that in a two year span he made more appearances than any left-handed reliever had made in MLB history. In fact, he was the only MLB reliever in history to put up three straight seasons with 85+ appearances.
The reason this happened was because Feliciano was both great and durable (just don’t tell that to the New York Yankees). He was almost always great. Case-in-point, in his first ever postseason appearance, he relieved John Maine in the fifth inning of the first game of the 2006 NLDS to strike out should be Hall of Famer Kenny Lofton to escape a jam and help the Mets win the game.
Overall, he had a 1.93 ERA that postseason getting the Mets out of a number of difficult spots. Feliciano would actually be the winner of the series closing Game 3 of that NLDS. That would make him the very last Mets pitcher to win a clinching game in the Shea Stadium era of the franchise.
He is a figure who should have a much higher stature in franchise history than he already has. In fact, only John Franco has appeared in more games as a reliever. Feliciano’s .212 batting average against and .263 wOBA against left-handed batters are the best in franchise history, both by significant margins.
When we lost Feliciano, we truly lost a great Met. In many ways, he was the quintessential Met. This was a player overlooked by everyone else, and he went out there and gave it his all. He was truly great at what he did even if the fame he should have received was fleeting. While there were other stops, at least in terms of the Major Leagues, Feliciano was only a Met.
May God bless Feliciano and his family. While that certainly includes the millions of Mets fans now in mourning, that especially applies to the wife and children who lost a great pitcher and better man.
When Brandon Crawford wins the Gold Glove, it’s difficult to say the runners up were robbed. That said, even with his numbers, reputation, and prowess, Crawford was not the best defensive SS in the NL in 2021.
There are different stats to measure, but taking the totality of them, it would seem Francisco Lindor should’ve won the award.
Looking first at OAA, Lindor’s 20 was the best in the NL. It far outpaced Crawford and his 15. It also far outpaced fellow finalist, Kevin Newman, who had a 4 OAA. Crawford and Newman ranked third and eighth respectively.
While Newman was eighth in OAA, he tied with Trevor Story with a 9 DRS for tops in the NL. Crawford was third with 6, and Lindor was tied for fourth with 4.
We’d see Lindor make the most out of zone (OOZ) plays of any MLB SS. He tied with Newman with the second best success rate (77%) in the NL. Lindor’s 5% success rate added was the best in the majors.
Put another way, Lindor didn’t just make the plays a SS is supposed to make. We also saw Lindor get to balls and make plays other SS couldn’t this year. He was steady and brilliant.
All told, Crawford, Lindor, and Newman had terrific years defensively. You can add Story to that mix as well. However, when all was said and done Lindor was just able to make more plays that the others couldn’t. That’s why he deserved the Gold Glove.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame has announced the players eligible for vote by the Veteran’s Committee. Yes, it’s technically the Golden Day Era Committee, but it’ll always be the Veteran’s Committee.
Perhaps the biggest name on the list is Gil Hodges.
If you’re a New York Mets fan or Brooklyn Dodgers fan, it at least seems that way. For decades, we’ve heard people wax poetic about Hodges. There’s good reason for it too.
Hodges was a fan favorite. He was an eight time All-Star and three time Gold Glover. He won two World Series as a player including being part of the iconic 1955 Dodgers.
Hodges also pulled off a miracle. He took a Mets team who was the laughingstock of laughingstocks and led them to the 1969 World Series title.
There are many things you can write and say about Hodges. Unfortunately, one of them isn’t Hall of Famer.
As the story goes, Hodges would’ve been one if not for a Ted Williams power trip. Hodges had the votes to be indicted by the Veteran’s Committee, but Williams disallowed Roy Campanella‘s vote because he wasn’t present at the meeting.
If Campanella was there instead of the hospital, Hodges would be in the Hall of Fame. Except, he wasn’t, and honestly, he shouldn’t be.
You’ll see his ardent supporters making a case for him. They’ll point to the 100 RBI seasons and where he was on the home run leaderboard. There’s other arguments as well. While it sounds good, it masks how he falls short.
Over his 18 year career, Hodges amassed a 43.9 WAR and 120 OPS+. Looking at Hall of Fame indicators, Hodges had a 33.7 WAR7 and 38.8 JAWS.
The average Hall of Fame first baseman has a 66.9 WAR, 42.7 WAR7, and a 54.8 JAWS. These marks leave Hodges well short.
By WAR, he trails non-Hall of Famers like Joe Judge and Fred Tenney. By WAR7, he trails Ed Konetchy and Jack Fournier. By JAWS, he trails Norm Cash and Dolph Camilli.
