With the season slowly winding down, the Mets continue their quest for .500 while giving a bunch of rookies the chance to make an impression in the Bigs. Once the season does come to a close, there will plenty of time to look back, analyze, and speculate as to what direction the team will take going forward. But with just 20 games left to play, let’s take a look at some of the more remarkable/interesting/maybe-kind-of-sad-but-still-fun facts the squad has given us thus far.
Did you know that…
Jason Bay’s grand slam in game 1 of the Mets’ double-header against Atlanta today was his 3rd homer of the month. That ties his two-year, Mets-tenure monthly high. In the four years prior to joining the Mets, Bay posted just four months with less than 4 homers. So that’s good.
Mets pitchers throw the second-fewest pitches per plate appearance of any group in baseball but have the 23rd-worst opponents OBP. What does that mean? They’re working quickly (good) but facing too many batters (bad). Where is the evidence for this? The Mets sport the 9th-worst team WHIP in baseball.
Jason Bay’s .368 slugging percentage is the 18th-worst mark in the Majors, behind world-beaters such as Cliff Pennington, Maicer Izturis, and Yuniesky Betancourt, once considered the worst every day player in Major League Baseball. I’ll stop beating up on Bay though, it’s gotten to the point where how bad I feel for him has nearly made me forget how much better it would have been to sign Matt Holliday. For the record, I said from the minute we began pursuing Bay that he had Classic Mets Disappointment written all over him. Ask anyone who knows me.
The Mets have drawn the 4th-most walks in the majors and have the 6th-fewest strikeouts. That is an improvement of 16 places in walks and 5 places in strikeouts from last year. Terry preaching patience has clearly worked.
R.A. Dickey has now thrown 9 consecutive quality starts. Not Kershaw, Sabathia, Halladay, or Lee can claim a streak of that length this year and it matches Verlander’s longest such streak.
Speaking of Dickey, despite popular opinion that the Mets give their pitchers awful run support, the club has the 5th-best average run support in the Majors.
Mike Pelfrey has already allowed more home runs than he has in any other full season in his career despite throwing 13.1 fewer innings than any other year. Sadly, his 4.68 ERA isn’t the worst mark in his career. That would be his sparkling 5.03 of 2009.
The Mets have the 6th-worst at-bats per home run rate in the majors but the 16th most extra-base hits. Thank you, Jose.
Speaking of Jose, Reyes is 11th in the NL in hits despite compiling just the 36th-most at-bats. Other than Ryan Braun (5th in hits, 28th in at-bats, 2nd to Reyes in average), no player in the top 10 of hits is lower than 13th in at-bats.
Beltran still leads the team in home runs and RBI while K-Rod still leads the team in saves.
9 comments
MetsFan4Decades
9/9/2011-2:56am at 2:56 am (UTC -4)
Thing is, we were never getting Holliday. We’d would have had to give far more than Cards did to get him.
Yea Dickey, boo Pelfrey.
This really says it in a nutshell:
‘Beltran still leads the team in home runs and RBI while K-Rod still leads the team in saves.’
Just finished watching the 2nd game today – which was more pathetic than the first game.
IDK about Duda’s defense out there in RF.
Beato should never pitch 2 innings in a row. It’s never pretty.
When is Chipper gonna retire anyway? Enough.
Anonymous
9/9/2011-12:52pm at 12:52 pm (UTC -4)
I still can’t figure out what would have been worse, Lackey or Bay. I guess knowing the shambles that is the starting rotation and knowing we have Duda now who could play LF, it may have been better to have acquired Lackey. Either way, of Lackey, Holliday and Bay, only Holliday is living up to the monster money they are all making.
Anonymous
9/9/2011-9:35pm at 9:35 pm (UTC -4)
well, with remaining contract being the same, i would still trade bay even up for Lackey right now. Cold always use another arm (hell, he can replace Pelf easily enough), and it would free up LF for someone else!
Anonymous
9/9/2011-10:00pm at 10:00 pm (UTC -4)
Duda could occupy left field, but play it? That’s a horse of another color. If Duda continues to work extremely hard on his defense he may be able to elevate his defensive execution to just being a bad defensive left fielder.
Anonymous
9/10/2011-12:19am at 12:19 am (UTC -4)
I hear Benny Hill music in my head as I watch him chase balls down…
Anonymous
9/9/2011-9:47pm at 9:47 pm (UTC -4)
The Mets could realistically have a very good offensive team next season.
Reyes, Pagan, Wright, Davis, Bay, Duda, 2B, C has a lot of potential especially if Havens takes over the primary 2B duties by the all-star break as is expected.
Now if the SP were any good…
Anonymous
9/10/2011-12:19pm at 12:19 pm (UTC -4)
I know it won’t happen, but if they could bump the payroll a little, non-tender or trade pelf (freeing up his 6ish mil a year) and look to sign CJ Wilson (or Edwin Jackson) would be preferential in my mind, while still retaining Cap. It’s probably a little pricey that way, but in my uneducated estimation, would strengthen the rotation. Figuring Santana, Wilson, Niese, Dickey, Gee with Cap in the BP ready to slide into the rotation if needed… Certainly not the Braves rotation, but decent enough while we wait for the kiddie pitching squad to arrive. Still need to find a closer, though. My vote is for Nathan.
But again, I’m thinking Sandy is going to go leaner than that.
Anonymous
9/10/2011-9:38pm at 9:38 pm (UTC -4)
Although Sandy has hinted that no Type A free agents will be coming here, Wilson is likely to get around 100 mil with Jackson getting at least 50-60. Even if we had the money, I would pass
I do expect Joe Nathan to be our closer next year. We need to go outside the organization for 2012 and he is going to be the cheapest option for 1 year.
Anonymous
9/10/2011-10:36pm at 10:36 pm (UTC -4)
I agree they should try to get a veteran tide them over guy for next year. work on developing the replacement in a set up role.