How Mets pitching went so very wrong

*All statistics to date through May 23

The New York Mets entered the 2017 season with almost the same team as 2016, but with Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler back from injuries instead of Bartolo Colon. Instead of continuing the success of the past two seasons, the Mets find themselves in a much worse position. As of June 2, the Mets are in second place in the NL East and six games under .500, whereas at the same time last year, the team was six games over .500 and only three games back in the division. It’s easy to blame the poor record on injuries, as most starters have encountered some injury during the season already: Steven Matz and Seth Lugo have yet to pitch this year, Noah Syndergaard is out for weeks (at least) with a partially torn lat muscle, and closer Jeurys Familia is down with a blood clot. And that’s just the pitching staff! On the offensive side, Lucas Duda, Yoenis Cespedes, Travis d’Arnaud, and Asdrubal Cabrera have all missed time due to injury. But to blame all the Mets’ troubles on injuries would be naïve. Instead, the struggles of the pitching staff, which has become difficult to watch day-in and day-out, that should be blamed for the poor showing so far. While it is not unreasonable for replacement pitchers such as Tommy Milone to struggle, the team (and fans) went in expecting a repeat performance from Robert Gsellman and high hopes for Harvey, despite his offseason life-changing surgery. They’ve been sorely disappointed so far.

Last year, the Mets pitchers, both starters and relievers, were in the top 15 in DRA in all of Major League Baseball, and overall ranked ninth. However, this year they have dropped all the way to 20th, are barely cracking the top half of the league in starters, and rank 3rd-to-last in DRA for their relievers. For a team that was supposed to be reliant on their starting pitching, it’s difficult to compete when your best asset has instead turned into a liability.

But what exactly is causing the New York Mets pitching staff to be so terrible? Unfortunately, there is not just one easy fix for this team because they have struggled in numerous ways.

Missing the Strike Zone

It’s difficult to have success pitching when your pitchers can’t hit the strike zone. Two months into the season, the Mets are walking more than a full batter more per nine innings and have seen their K/BB drop by 25%. One of the predominant reasons the Mets walk rates are up is that they have thrown more than 50% of their pitches this season outside of the strike zone. While it is not a huge increase compared to last year, the impact can be felt.

The combination of more pitches thrown outside of the zone and a lower swing rate by opposing hitters on pitches outside the zone is what is leading to the increase in walks. In 2016, they managed to get swings at 31% of pitches outside the zone; so far, that rate has dropped by 8% in 2017 to 28.7%. Because hitters aren’t swinging at these pitches, the Mets pitchers are instead racking up more walks.

The most fascinating part about the way the Mets are pitching this year is that it appears they are aiming for the plate in a different manner. Whereas last year they tended to attack the top half of the plate (whether in or outside of the zone), they have made what appears to be a rather large change in their approach in 2017. Last year, the Mets threw approximately 47% of their pitches in the lower half of the zone. This year, it has increased to 54%. Why would the Mets potentially change their approach from something that worked in the past? It could have to do with injuries of course or maybe they were told to try to keep the ball down based on some analysis, but whatever it is, the approach is not working so far.

Crushed Pitching

While home runs across the league are pretty consistent between this season and last season (1.17 HR/9 in 2016 and 1.22 HR/9 in 2017), the New York Mets have seen a 50% increase in the amount of home runs surrendered.

One recent enhancement of the Statcast data from Major League Baseball and pulled through Baseball Savant might help in explaining this phenomena. Based on historical data, Statcast gives the estimated wOBA and Batting Average based on the launch angle and exit velocity.

While the exit velocity is down very slightly, the expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA) is up almost 19 points and the actual wOBA is up over 39 points. These increases and differences mean two things. The first is that hitters are making better contact against the Mets, hence the 19 point increase in xwOBA. This is probably at least partially due to the high differential in home runs. The second fact is that the difference between xwOBA and actual wOBA is 26 points whereas last year it was only 6 points. This means that not only are hitters making better contact but also that the Mets are suffering from a combination of bad luck and bad defense. Bad defense would be no surprise as the Mets have Jay Bruce and Curtis Granderson playing regularly in the outfield with their lackluster defensive skills.

Over-usage of the Bullpen

The New York Mets bullpen in 2017 has a DRA of 5.38, good for 28th in the league. Unfortunately, not only are the Mets using their bullpen a lot in 2017, they use it more than any other team. While the league average for a game in 2017 is 3.1 relievers per team, the Mets are averaging four men per game. The Mets are also using .4 relievers more than the Brewers, who sit in second place in relievers per game. While this doesn’t seem like a lot, over the course of just 10 games, this means the Mets have to waste four more pitchers. Given that the Mets are currently carrying eight relievers, for the Mets to complete the season, their average relief pitcher will have to pitch in 81 games. For some perspective, Brad Hand in 2016 led all of Major League Baseball in appearances with 82 with Zach Duke taking second place at 81. In other words, the Mets are on pace for their average relief pitcher to finish in the top of the appearance leaderboard. So far, Jerry Blevins is set to pitch in 93 games, followed by Addison Reed and Fernando Salas with 90 games and Josh Edgin with 83 games. Given that the bullpen is struggling already, an even more tired bullpen later in the season will only mean more trouble for the Mets.

Future Outlook

The New York Mets will soon get back Steven Matz and Seth Lugo to their rotation and that should hopefully help with some of the they will get some relief from the pitching staff struggles. However there seems to be a few solutions that could help the Mets succeed the rest of the year:

1.       Throw the ball in the strike zone – If the Mets can’t get hitters to swing at pitches outside of the zone, then to get more outs the Mets simply need to attack the strike zone.

2.       Throw the ball higher in the strike zone – The New York Mets pitching staff had success last year when they kept the ball up in the strike zone. It would make sense to return to an approach that was successful.

3.       Use fewer relievers – Hopefully if the Mets actually throw the ball in the strike zone and force opponents to swing, they will throw less pitches. Throwing fewer pitches should in turn mean they won’t need to use their bullpen as much and thus should be able to get through games using fewer relief pitchers. Of course, actual bullpen management and using the right reliever at the right time would also help.

4.       Give up fewer home runs – Here’s an easy one, but someone has to say it. The Mets can’t win if they give up 1.4 home runs per game. Less home runs means less runs allowed and hence should help the team.

5.       Strand more runners on base – The Mets are currently 25th in stranding base runners. If they can strand more base runners and have less runs score than that will automatically translate into more victories.

Photo credit: Noah K. Murray – USA Today Sports