Going to OPS+, Hodges trails Ryan Klesko and Kevin Youkilis. A defensive whiz, he has fewer Gold Gloves than J.T. Snow and Adrián González.
This isn’t to denigrate these players or Hodges, but none of them are Hall of Famers. The same goes for players like Will Clark, Mark Grace, and Don Mattingly, each of whom had better careers which still didn’t reach the level of the Hall of Fame.
Maybe with a longer managerial career, Hodges moves above them and into Hall of Fame status. However, even with that miracle run, he was 93 games under .500 in his nine years as a manager.
Overall, Hodges is an iconic figure for two franchises. He had a great career, one that shouldn’t be criticized. Unfortunately, it was one short of being Hall of Fame worthy.
In a surprise, Kevin Pillar is a free agent. While it was reasonable to presume the New York Mets would decline his option, it was a complete shock Pillar declined his.
Pillar will be 33 on Opening Day next season. He’s coming off a year where he had a career worst 0.5 WAR (for a full season). That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Pillar has been at an 88 OPS+ in the last two full seasons. This is a slight dip from his career best in 2015 when he was still below league average. In fact, Pillar has never been above league average in any full season.
That was acceptable when defense was his calling card. It’s really not that case anymore. Aside from 2016, when he was an astounding 11 OAA, he’s been between a 1 to -2 OAA in the outfield.
That’s not to suggest he’s bad. He’s not. Rather, he’s an average fielder who is a below average bat. That makes him a rotation, platoon, or bench player. He’s not a starter.
Judging from Baseball Savant, Pillar has issues. He’s not driving the ball, and his contact rate is in decline. Same goes for his eye. His speed remains good, but that’s also been slipping.
That’s the biggest issue with Pillar. He appears to be a player in decline. He had a safety net with the Mets with a fair $2.9 million option. With that one year, he had an opportunity to re-establish value.
Pillar passed.
While betting on himself is admirable, it might be misguided. It’s highly unlikely he finds a starting job. After all, he was offered a part-time role with the Mets after a decent 2020.
This leaves him again seeking out a bench role. Maybe he finds it without needing to resort to a non-roster invite. Maybe he even finds a team who can provide a decent role, albeit likely not one with as much playing time as the Mets could’ve offered.
Overall, Pillar either bet on himself or got out of a place he no longer wanted to play. He gambled he’d get a better role, salary, and/or chance to win. At this moment, it’s difficult to see that happening, which is why Pillar should’ve stayed with the Mets.
The 2015 World Series wasn’t particularly kind to Travis d’Arnaud. The Kansas City Royals were 6/6 in stolen base attempts in that series, and he’d hit .143.
As rough as that series was, things actually would get worse for d’Arnaud with the Mets. The expectation was he’d take his career to the next level in 2016.
Instead, d’Arnaud injured his rotator cuff and struggled. That was basically the story of his Mets career. We’d see him show flashes, get hurt, and then struggle. It was frustrating to watch even if the overall production was good.
The final straw for the Mets was in 2019. After being rushed back from Tommy John, d’Arnaud had just about the worst game a catcher has ever had in baseball history. The end result was Jeff Wilpon and Brodie Van Wagenen rage cutting him.
As is usually the case, getting as far away from the Wilpons is the best thing for your career. We’d see d’Arnaud get healthy and eventually land with the Tampa Bay Rays.
d’Arnaud was great with the Rays, and it led to his signing with the Atlanta Braves. He’s had a strong run there, and now, d’Arnaud is a World Series champion.
It’s a reminder of just how poorly things were run before the Wilpons sold the team. It’s also a reminder the Mets need to better cultivate their own talent. The Mets need to not be the Mets.
With respect to d’Arnaud, he did well with the Mets. He just never reached his full potential. He had to leave the Mets for that to happen. He had to leave to get a ring.
Travis d’Arnaud is a World Series champion. He’s a good catcher having a good career. Congratulations to him.
With his impending trial for his DUI arrest and the uncertain state of the New York Mets front office, the team fired acting general manager Zack Scott. Really, they had no other choice.
In terms of baseball, a DUI is not a Cardinal sin (pun intended). Hall of Famer Tony La Russa never truly faced MLB consequences for his actions. He kept every job he had, including his current one with the Chicago White Sox.
He was also La Russa. As he’ll tell you, he’s a “Hall of Famer baseball person.” When you have his track record, teams don’t have the courage to make him face consequences for his actions. Either that, or they don’t care.
