Reyes, from the time he was called up, a day short of his 20th birthday, in 2003 until his departure as a free agent after the 2011 season, was one of the best players on the New York Mets and a fan favorite. During that time, Reyes was a top offensive threat and an above average defender and, along Carlos Beltran and David Wright, was able to lead them in 2006 to their first division title and NCLS since 1988. But this is no longer the Jose Reyes that sparked “Jose-Jose-Jose” chants at Shea Stadium and subsequently Citi Field. Mets fans must understand and accept that this is not the same player or person they remember. This Jose Reyes is an accused domestic abuser who was suspended 51 games in 2016 and a below-replacement player.

It is understandable that some New York Mets fans have fond memories of Reyes and are not seeing how bad he really been this season. From 2006 to 2011, Jose Reyes totaled 28.5 BWARP, which placed him 13th in Major League Baseball over that period, despite an injury shortened season in 2009. In his final season with the Mets in 2011, before taking his talents to South Beach (the Miami Marlins), he had 6.4 BWARP, placing him eighth in the majors and led the National League in batting average. Not only was Jose Reyes one of the best players on the team by new age statistics, but he led the Mets in many counting stats, making his presence felt on the team even more. During his tenure, he led the team in hits four times and finished in the top three six times. Once he reached base, he was a constant threat to steal bases, setting the team single-season stolen base record in 2007 with 78, the most in a single season of any major leaguer since 1988, and holds the record for most as a member of the New York Mets. And whenever Reyes was on base, he would often score runs, leading the team three times. In the eyes of some of the remaining faithful New York Mets fans, Reyes is still this amazing player and offensive threat.

Reyes, who left the Mets in 2011, followed it up with only a single season with Miami and a BWARP of 4.1 before being sent to the Toronto Blue Jays in the Marlins fire sale along with Mark Buehrle and Heath Bell. After two years of posting a 3.3 and 3.0 BWARPs, Reyes was subsequently dealt to the Colorado Rockies at the trade deadline of 2015 in exchange for Troy Tulowitzki. Unfortunately, Reyes’ decline continued and he posted only a combined 1.2 BWARP that year and an OBP in hitter friendly Colorado of only .291.

Not only was Reyes’s on-field performance on the downfall, his off-the-field performance in 2015 was even worse. While on vacation in Hawaii in October 2015, Reyes’s wife, Katherine Ramirez, called the police after the shortstop allegedly grabbed her by the throat and threw her into a glass door; she was taken to the emergency room with injuries to her side, neck and wrist. Unfortunately, Ramirez failed to cooperate with police, meaning no charges were brought against Reyes.

The only punishment Reyes received was a 51-game suspension under Major League Baseball’s Domestic Violence Policy, keeping him off the field until May 31, 2016. However, as Reyes was already on leave from the Rockies, his punishment was only him being suspended 17 games, donating a measly $100,000 to a charitable cause (less than 0.1% of the contract he signed with the Marlins) and a scripted apology. After a brief stint in Triple-A with the Rockies, he was designated for assignment and subsequently released.

However, the New York Mets are not the Colorado Rockies. They are the team under the ownership of Jeff Wilpon, who fired a pregnant Leigh Castergine, the Senior Vice President of Ticket Sales, after she reported him to human resources for making disparaging comments about her having a child out of wedlock. With Reyes released from the Rockies, Colorado was responsible for the rest of his salary from the contract he signed with the Miami Marlins, meaning the former Met was available for the Major League minimum. The Mets were happy to give Reyes a minor league contract. On June 26, 2016. he was back with the team in the minors and in the majors by July 5. Of course, the Mets took full advantage of this situation, using Reyes as much as possible despite his performance on and off the field.

The New York Mets, pretending it was still the late 2000s and operating as a small-to-medium market-sized team, decided to bring back Reyes for 2017 at his league minimum salary after posting a 1.6 BWARP in 2016. Despite his dismal performance, he managed to lead the team in games played and plate appearances. With top prospects, particularly Amed Rosario, ready to play every day and Asdrubal Cabrera and Todd Frazier on the team, it seemed like Jose Reyes’ second tenure with the New York Mets would hopefully come to an end. But in typical New York Mets fashion, it did not.

In early 2018, the New York Mets re-signed Jose Reyes to a $2 million contract as a utility player and to serve as a mentor for Amed Rosario. This logic is flawed in both senses. The New York Mets already had Asdrubal Cabrera and Wilmer Flores as utility infielders, assuming Rosario started at shortstop, and could have had multiple other options on the 40-man roster. Additionally, saying that Jose Reyes should be a mentor for Amed Rosario is laughable. I do not believe Jose Reyes is someone a team would want to mentor their top prospects. Not only does Jose Reyes have the domestic violence issue, he was sued in 2015 for child support for a child he had while cheating on his wife, who he only told after she found out in 2015 and was sued for stopping pay of child support. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think Jose Reyes is proper mentor material.

