The last time I checked in on Michael Conforto and his playing time, things were relatively stable. Conforto was sitting against some lefties, but not all. When he did sit, it was in favor of Juan Lagares, deserving of a semi-regular role and a career .282/.325/.425 hitter against left-handed pitching. Playing Lagares also allowed the […]
Author: Jarrett Seidler
Jacob deGrom’s Down Year Proves That He’s A Legitimate Ace
Jacob deGrom is an ace now. It feels like a weird time to declare that. deGrom lost on Tuesday night, dropping his record on the season to 3-3. Much of the first ten weeks of Mets baseball has involved discussion of the struggles of the two best pitchers on the 2015 Mets—deGrom and Matt Harvey. […]
Welcome Home Kelly “Veteran Presence” Johnson
Kelly Johnson was a perfectly fine utility player for the 2015 Mets, coming along in a minor midseason trade with the Braves. He got 138 plate appearances down the stretch and put up a .271 True Average, making him a little bit better than a league-average hitter. He played all four infield and both corner […]
Terry Collins Is Afraid Of (Backup) Catchers
In Wednesday afternoon’s game against the Chicago White Sox, Terry Collins was faced with what looked like a simple choice: with a 1-0 lead, backup catcher Rene Rivera, who had the game’s lone RBI, but entered the day hitting .148/.281/.259 for the season and .210/.259/.329 for his career, came up with the bases loaded and […]
The Best Moments of David Wright’s “Comeback”
David Wright has been a Met for exactly my adult life—he was drafted the same year I went to college, and had established himself as a major league star by the time I graduated. He’s been the one constant with Mets baseball of this era, the homegrown star that stayed, the greatest player in franchise […]
Bartolo Colon: The Most Unlikely Met
When Bartolo Colon hit a majestic home run into the San Diego night on Saturday, my immediate reaction was to scream in joy. Then I texted everyone I knew that could possibly care. Then I watched the replay several dozen times. Eventually, I started reflecting on how Bartolo came to be a beloved 2016 Met. […]
The Case For Platooning Lucas Duda
The Mets have faced three lefty starters over the first month of the 2015 season. On April 13th against Adam Conley, Wilmer Flores started at first base and Lucas Duda entered the game in a double switch after Conley departed. On April 26th against Brandon Finnegan, Wilmer Flores started at first base and Lucas Duda […]
How The Mets Built Their Bullpen
One of the underappreciated parts of the recent run of the Mets is the bullpen Sandy Alderson and his team have assembled. While the Mets were rebuilding, and even going back through the years, the Mets have frequently had thin, overpriced pens. For example, earlier Alderson-era bullpen iterations had relied heavily on washed-up former closers, […]
Terry Collins Rarely Has It Easy
The debate about removing Dodger pitcher Ross Stripling 7.3 innings into a no-hitter in his first career start recently raged within baseball, and my thoughts turned back to June 1, 2012. Most Mets fans probably know the date by heart–it was the night Johan Santana pitched the first no-hitter in Mets history. Santana, making a […]
The New Kid
Yoenis Cespedes isn’t supposed to be a New York Met. At the 2015 trade deadline, Cespedes was Sandy Alderson’s fourth choice for an outfielder acquisition, or thereabouts, after potential deals for Carlos Gomez, Jay Bruce, and Justin Upton all failed to materialize. When Cespedes came to Flushing, it was as a rental leftfielder, and the […]