Scott is not La Russa. He was the Mets GM by default. The original GM was fired, and he stepped into the role. As the interim, Scott needed to prove to the Mets he was up to the task.
Yes, there were undoubtedly some good moves. However, he did build a team, or helped take part in building a team, who completely fell apart. Ultimately, Scott didn’t prove he was the solution for the job.
He’s also not truly available for the job now. Putting aside the administrative leave, he has to prepare for trial. During that time, key organizational decisions need to be made.
Michael Conforto and Noah Syndergaard are free agents who may have complicated qualifying offer decisions. Key contributors like Aaron Loup and Marcus Stroman are free agents. The Mets can’t sit on the sidelines waiting for Scott to make pivotal decisions which will shape 2022 and the decade to follow.
Between his decisions as a GM and as a driver, he clearly gave the Mets some pause in having him continue in the role. Taking everything into account, the Mets decided it was best to start anew and hire a president of baseball operations.
Whoever that new POBO will be, they need to create the Mets organization in their own image. It’s one of the reasons Luis Rojas‘ option was not picked up, and it’s a reason why the Mets need to clear the GM spot.
Ultimately, this is about the POBO. The Mets need to find the right person, and they need that person to build the organization. The Mets can’t have Scott standing in the way of that, especially when he’s unavailable to do his job at a very critical time.
In the end, Scott gave the Mets very little reason to remove the interim tag. Instead, he really just gave them reasons to remove him from the organization.
Watching the 2021 New York Mets, you saw two of the best fielding pitchers you’ll ever see in Marcus Stroman and Taijuan Walker. Neither one will win a Gold Glove.
There’s a lot to unpack here. That goes double when you consider Stroman made the absolute best plays we saw a pitcher make all season. That’s not hyperbole. Stroman was a Wizard.
He went behind the back on Joshua Fuentes. He went Derek Jeter against Brandon Belt. He chased down Juan Soto.
Make no mistake. There’s no better fielding pitcher. None. The problem is this isn’t a career award. It’s for 2021 only.
Because of that, Stroman was deservedly, albeit shockingly, not named as Gold Glove finalist. While you can make a case for him, when you look at the data, Stroman ranked just 14th among qualifiers in DRS.
In terms of DRS, Max Fried and Zack Wheeler were the top two qualifiers. That makes them deserving finalists for the Gold Glove. While Zach Davies did not qualify, he had a 6 DRS, which tied him with Fried and put him one up on Wheeler.
Given his strong DRS ranking, you can understand why he was a finalist. That is, until, you realize Walker was better. In fact, Walker with his 7 DRS was the best fielding pitcher in the National League.
The problem might’ve been Walker didn’t have enough innings in time. According to Tim Ryder of The Apple, Walker only had 138.2 innings through the first 142 games of the season. He needed 142.0 leaving him 3.1 innings short.
Being diplomatic, this is stupid. There are 162 games in a season, and for an inexplicable reason, they cut off 20 games to make an arbitrary end point. It robbed Walker of an award rightfully his.
Consider that Davies, who qualified by the arbitrary point threw 11 fewer innings than Walker. There’s also the matter of chances.
In 2021, Walker had 51 chances. That’s 16 more than Davies. That’s three more than Wheeler. It’s five more than Fried.
That’s right. Walker made more plays, and he was a better fielder. He had the best DRS while making more plays in the field. Not giving him this award makes the award a sham.
In reality, that’s what this is. It’s a sham. The best fielding pitcher in 2021 wasn’t even eligible for the award because of an arbitrary cut off date before the season ended. As a result, Walker was cheated out of an award rightfully his.
There needs to be a way to fix this. You can’t have a pitcher with the most plays and best DRS not winning the Gold Glove. There’s no justifying it, and Taijuan Walker is owed an apology.
The other day the New York Mets made the smart decision to retain Jeremy Hefner as their pitching coach. It was a move necessary because Hefner was going to be a free agent at the end of the month, and the team needed to act quickly to make sure they retained a coach respected by the Mets pitching staff.
The problem with this decision is it seemed a little out of order. Typically speaking, you do not hire or retain a pitching coach without hiring a manager. To wit, you don’t hire a manager without having general manager and president of baseball operations in place. And yet, that’s exactly where the Mets find themselves.
The Mets seem to be at a bad spot in their search. Their pie in the sky choices in Billy Beane, Theo Epstein, and David Stearns will not be joining the organization. Unfortunately, they’re striking out at the second level and extremely qualified choices like Matt Arnold, Peter Bendix, and Scott Harris. This is far from an exhaustive list. Really, what seems exhaustive is how many times the Mets have been unable to fill this role for well over a year now.