But it wasn’t even just that Reyes was brought back for 2018; he has been inexplicably starting for the team too, having started 32 of the 45 games he has appeared in so far. Between his personal issues and poor performance, Reyes’ time with the New York Mets must come to an end.

Reyes, no longer a serviceable Major League Baseball player by any measure, has been worth -0.8 BWARP so far this season, meaning he has been worse than replacement level and as one of the worse players in the league. His poor performance offensively is evident through his lack of ability to get on base: this season, his on-base percentage is a career worst .250 and tied for seventh-worst for all players with more than 150 plate appearances this season.

What exactly is the reasoning behind Jose Reyes’s inability to get on base? It’s not that he doesn’t walk or strikes out too much. While his strikeout rate at 14.9% is the second highest of his career, it’s still below the league average of 22.2% and even his walk rate of 8.9% is slightly above the league average 8.6%. Currently his BABIP is .205, which is the second lowest in the league and the lowest of his career, meaning there is the potential that he is having some bad luck.

However, it’s more apparent that Reyes is just making bad contact. His percentage of balls hit softly is a career high for him of 30.5, based on data from Baseball Info Solutions. This is worst in Major League Baseball out of all hitters with 150 plate appearances, where the next highest is 29.7%, almost a full percentage point lower. The average for Major League Baseball is 18.2%. This means that Jose Reyes is, in fact, just a bad player. Even if there is some bad luck, if he can no longer make quality contact and get on base, then his offense is not worth keeping him around on the team.

Along with the lack of quality contact is also the impact of less power, which puts Reyes at his career low slugging percentage of 0.235, again the worst in Major League Baseball this season. The combination of soft contact and lack of power makes Reyes anything but an offensive threat to opposing teams.

Based on these statistics alone, it’s clear that Jose Reyes is not being kept around for his offense. So maybe there is something the New York Mets’ front office sees in his defense. While fielding metrics are far from perfect, Reyes has a negative UZR (ultimate zone rating) at both shortstop and third base, which means that he is a below average at both positions defensively. Additionally, according to Baseball Prospectus, he has been worth -1.8 Fielding Runs Above Average this season. So defense can’t be the reason the New York Mets keep him around either

Between the on-field and off-field evidence, it’s inexplicable why Jose Reyes is still on the major league roster, and especially inexplicably why he’s getting playing time. The only plausible reason that I can see to keep him around is the front office’s frugality. For some reason, they gave him a $2 million contract for 2018 and he still has salary owed to him for the rest of the season as little as it may be. The Mets have proven that are reluctant to spend money, let eat money; the team failed to pay down any contracts in their recent trades of Asdrubal Cabrera and Jeurys Familia and have steadfastly refused to reinvest money saved with the insurance on David Wright’s contract. There is also the fact that I am sure the Mets still have unused Jose Reyes merchandise that they need to use while he is a member of the Mets. As recently as last year, they were still giving out Jose Reyes and David Wright duo souvenir soda cups, even though Wright didn’t play a single game.

Whatever the reason would be, for the sake of the future of the New York Mets and the sanity of their fans, it is time to cut the cord, once and for all. If the Yankees can force Alex Rodriguez to retire after a Hall of Fame career, I am sure the Mets can cut a deal to at least get Reyes off the field and off fans’ televisions.

Photo credit: Jason Getz – USA Today Sports

Matt Harvey’s Perspective: A person with a calm demeanor and thinking rationally would of course in that situation think that Harvey should take himself out of the game, let Jeurys Familia or Addison Reed finish the job and let the Mets season survive another day. That was my thoughts out in Big Apple Reserved seats after the eighth inning of Game 5. But then again, I was a fan just watching the game. I was not Matt Harvey, who had just thrown eight shutout innings in the biggest game of his life.

From Harvey’s perspective, it’s easy to see in retrospect why he would demand to come back out and pitch the ninth inning. Being penned the “Dark Knight of Gotham” in a 2013 Sports Illustrated article by Tom Verducci, Harvey became the Mets’ ace and “savior,” despite his young age. With such pressure on himself, Harvey took it upon himself to be the one to close out the game. He had already gone eight innings with nine strikeouts and had just gotten a 1-2-3 inning in the eighth. The Mets’ win expectancy at that point was 94%. There was no reason for Harvey to think he couldn’t finish that game. But it also was the exact example of mistakes made in leaders; his distrust of the bullpen was most likely an example of recency bias, even though the Mets bullpen had performed well during the season and stayed slightly above average in FIP. But instead, he was almost certainly looking at the bullpen that had just lost Games 1 and 4 of the series. He couldn’t trust them to get that game finished, so he put it upon himself to get it done.

As the leader, Harvey had to be the one to finish the game. Think back to all the great postseason performance. They don’t end with the star pitcher pitching eight innings and then leaving before the ninth despite a dominant performance. Aces finish games. With all this said, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Harvey demanded the ball. It was his moment to shine, his biggest game and he could not trust the bullpen to get the job done. Every star pitcher would have done the same and demanded the ball under those circumstances. If not, fans would be complaining on the radio about the pitcher’s lack of “toughness” for giving up the ball. No one can blame Harvey for what he did that day. If they do, they’re only fooling themselves about the would-be hero of Gotham.

Terry Collins’ Perspective: Now that we understand why Matt Harvey demanded to Dan Warthen and Terry Collins that he wanted the ball to pitch the ninth inning, let’s consider why the skipper let Matt Harvey stay in the game. Once again, from a fan’s perspective it appears, Collins should have been the one to tell Harvey “no,” but, as the manager, he had good reason to let his ace finish what he started. First, there was the simple fact that Harvey had just easily completed the eighth inning on nine pitches, getting three routine fly ball outs. With that ease of an inning, Harvey could easily pitch the next one as well. His fastball was still at 96 mph, slider around 90 mph and curveball and changeup were still hitting 86 mph. There was no obvious reason to think he was slowing down. The other fact of the matter is that the Mets bullpen was tired. Familia had pitched the first four games and had been off. His ERA was only 1.80 but his strikeout rate was 5.4 compared to 9.9 during the regular season. Tyler Clippard also had not pitched well during the World Series and although Addison Reed had looked good prior to that game, it seemed unlikely that Collins would go to anyone but Familia. The biggest reason, though, is that worst of all, Collins could always bring on a reliever right away at the first sign of trouble, which he did anyway. Collins did what most old-school managers would have done: let their starting pitcher try to finish the game. Unfortunately for Collins and the Mets, it backfired.

If Harvey had been able to pitch the ninth and close the door on the Royals for a Game 5 win, Harvey could have cemented his name in Mets history. There was no way of knowing of what his career would become and the injuries and downfall that would occur. Any pitcher in Harvey’s situation would have done the same and all he can ever hope for is that he once again gets that situation. While unfortunately that won’t occur with the Mets, as a fan, I sincerely hope that Harvey finds a team where he can be successful and one day, get that moment to shine in October (or November) again.

Robles’ first problem is that he is having more difficulty with his command this year. While his strikeout rates are up from 2016, his walk rate is up even more. For example, he has struck out approximately 10% more hitters in 2017 than in 2016, but his walk rate is up by more than 25%.

There are two main explanations to why one’s walk rate would increase by such a large percentage. The first is that the pitcher, in this case Robles, is throwing fewer pitches in the strike zone. This is true as Robles pitches in the zone defined by Zone% below has dropped from 47.1% to 43.9%. In addition, we see that the competition is swinging less at those pitches as the O-Swing% (outside of the zone swing rate) has fallen from 28.3% to 23.7%. Therefore, the combination of these two is resulting in a higher amount of walks.

From looking at the charts, courtesy of BrooksBaseball, of where Hansel Robles is pitching the ball, there doesn’t appear to be a huge difference in location. He’s missing more on the inside part of the strike zone to right-handed hitters this year, but given that opposing hitters hit those balls well last year in terms of slugging percentage, it makes sense that he might be more careful in that area.

In terms of how Robles is pitching though with his pitch usage, there are not many differences year-over-year. He is relying less on his fastball by a very slight margin and favoring his slider more, but overall, his pitch mix remains similar and at similar velocities.

Therefore, Robles’ main problem is that he just isn’t hitting the strike zone as much and not getting hitters to chase those outside pitches. Hitters are waiting more for their pitch and are able to crush it when they do. Robles is giving up more fly balls this year, although a modest five percent increase or 2.2 percentage point increase. His home run rate, however, is up 98 percent from 8.2 percent to 16.2 percent. Compared to the rest of the relief pitchers in the league, his fly ball rate is 21 percent more than the league average and his home run to fly ball ratio is 29 percent higher than the league average. This combination of the two is a recipe for the unfortunate setback in his career that has occurred this season.

While Robles over the whole season has suffered, there is some room for optimism. In July, when he was called back up from Las Vegas, he pitched 6.2 innings while posting his highest strikeout rate and lowest walk rate to date. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been as good in August so far, but both bad appearances occurred in Colorado including one in which he was pitching with numbness in his fingers. Since returning from a short rest, he has been much better in his latest appearances against Los Angeles and Texas.

If the real Hansel Robles is the one we saw in July and for a few games in August, the Mets might have a viable reliever to complement A.J. Ramos and Jeurys Familia in 2018. If he’s really the volatile, unpredictable relief pitcher who sparks as much fear as he does hope, he should find himself pointing to the Vegas skies next year.