We’re now at the point of the sensational. For example, Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News published an article indicated Mets owner Steve Cohen is relying upon his employees at Point72 as well as former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to lead the search for the new president of baseball operations. Honestly, this doesn’t pass the sniff test considering Cohen’s background, but by the same token, we can expect to see more of the same until the position is filled.
That said, there is a bigger issue here. There are certain actions which need to be undertaken in short order, and it appears those decisions will need to be made before the new POBO is hired. Michael Conforto and Noah Syndergaard are free agents, and the team not only has to decide if they want to extend the qualifying offer, but they also need to see if they want to re-sign them. Marcus Stroman cannot be offered the qualifying offer, but the team does need to figure out if they want to keep him (they should).
This is a team who needs to fill vacancies at third base, and they need to complete their rotation. With Jeurys Familia and Aaron Loup being free agents, they need to build the bullpen. The team needs another outfielder, and they need to see if they are going to keep Javier Baez. There really is just too much to do for the Mets to wait for a new POBO.
Yes, you want a POBO making these decisions, but you can’t sit around and not make key organizational decisions until that person is hired. There is no sense not permitting the 2022 Mets to be as good as they can possibly be because they didn’t hire a POBO.
There is far too much at stake this offseason. Sitting around and doing nothing means the Mets will remain third best in the division, and in all likelihood, it puts them in a position where they are forced to rebuild. The problem is what’s here is a solid enough core to win a World Series. The Mets cannot sit on their hands and wait. Like it or not, Sandy Alderson has to take reins and operate as the POBO until one is hired.
No, it’s not what Mets fans necessarily wanted to hear, but it’s the truth of the matter. The sad, frustrating, and irritating truth.
Before Game 1 of the 2021 World Series, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was asked about the Atlanta Braves’ Tomahawk Chop and chant. Yes, it is the Braves, and not just the fans considering the Braves actively promote it. Believe it or not, Manfred answered that question in the absolute worst way possible.
More Manfred on the Braves name: "We don’t market our game on a nationwide basis. Ours is an everyday game. You’ve gotta sell tickets every single day to the fans in that market. And there are all sorts of differences between the regions in terms of how the teams are marketed.”
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) October 26, 2021
Where to begin on this one. Digging deeper, Manfred essentially said in his expanded remarks the chop wasn’t racist (it undoubtedly is) and the Braves name (honestly debatable). Despite that, Manfred relies up on the notion that literally every Native American in the Atlanta area supports the chop, which is an incredulous point, and it does beg us to dig deeper into blackout restrictions.
Keep in mind, the Braves purported region extends well beyond the Atlanta, GA area. If you live in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, the Braves are your designated team. As such, it would require MLB to consult with all of the Native American groups in that blackout region to assert whether they also deem the chant racist. Only then could MLB make such a claim, and as we all know, they can’t.
However, it is more than that. The Braves host every National League city and some American League cities in a season. When they host those teams, they knowingly subject those rival fanbases to the chant by and through the television. Right then and there, Manfred’s explanation fails because the actions in Atlanta have a definitive impact on fans in other cities. As such, he has an obligation to make sure this is not a wider societal issue.
That’s when we should fast forward to the postseason. Networks like TBS have shown the chop on their broadcast, and they have done nothing to mute that chant. The Braves have again taken the chop to the national stage, which again, requires, at a minimum, examination of the chop and its racist overtones. It also demands a deeper look into how this impacts Native Americans around the country.
This part is where Manfred admitted he’s the absolute worst person for the job. In trying to defend himself and the Braves, he admitted MLB is not a nationally marketed game. Yes, as we see, it is nationally televised, but Manfred is actually correct here that MLB is not truly marketed nationally. Go outside MLB Network, and you’re not going to find a single national daily television show. That used to be Baseball Tonight, but MLB conspired with ESPN to drop that show.
Manfred has been put in charge of the greatest game this world has to offer. It is pure magic, and it is made up of a diverse group of players from varying backgrounds and different beliefs. This game is America, and it just needs the right steward to usher the game to greater popularity. Instead, we get a commissioner who has no interest in growing the game and pointing out all the things he sees wrong with the game.
That’s right. With respect to Manfred, when we hear him speak it’s about what’s wrong with the game or that racist chants are alright because Atlanta is a racist city. This is hyperbole for sure, but this also doesn’t miss the mark on how his tenure as commissioner is defined. Overall, what MLB has in Manfred is a coward afraid to do what’s right for the game or its fans. That’s beyond incompetent, and baseball needs better.