Photo credit: Rick Osentoski – USA Today Sports

Comparison to the Rest of the League

While it might be recognized by most New York Mets fans that their team is slow, how slow actually are they compared to the rest of the league? This is not weighted by plate appearances though, which allows for some bias, but overall the Mets are one of the slowest teams in the league at not only each position but also overall. The only player who is near the top of his positional rankings is Travis d’Arnaud. Of course, none of this is particularly surprising given that the Mets frequently use pitchers as pinch runners.

Year-over-Year Trends in Speed

With Statcast data on Sprint Speed available going back to 2015, fans can see the trends of the speeds of different players and compare them for the past three seasons. Not only are the New York Mets one of the slowest teams, but their key players seem to be getting slower. In the chart below, with the black line representing the line in which speed remains the same from 2016 to 2017, any player above the line has seen an increase in their foot speed while players below have seen decreases in their foot speed. The results make sense for the most part.

Unfortunately for the New York Mets, half of their starting lineup consists of players that have seen decreases in speed due to most likely a combination of age and injuries. In the age category is Jose Reyes, who 10 years ago would lead off for the Mets, was one of the faster players in the league and was a perenal threat to lead the league in stolen bases and triples. However, that was a decade ago and his age is showing. Not only is he no longer as fast as he used to be, hence he is tied in 18th place among shortstops in the majors, he also can no longer hit, making him a source of frustration for Mets fans. Another player past his prime is Curtis Granderson, who since 2015 has seen his speed around the bases decrease four percent from 27.7 feet per second in 2015 to 26.6 feet per second in 2016, dropping him below the league average overall. Not only is Granderson one of the slowest outfielders in all of baseball, he is actually the slowest center fielders in the majors, ranking dead last out of the 46 who qualify.

Two others Mets have shown rapid decreases from in their speed from 2016 to 2017, but these are at least partially due to injuries. Yoenis Cespdes is now 31 years old and slowing down is acceptable. However, losing one foot per second around the base paths is tied for the 10th largest decrease in all of Major League Baseball from 2016 to 2017. This is most likely not just due to age but also in part due to Cespedes’ hamstring problems that have hampered him in 2017. The other player that is potentially seeing a decrease in part due to injuries is 31-year-old Neil Walker, who is currently on the DL with a partial left hamstring tear. While he has only lost 0.5 feet per second, it is still a sizeable decrease.

There is one bright spot for the New York Mets in the data, though, as Michael Conforto has shown a decent increase in speed around the bases. Given that Conforto is still maturing as a baseball player in his sophomore season, and that he’s only 24, this seems pretty reasonable.

Limitations of the Speed Statistic

While this data is useful in a direct comparison of players against each other, it is difficult to justify if this is, in fact, the correct way to measure speed.The definition is that a player must attempt to advance two bases on a ball that is not a home run. However, sometimes a player won’t give maximum effort in those cases. On a ball hit to the outfield, a player might easily be able to advance from first to third but not give it his all. Another potential concern is that there is no currently granular data and hence other factors such as placement of the ball and situation are not factored in, all of which can be important in determining the effort that a player gives when running around the bases. As only aggregated data is available, there are also potential sample size problems as there is no way to see exactly how many observations there are for each player.

Despite all the potential limitations, the new speed data is potentially useful to fans. The ability to directly see how fast one player is compared to others is easy to understand and, while the data it isn’t perfect, it does give very reasonable results: who would have guessed that Billy Hamilton and Byron Buxton are the two fastest players in the league?

Potential Uses for Granular Data

While this data at an aggregate level is not as meaningful, teams, and particularly base coaches, should be able to turn the granular data into useful information. Knowing how diferent classes of players fare against outfielders based on their speed could be extremely useful in deciding whether to send a runner or not. For example, maybe Billy Hamilton could easily score on a sacrifice fly to Giancarlo Stanton but Curtis Granderson would have a much tougher time. And who knows, maybe Mets fans would be more willing to understand the past decisions of Tim Teufeul and Glenn Sherlock as third base coach if more data was available to support their decisions to have runners try to score. Or not.

Photo credit: Andrew Villa – USA Today Sports

To prevent what happened last August from happen again, Bruce consulted the Mets’ director of baseball research and development, TJ Barra. The stats below tell the story that Wagner wrote and Barra explained to Bruce. During August 2016, Bruce was hitting a much higher percentage of ground balls and hitting it more to the opposite field instead of the center of the field. This resulted in a much lower on-base and slugging percentage. While Jay Bruce was able to rebound by the end of the season, the question remained which player would the New York Mets see in 2017: the one that made weak contact and hit too many ground balls or the one who would hit more fly balls, thus resulting in more home runs?

Luckily for the Mets, the answer appears to be the latter. In a year of many disappointments, Jay Bruce has been a rare bright spot for the Mets. While he has struggled recently, Bruce has overall had a great year in comparison to his time with the Mets in 2016. (Note: the 2016 stats below only include his time with the Mets)

The main question is whether Jay Bruce has just gotten lucky so far in 2017 or he has actually made adjustments on the statistical data. Bruce worked with the hitting coach Kevin Long and assistant Pat Roessler to try to improve his swing and launch angle, with an ultimate goal of a 50% fly ball ratio. And the changes he made have paid off as Bruce is at his highest fly ball ratio ever and extremely close to his 50% goal.

One thing that has definitely helped the right fielder so far this season is that he has been more selective at the plate. He is swinging at a 25% less pitches outside of the strike zone, which has allowed him to make better contact. On balls in the zone, he is swinging less but making contact more often.

While Bruce has been able to rebound from his poor performance with the Mets in 2016, it has been short-lived success. After getting off to a great start in April, he found himself in a rough slump in May, hitting just .210/.296/.430. At least part of the reason was due to Bruce’s getting away from what worked in April. His strikeout rate rose 36% from 16% to almost 22% and his OBP and slugging percentage dropped 74 points and 154 points, respectively, due in part to suffering from the 20th worst BABIP in all of Major League Baseball in May at .222 (the league-wide average in May was .298).

What most likely caused the BAPIP to drop dramatically and the increased strike out rate is a faltering in his approach at the plate. Bruce entered the season looking to pull the ball more and hit more fly balls. In May, he stopped doing what gave him his success in April. Instead of pulling the ball, he ended up hitting it more towards center field and the opposite field. Although his fly ball rate was similar (albeit with a small drop), by not pulling the ball he sees less success when he makes contact. As a left-handed hitter, his fly balls will have a better chance of leaving the ball park if he were to pull them down the right field line. Instead,  his HR/FB rate to drop from 18% to 14%. Not only did Bruce not pull the ball as much as he did the previous month but a higher percentage of balls he hit were soft contact. Hitting the ball softly, no matter where it is hit, is going to lead to a higher likelihood of outs.

Hopefully for Jay Bruce and the Mets, this was a one-month phenomena and the rest of the season he can perform like he did in April. So far, June is looking up as his pull rate is back up to 50% with a hard hit ball rate of 45%. For the sake of a playoff push, and for Jay Bruce to try to cash in on his free agency after the season, both the team and the player hope this rebound is real. If it is, then it would be interesting to see if more players start to follow in Bruce’s footsteps to make some changes in response to the data. While The Only Rule Is It Has to Work, by former Baseball Prospectus Editor-in-Chiefs Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller, shows some of the disdain towards data by players, Jay Bruce has proven that even a 30-year-old player in the prime of his career can make necessary adjustments based on it and potentially save their careers.

*Stats are as of June 5

Photo credit: Brett Davis – USA Today Sports

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

With so many options, it could become very difficult to decide the share of playing time in the outfield. Luckily, there is more data than ever to help the Mets make smart decisions. Also, the public has more information thanks to the release of Catch Probability metrics from MLBAM’s Statcast on March 12. Historically, some of this data has been used in video replays showing what the probability percentage of an outfielder making a catch is; however, it has never been released to the public in this form. The exact definition of Catch Probability from MLB.com is as follows:

“Catch Probability represents the likelihood that a batted ball to the outfield will be caught. With Statcast tracking the exact start position on the field for each fielder and also measuring the hang time of each batted ball, the two most important pieces of data to define the difficulty of a catch opportunity are: 1. How far did the fielder have to go? 2. How much time did he have to get there?”

In summary, it is the likelihood of the average defender is making that same exact catch based on how far the fielder would have to travel and how long the air stayed in the air. The way Statcast Catch Probability data was released to the public is that they broke the data into five different categories by probability of the catch being made.

• 5 Star: 0 – 25%
• 4 Star: 26 – 50%
• 3 Star: 51 – 75%
• 2 Star: 76 – 90%
• 1 Star: 91 – 95%

The current defensive metrics are under a lot of scrutiny for being tough to understand and not representing true talent levels … however, the probability of a ball being caught is simple enough statistic that hopefully analytical and casual fans can get behind it.

The current defensive metrics and most fans can agree that the Mets in 2017 are expected to start an outfield of below-average defensive players; Yoenis Cespedes (with the exception of his arm), Curtis Granderson, and Jay Bruce are all poor defenders. Potential backups Michael Conforto and Juan Lagares, are considered to be better defenders, especially Lagares who is considered to be one of the league’s best. My question is this: do these new Catch Probability stats confirm what we think we know or raise new doubts.

The data available from Statcast is available for each individual player who spent time in the outfield during 2015 or 2016. To see how the Mets performed compared to the rest of the league, I combined data for both seasons for each player as well as for all of MLB to get a league average. The data is summarized below, red represents worse than league average and green represents better than league average in each of the five categories.

1 Star (91–95%)

The one star category is those basic can of corn catches which have been made approximately 93 percent of the time over the past two seasons. All Mets are either in or above the expected range of 91 to 95 percent, except Jay Bruce who only makes the simplest catches 88 percent of the time. Given that there are other outfielders vying for the position it seems reasonable to not want to use a player that isn’t making the easiest catches. The impact of Jay Bruce’s poor defense based on his opportunities the past two seasons is two additional hits for the opposition over the course of the season.

2 Star (76–90%)

In the two star category is where we start to see the New York Mets lag behind the rest of the league. The league average for Catch Probability is 83 percent and three players out of the five players are lower than that. Both Conforto and Granderson are lower but only by a small amount as they are both at 82 percent and still within the expected range of 76 to 90 percent. Cespedes with a catch percentage of 74 percent is noticeably underperforming the rest of the league in what should still be relatively simple catches. What is extremely odd about the data is that Jay Bruce is above average in this category and near the upper echelon at 89 percent. This is strange considering based on the data he is worse at making one star catches which should be easier than the two star catches. Perhaps this is due to a small sample issue?

3 Star (51–75%)

These catches are on average made one half to three-quarters of the time. Juan Lagares has only had 20 of these opportunities over the past two seasons but is a clear outlier in the data converting 95 percent of these opportunities into outs. Similarly Michael Conforto in his 21 opportunities has shown success (81 percent, above the expected range of 51 to 75 percent).  Cespedes, Granderson, and Bruce are all still within the expected range, however they are all below the league average especially Bruce who is 53 percent, close to the bottom boundary of 51 percent.

4 Star (26–50%)

These catches are more difficult and only made between one-quarter and one-half of the time. Here Juan Lagares once again is extraordinarily above league average at 83 percent although this is only 12 opportunities over two years which is an extremely small sample. Most interesting about this is that Jay Bruce who struggles in the 3 Star category is now above average and towards the top of this range. As the data is currently only at an aggregate level it is not known if he is just genuinely better at making these more difficult catches than the rest of the league either due to skill or luck or if the data is biased somehow. For example, if his catches generally tend towards the 50 percent catch probability then it makes sense that he would be towards the top. On the other side, Conforto struggles in this range despite doing very well in the 50 to 75 percent range. He had only 14 opportunities though so it is still a small sample size but the flip-flop in this category is a little strange. Cespedes and Granderson still struggle compared to the rest of the league.

5 Star (0–25%)

These are the most difficult catches to make and are made less than one-quarter of the time. Juan Lagares and Michael Conforto are both are only at 20 percent, but that is still above average in this category. (Lagares had 30 opportunities and Conforto had 25 opportunities). Both Jay Bruce and Curtis Granderson are performing below average in this category making catches less than eight percent of the time. However the worst F for the Mets is Yoenis Cespedes. He has made only one catch in his 71 chances in these difficult-to-catch opportunities. Cespedes is actually second-worst in the league to only Matt Kemp who has zero catches in his 72 opportunities.

Conclusion

The defensive data released by Statcast confirms what most New York Mets fans thought: Juan Lagares is the best defensive outfielder on the team followed by Michael Conforto. However the main issue for the team is that right now Curtis Granderson and Jay Bruce are likely starting over Lagares and Conforto. Lagares has struggled to hit the past two years which makes it understandable that he is not likely to start; the bigger enigma is what to do with Michael Conforto. He is still very young and if given the opportunity he should be able to hit at the big league level. Although he put up only a .310 OBP in the major last year, he dominated at Las Vegas with a .483 OBP and a .727 slugging Percentage. This means he does not have any more room to grow in Triple-A and must be given the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues. Hopefully the New York Mets understand the defensive metrics, listen to Jarrett, and give Conforto the opportunity to start in 2017. Although Cespedes appears as clearly one of the worst defenders on the team, I will not try to convince anybody that the Mets should not play him as his defensive inefficiency is not worth nearly as much as his offensive value. If I was the Mets I would start Cespdes, Conforto, and a combination of Granderson and Bruce. If the Mets had been able to trade Jay Bruce, than they would not have had to worry about his defensive skills. Unfortunately with the surplus of power hitting outfielders this off-season, they could not find any takers.

Author’s Note

Unfortunately, Statcast defensive data so far is that it is only available at this limited aggregate level as of right now. Once more granular data is available these data points can be further weighted and analyzed properly. Darren Willman, Director of Baseball Research & Development for MLB, tweeted on March 19 about hoping to make the charts at least more dynamic. This granularity and customization of the data will further allow us to make better comparisons of the players and their defensive metrics.

Photo Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Thinking of Fernando Martinez, I started to wonder not only what happened to him but other players who I once followed. While some have stuck with the Mets, ultimately a lot of them–like Martinez–are long gone. I decided to follow up on some of them to see how their careers have progressed. Some are still trying to make it in the majors, some even became stars overseas.

Fernando Martinez

Fernando Martinez is the most depressing name on the list to me, as I had high hopes for him as a teenager. In 2008, he was only 19 years old and near the top of the major prospect rankings. Unfortunately, his career was derailed by frequent injuries. As Toby Hyde detailed back in 2012 at MetsBlog.com, every season Fernando Martinez just couldn’t stay healthy and had frequent long stints on the disabled list. The following is the number of games that Martinez played each season during his Mets career, including games in both the minors and major leagues.

In the 47 games that Martinez actually did play with the Met, he was mediocre. This led to his release from the organization at only 23 years of age. The Astros gave him a chance–he played 52 games with them–before trading him to the New York Yankees. During the 2013 season he was suspended 50 games for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal. The suspension marked the end of his professional baseball career at the age of 25. He has spent time in the Dominican Winter League and the Mexican League but no MLB franchise has given him another chance.

Nick Evans

Nick Evans is my favorite player on his list because I was able to buy both his and Daniel Murphy’s shirseys in 2009 and I always felt a connection with the two of them as I followed their trajectory to the majors. Unlike Murphy, Evans had a limited tenure with the Mets that lasted from 2008 to 2011 and never played more than 60 games in a year. After the Mets, he had a short time with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but never was able to stick in the majors long-term.

What makes Nick Evans interesting is his success in 2016 playing for Doosan Bears. Eric Thames’ success in the KBO got him signed to a three-year contract with the Milwaukee Brewers … but what about Nick Evans’ success?

Evans–after years of mediocrity domestically–was able to be one the best hitters in the KBO last year. I hope that if Evans can repeat this performance in 2017, that some team is willing to give him a chance to play in the majors again.

Josh Satin

The replacement for Nick Evans on the Mets was Josh Satin, a 2008 sixth-round pick out of UC Berkley. Satin was able to appeal to the Jewish fan base but never really stuck in the majors. He was replaced full-time by Lucas Duda and never got a major role with the team again. After an unsuccessful season playing for the Cincinnati Reds’ Triple-A affiliate in 2015 and 18 games with the San Diego Padres Triple-A team in 2016, he retired from professional baseball due to injury complications. However, for those who miss Josh Satin (hey, Jeff Paternostro!), he can be seen this March, playing for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic.

Mike Baxter

Mike Baxter was a hometown favorite from Whitestone who lasted three seasons with the Mets. He is most remembered for making a spectacular catch while crashing into the outfield wall that preserved Johan Santana’s no-hitter, the first and only one in the team’s history. He was waived after the 2013 season and moved onto brief stints with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. He spent the 2016 season in the minors with the Seattle Mariners and is currently a minor league free agent looking for a job.

Omir Santos

Despite only playing in only 96 games for the New York Mets, Omir Santos made his presence felt on the team. For his first home run as a Met, he hit a grand slam. However, his big moment was against the Boston Red Sox, on May 23, 2009. With the Mets down to their final out, Santos hit the ball high off the top of the Green Monster off of Jonathan Papelbon. Originally ruled a double, Santos was awarded a home run upon video review giving the Mets the lead and propelling them to a 3-2 victory over the Sox. Despite Santos’ decent season he was replaced the next season by a combination of Rod Barajas and the forgettable Henry Blanco (I didn’t even remember played for the Mets). He became a minor league free agent after the 2010 season and subsequently signed with the Detroit Tigers. As a member of the Tigers he only played in 14 more games before spending his final season in the minors of the Cleveland Indians, where he got to make one plate appearance in the majors. He is technically a minor league free agent currently despite not having played professional since 2014. His career is most likely over but at least he gave Mets fans a couple of great memories.

Jeff Duncan

The other time I got to see the Binghamton Mets was in 2004. It was particularly memorable as I got to meet Jeff Duncan who played 56 games in 2003 and 13 games in 2004 for the New York Mets. (Sidenote: I was hoping to meet Scott Kazmir but he was traded a week before in the horrendous, legendary deal for Victor Zambrano.) Duncan couldn’t autograph a baseball for me before the doubleheader but was nice enough to fulfill his promise to do so in between games of the doubleheader. Unfortunately, he never made the majors again despite playing in the minors for the San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. Since his retirement in 2008, he has gone on to become a coach at the collegiate level, coaching at both Auburn and Purdue before getting an opportunity to be the head coach of the Kent State Golden Flashes since 2014.

While these players may never play at the MLB level again, I am thankful for the memories that they have helped shape in my New York Mets fandom.

Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

(* – Editor’s Note: If you listen to For All You Kids Out There, it was not all that silent. But we digress.)

For Reed this will be his first opportunity to close since he lost the role as a Diamondback before being traded to the Mets in 2015. Unfortunately, Mets fans could wrongly make inferences on Addison Reed’s potential success at closer based on three statistics: saves, blown saves, and save percentage.

It’s wrong to make judgment on these three statistics because it is important to note that Reed’s save opportunities are an extremely small sample size and also represent different in-game situations than when Familia appeared.  Instead of these three statistics, fans should be looking at advanced metrics from Baseball Prospectus (shameless plug!), which show that Reed was clearly the more dominant pitcher this past season. He earned double the value of Familia in WARP and had a better Deserved Run Average (DRA) and Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). This is also a small sample size given it was just one season, but Reed pitched in 80 games for the New York Mets in 2016; that’s a much larger sample than those five save opps. Even more surprising is the fact that Reed even dominated the strikeout game more with 10.5 K/9 compared to Familia’s 9.7. Finally, he also mastered his command by not walking batters either, putting together the sixth-best K/BB ratio among MLB relievers. The comparison of Reed and Familia by multiple fancy statistics is shown below.

Compared to the rest of his career, these numbers are a bit of an anomaly for Reed. All of these numbers were career bests whereas Familia had a down year relative to 2015. But that does not mean that the numbers should be discounted; we should just be aware that they could possibly regress. Reed’s 2016 season is favorable compared to many of the top relief pitchers and closers in baseball. Only four relief pitchers had higher BWARPs during the 2016 season: Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, and Kenley Jansen. One pitcher that could be an interesting comparison is Mark Melancon who–like Reed–does not have overpowering stuff.

Melancon signed a four-year, $62 million contract this offseason. This comparison is a little bit of a stretch given that Melancon has had consistent success since he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates from the Boston Red Sox back in 2013, while Reed certainly has not. But I believe that if Reed can repeat his performance in 2016, he can set himself up for a decent pay day next offseason. Considering he is in position already to earn over $10 million in 2017 through arbitration, he is going to fetch a large long-term contract next off-season having just turned 28 on December 28. Assuming that Jeurys Familia returns and performs similarly to his 2015 self, I don’t see the Mets being that team to give Addison Reed that contract. The Mets typically are bottom feeders in the relief pitcher market looking to lock up diamonds in the rough instead of going for that big-name free agent. (Francisco Rodriguez of course being the notable exception.)

If the Mets are out of the playoff picture come July 31, I would not be surprised if the Mets try to trade Reed. They would get nothing for him next offseason if they did not trade him, as they probably wouldn’t offer him the qualifying offer. With the return that the Pirates got for a half season of Mark Melancon, the Mets should at least entertain offers for Reed to see what they can get from a contender in need of another relief pitcher.

Until the time comes to decide on Addison Reed’s future it is time to appreciate all that he has done for the Mets the last season and a half and have some optimism in using him as the closer this year. And if the Mets are in contention mid-way through the year then they will greatly benefit from a one-two punch of Reed and Familia.

Photo Credit: Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

The New York Mets in 2016 suffered a generally unlucky year at the plate between their second-to-worst league BABIP of .282 and that batting average with runners in scoring position mentioned above. But where the Mets surprisingly were able to be successful was in their ability to score runs via home run.

During the 2016 season, the league average team scored 40.2 percent of their runs via the home run. However, the Mets, as seen in the chart below, finished second in the league at 51.1 percent. That’s just below the high-slugging Baltimore Orioles who managed to score 51.9 percent of their total runs via the home run. (Scoring runs via home run is defined as any run that is ultimately scored on a home run, either as the batter or a runner on base at which the home run was hit.) Look at this chart … it is clear that the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles were largely over the league average. Whereas other teams were able to manufacture generally 60 percent of their runs in other ways, only the Mets and Orioles scored over half of the runs via dinger.

Percentage of Runs Scored Via Home Run

Further interestingly enough is to breakdown the manner in which the Mets hit home runs. They finished eighth in the league in solo shots, second in two-run home runs, 20th in the league in three-run homers, but finished tied for the league lead in grand slams with seven. As seen in the pie chart below, the Mets hit over half of their home runs via the solo shot (bases empty) but also weren’t picky when hitting home runs.

Distribution of New York Mets Home Runs

Although the Mets of 2016 were able to manufacture enough runs to make the Wild Card game, this success is not sustainable. Note that the other team that snuck into and was eliminated in the first game of the playoffs was the Baltimore Orioles–the one team to score more runs than the Mets via homer during the 2016 season. We will see if the 2017 New York Mets can find a way to manufacture more runs and reverse their bad luck with their BABIP or if they will have to rely heavily on the long ball once again to try to make the playoffs.

Photo Credit: Derik Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports