I’m not here to celebrate the end of Eric Campbell’s tenure with the Mets. For starters, it’s entirely possible they bring him back as a non-roster invitee and he makes the team again. These are the Mets, and the Mets love few things more than to bring their own role players back, whether they’re good, bad, or Eric Campbell. Instead, let’s appreciate the Eric Campbell Era with the Mets.

Eric Campbell was the Mets’ eighth-round draft pick in 2008. The Mets had three firsts in 2008, and two—Reese Havens and Brad Holt—retired without making the majors. The guy the Mets selected a round earlier, pitcher Michael Hebert, never made it out of the Low-A South Atlantic League. Only six players from that Mets draft made the majors, and two have already retired. (The others who’re out there: Ike Davis, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Collin McHugh.) Campbell is the last remaining player from the 2008 draft class still in the Mets organization at any level.

Between 2009 and 2012, Campbell played on six full-season Met affiliates. All six had losing records. There were some good players on those teams, too—Campbell was a frequent teammate of Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares, Jeurys Familia, and Jennry Mejia on the Met farm. He had a longer stint in Binghamton, watching Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler come and go. Eventually he made Triple-A Las Vegas, and Wally Backman’s team won more–not that winning or losing in the minors matters much except to the local faithful.

Campbell’s natural position is, of course, third base. But he only occasionally played third base with any regularity in the minors. Soup was usually a teammate of Flores or Jefry Marte, and those guys as better prospects received playing time priority. Campbell’s most played position in the minors was actually first base, and he played nearly as much left as third. He even pitched an inning in 2013! This sort of versatility would serve him well in the majors; although I’d suggest that most competent third basemen can play left and first, but too few actually have done it.

Campbell never really hit much in the minors, until he made Vegas. Whether it was the stadium or Backman or good luck or advancing skill or some combination of all of them, Campbell really liked Las Vegas, hitting .322 over parts of four seasons there. Eventually, he hit enough to get called up, essentially taking the major-league role of Josh Satin—one of those 2008 Met draftees that’s since retired.

I can’t sugarcoat this: Eric Campbell stunk with the New York Mets of the National League. He hit .221/.312/.311 over 505 plate appearances. He’s been worth -0.4 WARP to the Mets by Baseball Prospectus metrics, suggesting that he was slightly worse than the average Triple-A replacement call-up over the course of his career.

But even he had his moments. He crossed the plate as the winning run twice in walkoffs—one was this year, in the May game against Milwaukee that may be remembered as the last great moment of David Wright’s career. He had a big go-ahead hit in a key July 2015 win over the Nationals. He had three games in which he collected three hits. Sure, this isn’t exactly the resume of a beloved star or anything, but there were times when even Eric Campbell contributed to Met wins. Some of them were even somewhat memorable!

Every major-league player contributes something. Here’s to you, Eric Campbell. Happy trails to you … until we meet again.

Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

It felt like only a matter of time before the Mets’ paper-thin rotation would collapse. With Noah Syndergaard out with strep throat, Collins was left with two options. Sean Gilmartin wasn’t an inspiring choice for a spot starter. He only made one start in the big leagues before Saturday’s game. But the other option was Rafael Montero, whose best big league start this year involved six walks in five innings.

Neither option was a safe choice for the Mets. Gilmartin gave up a walk, a single, and then served up a fastball for a three-run Maikel Franco homer. He responded by getting right in to another jam, walking Jorge Alfaro to bring pitcher Alec Asher up with two outs and the bases loaded. Asher singled to center to bring in two more runs and chase Gilmartin. Montero warmed up with a wild pitch and another walk to Cesar Hernandez. In what may be Saturday’s biggest surprise, that was Montero’s only walk. He struck out Roman Quinn to end the inning.

Odubel Herrera led off the second with a triple. It felt like the Mets were in for another onslaught of bad pitching, but Montero retired seven of the eight batters and was cruising in the fourth. Herrera broke through with a single, then Franco and Tommy Joseph singled. Darin Ruf homered for the second straight game (after not homering all season) and it was suddenly 10-0. Collins gave Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera, Yoenis Cespedes and Curtis Granderson one more at-bat each in the bottom of the fourth before pulling them all to rest for Sunday’s day game.

Lucas Duda started the Mets comeback in the bottom of the fifth by running down the line to take advantage of Freddy Galvis’ poor fielding. (Duda also made diving plays in the field, showing no obvious back symptoms.) Travis d’Arnaud singled and Gavin Cecchini reached on a Franco error to put the Mets on the board. T.J. Rivera, Brandon Nimmo and Ty Kelly all got hits to give the Mets a total of four unearned runs before James Loney pinch hit and grounded out to end the inning.

The rookies from Las Vegas went 6-11 with three doubles and drove in the Mets’ first six runs, striking again in the sixth and the eighth. Cecchini got his first major league hit in the sixth, an RBI double scoring Michael Conforto. Cecchini almost got his first home run in the eighth but settled for another RBI double. The crazy dream of coming back from a 10-0 deficit was suddenly real when Rivera came up as the tying run. Phillies setup man Hector Neris couldn’t throw his splitter close to the plate, but he made the adjustment, relying on his fastball to get Rivera and Nimmo out.

Jay Brice finally got off the bench and gave Mets fans a reason to cheer for him in the ninth with a solo home run to make it 10-8. Eric Campbell drew an 11-pitch walk to bring Conforto up as the tying run with one out. He drew a 3-2 walk to bring up Duda. Could the Mets slugger have his own storybook walkoff homer? Would he flip the bat in celebration? Nope. Duda popped up and d’Arnaud hit a comebacker to end a wild game, just short of the record books.

What’s Next?

After using Johnny Wholestaff for the last two games, the Mets hope Robert Gsellman can go deep in the game. Both the Cardinals and Giants won, pushing the Mets back in to a tie for the wild card.

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports

Ynoa held the Phils scoreless in the first, but the second inning did not go as well. Freddy Galvis singled on a soft line drive with one out, and Cody Asche followed with a single of his own. Cesar Hernandez and Roman Quinn drove both of them in with two out RBI singles to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead. This would also end Ynoa’s start, as he exited after only two innings pitched, walking and striking out one.

The Mets answered right back against Phillie starter Jeremy Hellickson, as Michael Conforto doubled with one out. After Lucas Duda drilled a line drive out (some rotten luck, but already a big improvement over James Loney), Travis d’Arnaud drove in Conforto with a double of his own to cut the deficit to one. Unfortunately, the Phillies got the run right back, as Maikel Franco homered off Logan Verrett to start the third and put the Phillies up 3-1.

The fourth inning was quiet as Verrett settled in and Hellickson held the Mets at bay, as was the top of the fifth where Josh Smoker tossed a perfect frame with a pair of strikeouts. The Met half of the inning was anything but. Rene Rivera lead off with a single, and walks to Asdrubal Cabrera and Yoenis Cespedes loaded the bases for Curtis Granderson. Granderson singled in Rivera, and Kelly Johnson followed with a two-run single of his own to put the Mets up 4-3.

Discontent with a one run lead, the Mets managed to bring home three more on a three-run opposite field bomb from Conforto. Conforto’s double and homer gave him as many extra base hits as Jay Bruce has in the month of September combined. Don’t worry though, I’m sure Terry Collins will happily plug Jay Bruce back in the lineup with a trademarked “we’ve got to get him going” while Conforto is returned to rotting on the bench.

Erik Goeddel relieved Smoker and got off to a rough start, walking Cody Asche and surrendering a two-run home run to Darin Ruf that cut the Met lead to 7-5. He retired the next three batters, but ran into more trouble in the seventh after Maikel Franco singled and Ryan Howard walked. Josh Edgin entered and gave up an infield single to Freddy Galvis that loaded the bases. Without Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia, Collins was forced to turn to Hansel Robles, who quickly induced a double play ground ball from Tommy Joseph to end the threat.

Poor defense gifted the Mets some insurance runs in the bottom of the seventh. Cespedes led off with a double and Granderson walked. Collins then made the very bad decision of pinch hitting for Johnson against a lefty with Juan Lagares, who was presumably sent to the plate to bunt (almost always a bad move). Lagares got the bunt down though, and the Phillies threw the ball away, allowing Cespedes to score and putting runners on second and third with none out.

Conforto was due up next, but as he’s entirely incapable of ever seeing a lefty pitcher ever, Eric Campbell was sent in to pinch hit. At least I presume that was the dialogue in Terry’s head. The move worked however, as Campbell drove in another run with a single. T.J. Rivera then pinch hit for Duda (a fine move, because Duda has a long history of ineptitude against lefties and just came off the DL) and drove in the third run of the inning with a sacrifice fly.

The remaining two innings were quiet, mostly thanks to the superb pitching of Robles, who recorded the last eight outs of the game, allowing only one Philly to reach base on an error. He recorded three strikeouts over his 2.2 frames as the Mets nailed down their second consecutive victory, topping the Phils by a final score of 10-5.

With the Cubs demolishing the Cardinals and the Padres topping the Giants, the Mets are now alone in the first Wild Card spot, one game ahead of San Francisco and a game and a half ahead of St. Louis. The remaining schedule is extraordinarily soft, with five games against the Phillies and three against the Marlins (who have been a pain for the Mets in the past, but are not a good baseball team). As it stands, the Mets control their own playoff destiny despite devastating injuries all over the team. Even if this season ends in disappointment, their resiliency is impressive.

Photo credit: Bill Streicher – USA Today Sports

Julio Teheran held the Mets to a .238 average on balls in play over seven innings. When this offense doesn’t hit home runs, it’s borderline unwatchable. Braves 5, Mets 4.

Discussion and Analysis

The Mets have lost six of eight against the Braves at Citi Field this year. Considering the Braves are 53-89 when they don’t play in Queens — that’s a .373 winning percentage — the Mets’ easy rest-of-season schedule hasn’t played out like we all expected. Yoenis Cespedes and Asdrubal Cabrera (on base all five times last night) can’t carry the offense every game. Not when the lineup features the desiccated remains of Jay Bruce (hitting .159 as a Met) and the stunted development that is Travis d’Arnaud and his .631 OPS. The Mets have now scored just 18 runs in their last eight games. The heartwarming rotation-replacement stories of Seth Lugo and Gabriel Ynoa and, yes, Robert Gsellman won’t mean anything if the offense can’t rediscover itself down the stretch.

Gsellman was Just Fine in his fifth major-league start. In the first inning, he struck out the #HotTake hot Freddie Freeman (24-game hitting streak) and Matt Kemp (12 games) following a one-out Adonis Garcia double.  Through five innings and twice through the Braves’ bating order, Gsellman had allowed no runs on just two hits, striking out five against one walk.

As Gsellman came out for the sixth inning, facing the Braves lineup for the third time, Terry Collins showed his typical lack of forethought. Gsellman struck out Teheran to start the inning, but then gave up singles to Ender Inciarte and Garcia. A prepared manager would have readied a left-hander to face Freeman, but Collins was slow to ask Josh Smoker to loosen up. Gsellman walked Freeman — loading the bases — and was left in to face Matt Kemp. Gsellman did his job, getting Kemp to pop up to short right-center. Granderson sprinted in to catch it; the ball was shallow enough that Inciarte was going to have trouble tagging from third. But Jay Bruce intruded on Granderson’s personal space, the center fielder pulled up short, and the ball landed between them for a “single.”

Collins then made the belated move, calling on Smoker to face Nick Markakis with the bases still loaded. Smoker seemed to get Markakis looking …

Call hurts #Mets
Ball 3 should be strike 3
Top 6 Smoker vs Markakis
10% call same
3.4in from edge pic.twitter.com/T1PNamHcTO

— Mets Strike Zone (@MetsUmp) September 21, 2016

… but the blown call resulted in a full count instead of a strikeout. Smoker missed with his last pitch to walk in a run. Collins next went to Fernando Salas, who got Tyler Flowers to pop up on the infield for the second out. Salas went to a full count on Jace Peterson, who hit the ball on the screws to center field. Granderson caught it on the warning track, but the Mets were down 2-1.

Two-to-one is the kind of deficit the from which the recent Mets can recover, but last night the bullpen poured fuel on the fire. Jerry Blevins relieved Salas in the seventh inning after Dansby Swanson led off with a single. Blevins hung breaking balls to Ender Inciarte, who singled, and Adonis Garcia, who lost the ball over the left field wall. The Garcia dinger increased the Braves’ lead to an insurmountable 5-1.

That first Met run scored after Jose Reyes led off the bottom of the third inning with a triple that that rattled around the right-field chicken-wire fence. Cabrera blooped a fly ball to the opposite field. Matt Kemp is slow, so Cabrera hustled into second with a double. Once at second base, Cabrera was the target of multiple pickoff throws, from both Teheran and catcher Tyler Flowers. Cabrera slid back into second on his balky right knee, after which he limped and grimaced whenever the camera found him. If and when the Mets clinch a Wild Card spot before the season ends, the first order of business should be resting Cabrera so he’s healthier for the playoffs.

The Braves almost imploded in the eighth. The three-run inning featured a walk to Cabrera, a beaned Yoenis Cespedes, a Granderson double, Eric Campbell (in his first big-league at-bat since May!) successfully pinch-hitting for Jay Bruce, and Kevin Plawecki pinch-hitting for James Loney and reaching on an error. The Braves’ saving grace was that Collins couldn’t or wouldn’t pinch-hit for d’Arnaud, who weakly grounded to shortstop to end the inning. The Mets are now zero-and-63 when trailing after eight innings. If there’s a silver lining to this ugly loss, it’s that Terry may finally have had enough Jay Bruce 0-fers.

Contemporaneous Thoughts

Was AJ Preller somehow involved in the Jay Bruce trade? #boo

— Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon) September 21, 2016

GKR-isms

“Sometimes it looks like Freeman moves like a big crane. I mean the bird, not the machine.” — Gary

“It’s always good to have your veterans playing through aches and pains. It sets an example for your young kids.” — Keith, watching Cabrera suffer around the basepaths

“The whole trick to pitching, unless you’re a guy who strikes out the world, is that you have to produce bad contact by the hitters.” — Ron, unintentionally describing the Mets’ offense

Coda

Bartolo goes for career MLB win number 233 tonight against Ryan Weber, who, with a career 5.13 ERA, will be fortunate to pitch 233 MLB innings.

Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

To keep the good times rolling, the Mets would have to crack Julio Teheran, who entered the game with 24 consecutive scoreless innings against them. Opposing him was Robert Gsellman, who has utilized his every-pitch-but-the-kitchen-sink arsenal to post a 2.87 ERA in his first 15.2 innings of major league action. His low strikeout rate, elevated walk rate and low HR/FB rate portend a rising ERA in the future, but for now the Mets need him to hold down a spot until other starters can hopefully get healthy.

In the first, the Mets finally seemed ready to break Teheran’s scoreless inning streak. With one out, Asdrubal Cabrera doubled and Yoenis Cespedes and Curtis Granderson followed with an infield single and a walk. That brought Wilmer Flores to the plate with the bases loaded and no outs. Unfortunately, Teheran is not a lefty and Flores grounded into an inning-ending double play. The Mets wouldn’t record another hit until the sixth inning, putting only one baserunner on in the interim (another walk to Granderson).

Gsellman, meanwhile, flashed some nastier pitches than he’s displayed thus far in the major leagues, but ultimately put up a sub-par performance. In the bottom of the second, Matt Kemp lined a solo home run over the left center field wall to put the Braves up 1-0. Gsellman bounced back and posted two scoreless innings, but the Braves got back on Gsellman in the fifth.

Dansby Swanson (who was on base four times in this game) led off with a single, then was sacrificed to second by Teheran. Ender Inciarte grounded out, but the next four Braves (Adonis Garcia, Freddie Freeman, Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis) recorded three hits and a walk, building a 4-0 lead for the Braves before Gsellman finally struck out Tyler Flowers to end the inning as well as his night. Gsellman finished with five innings pitched, allowing seven hits, walking two and striking out six, leaving the game in a 4-0 hole.

At this point, the Mets’ began working some of their late season magic. Granderson, revived after being a well-below average player for most of the season, launched a two-run homer in the top of the sixth, ending Teheran’s scoreless streak against the Mets at 29 innings and, more importantly, cutting the deficit to 4-2. Jim Henderson entered for the bottom of the sixth and didn’t record an out, but Josh Smoker came in and cleaned the mess, striking out A.J. Pierzynski and inducing a double-play ball to keep the game in reach.

The seventh inning was quiet on both sides, with Hansel Robles working around a couple of walks to keep the Braves off the board. Then the Braves fell apart in the eighth. Alejandro De Aza walked, Jose Reyes reached on an error and Cabrera walked to load the bases with no outs for Cespedes. Cespedes lofted a sacrifice fly to right field in front of an RBI single from Granderson that tied the game and put runners on the corners with one out. Kelly Johnson put the Mets ahead with another clutch hit, this one a double, and Michael Conforto drove in another when he was hit by a pitch. By the time De Aza struck out to end the inning, the Mets had batted around and turned a 4-2 deficit into a 6-4 lead.

Addison Reed entered for the eighth and, with the help of two stellar defensive plays from Eric Campbell at first base (who saw that coming?), preserved the Mets’ two-run lead for Jeurys Familia. Familia had to work around a really impressive bit of hitting from Adonis Garcia, who one-handed a ball 380 feet to left field for a leadoff double, but he was up to the task, inducing a ground out from Matt Kemp and striking out Freddie Freeman and Tyler Flowers to cap cap the win.

The Mets have now won six straight games and 15 of their last 19 to storm their way back into a playoff spot. With both the Cardinals and Giants winning, the Mets remain half a game back of the Giants for the first wild card and half a game ahead of the Cardinals for the second. Last night was certainly an excellent way to kick of the final series for the team at Turner Field, which has long been a place of nightmares for the Mets. Bartolo Colon squares off against former Met prospect John Gant as the Mets look to keep the wins coming on Saturday.

Photo credit: Jason Getz – USA Today Sports

It Is Certain

Michael Conforto: Through Tuesday, Conforto has hit .493/.541/.821 over 74 plate appearances in his latest return engagement to Las Vegas. 74 plate appearances isn’t much, and the PCL is the PCL and Vegas is Vegas, but if you hit .493 with power for more than a couple weeks anywhere—Vegas, a complex league, the moon—people will notice. With Jay Bruce stumbling towards an ignominious and unexpectedly quick end to his Mets tenure (and Curtis Granderson and Alejandro de Aza both still underperforming) little should stand in the way of Conforto. But that’s been the case for most of the season, and true to form, Terry Collins has thrown cold water on the idea that he’s more than “in the mix.”

Kevin Plawecki: The most obvious September call-up is always the third catcher, especially for a manager who manages in fear of running out of catchers. Plawecki is the extra catcher on the 40-man, so he’s back. He hit .300 in Vegas, and while everyone hits .300 in Vegas, Plawecki had pointedly not actually hit .300 in his previous tenures in Vegas. Maybe that’s the sign of life in his bat. Maybe it’s a dead cat bounce in the Pacific Coast League. While BP’s catching metrics and evaluators like Keith Law love Plawecki’s defense, the Mets themselves seem enamored with Rene Rivera’s veteran-ness and arm, to the point that he’s cut heavily into Travis d’Arnaud’s playing time—he’s now the personal catcher to not only Noah Syndergaard, but also Seth Lugo. So Plawecki might not be playing much going forward, or even in 2017.

Gabriel Ynoa: Ynoa not starting the Monday tilt against Jose Fernandez and the Marlins is one of the more baffling process decisions of the season. He’s now fully stretched back out as a starter—he’s thrown consecutive eight-inning starts for Vegas—but the Mets are at least one and maybe two injuries from needing his services in that capacity again. Still, he’s a familiar presence as an arm now, and should be entrusted with long and middle relief. And the Mets are probably going to need more spot starters, of course.

Ty Kelly: Kelly’s inclusion on the initial call-up list comes as a surprise, because he was also included on Team Israel’s roster for the World Baseball Classic qualifying round starting September 22 in Brooklyn. It’s possible the Mets will let him leave for a few days. Hell, it’s possible he’s on both rosters at once, subject to traffic on the BQE.

Signs Point To Yes

Brandon Nimmo: Nimmo has quietly taken the lead in the race for the PCL batting title, hitting .351 overall on the season. The top three are all Las Vegas 51s, so again, this is as much about the park as it is anything else, but still, it’s better to hit well than to not hit well. He’s the one genuine surprise omission from Helfand’s initial list, since he already has major league service and adds defensive, speed, and pinch-hitting utility to the major league club. I suspect the Mets are content to let him finish out a season in the PCL over the weekend that may bring home some hardware before bringing him back, but we’ll see.

T.J. Rivera: Rivera was optioned after Sunday’s game to make room for Rafael Montero. He’s obviously coming back, but roster rules prevent his recall until 10 days have passed, someone goes on the DL, or his team’s minor league season ends. Vegas finishes up Monday afternoon and is functionally out of PCL playoff contention, so Rivera should be back Tuesday.

Erik Goeddel: Goeddel is in the same option purgatory as Rivera, and will also be back soon enough. Since he was sent out after last Wednesday’s game, the Mets could bring him back as early as late this weekend, or could just wait to save on bulk plane flights.

Matt Reynolds: With lingering health questions over middle infielders Neil Walker and Asdrubal Cabrera, it’s a little surprising not to see Reynolds back at the first available opportunity, although Kelly Johnson and Jose Reyes have picked up a lot of the role that Reynolds provided earlier in the season. Reynolds hasn’t hit much in the majors or minors this season, but he seems to be something of an organizational and managerial favorite. Even still, he’s probably going to be sweating the 40-man cuts this offseason.

Rafael Montero: Montero’s five shutout innings on Monday were, like much of his last few seasons, quite the high-wire act, including six walks. I don’t know precisely how he fits on this September roster, because he’s adjusted very poorly to the bullpen in the past and yet doesn’t rate to get starts, but I suspect the Monday start ensures that he’ll be around as the extra arm in case a game goes 16 innings or the Mets need an emergency spot start. He’s a day behind Rivera in option purgatory, but Binghamton isn’t making the playoffs either, so he should be back sometime around Tuesday. Given his awful performance in Las Vegas and clashes with the organization, Montero is a stealth candidate to be excised from the 40-man this offseason.

Reply Hazy, Try Again

Zack Wheeler: Okay, so Wheeler isn’t quite a minor leaguer, but he was supposed to functionally be a September call-up, at least after July and August went out the window. Wheeler had a setback two weeks ago that was supposed to sideline him for, well, two weeks. There isn’t much of an update of when–or if—he’ll make his 2016 debut past that.

Josh Edgin: Edgin looked bad enough earlier this month that while it might not be a lock that he gets recalled instead of designated for assignment. He turns 30 this offseason, is arbitration-eligible, will be out of options next year, and has no obvious major league role moving forward. 2016 could be his Met swan song either way.

Eric Campbell: One of the most perplexing aspects of the Collins/Alderson Mets tenure is how Eric Campbell has gotten 491 plate appearances to hit an anemic .221/.310/.312 while playing almost exclusively at the corners. He may get recalled again just because he’s on the 40-man and the manager seems to love him, though Adam Rubin has suggested that he’s on the bubble. It’s implausible to believe that he’ll survive on the roster this offseason, but that was true last offseason too, and he did.

Gavin Cecchini: The next four guys are the guys off the Triple-A roster who aren’t on the 40 yet that the Mets could plausibly make room for. Of the four, Cecchini is the significant prospect of the group. He’s third in the PCL batting race behind Nimmo and Rivera, hitting .330, and he has to be added to the 40-man after the season. Helfand has reported that the Mets may send Cecchini to the Arizona Fall League after the minor league season instead of to the majors, in part to learn second base. After Dilson Herrera was traded to the Reds, Sandy Alderson mentioned Cecchini as a 2017 second base candidate depending on the status of Neil Walker, so that would make some sense.

Roger Bernadina: Bernadina represents a typical September call-up type, a speed and defense outfielder who can be an early-inning pinch-hitter or a late-inning pinch-runner and provide some veteran presence. But he’s really duplicative of Alejandro de Aza, who is himself duplicative of Curtis Granderson, who is himself somewhat duplicative of Michael Conforto … you can see the logjam forming here. There may simply just be better candidates to clear a roster spot for.

Travis Taijeron: Taijeron, a frequent concern of avid Mets fans, put up a second straight perfectly good season in Triple-A Las Vegas. As a right-handed backup corner outfielder with some pop, he would provide some utility off the bench that the Mets currently don’t have. But he’s never been up before, and the Mets tend to trend towards filling these spots with more known quantities. And the park/league conditions at Las Vegas make one skeptical that Taijeron’s game would translate at all.

Paul Sewald: In a perfect world, Paul Sewald absolutely deserves a call-up. He’s put up a 3.39 ERA and struck out 11 per nine innings in Vegas, which as I’ve noted repeatedly is a terrible, awful place to pitch. He’s pitched well at every level, a $1,000 senior sign made good. There was a very compelling story in a local Las Vegas paper earlier this year explaining his background, how far he’s come, and what a struggle the minors are like for a player in his shoes. But the Mets just don’t churn relievers at the back of the 40-man the way other clubs do—that whole familiar faces thing again—and while I’m rooting for him to come up, I’m not all that optimistic that he will.

Very Doubtful

Amed Rosario: Top prospects just generally don’t get called up to the majors anymore for the September cup-of-coffee unless they have a defined role. Keith Law wrote eloquently about this for ESPN this past week. Rosario is the type of prospect that would’ve gotten called up in the past—he’s hit .324 at Double-A and needs to go on the 40-man after the season anyways. But he wouldn’t start and probably wouldn’t play much, and promoting Rosario now would burn a month of service time. The Mets are one of the most service-conscious teams in the majors, and just won’t do it. He could be up as soon as the late-April depending on offseason moves and his showing in major league camp next year, though.

Dominic Smith: Smith is in basically the same position as Rosario, with two major caveats. With James Loney’s return to pumpkindom, Smith might actually be the best first baseman available to the Mets right now, not that it means that Terry Collins would play him. But Smith doesn’t have to go on the 40-man until after the 2017 season, which all but eliminates his chances of coming up this year. The Mets are likely to find a bridge to Smith for 2017, whether that means handing an outfielder like Conforto or Granderson a first base glove or bringing back Lucas Duda, but he also could make his major league debut sometime next year.

Photo Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports

Welp, it wasn’t the Mets

WHAT HAPPENED, THE SLOW DESCENT INTO OBLIVION THAT IS THE NEW YORK METS:

You could argue that a long standing dogma for our favorite Metropolitans is a slow decent into oblivion. A paralyzing, inevitable downward spiral towards inadequacy. We hope for the best, sure, but we also come to the realization of what we see in front of us. That realization, no doubt negative after beatings like these, put us on the brink of giving up. “There’s no way this team can make the playoffs,” we think, “this team has no shot of chasing down a wildcard berth”. But just like clockwork, right as we’re about to lose hope, they’ll rattle off a couple wins. Boom. We’re back to thinking this team has a chance. It’s cruel, it’s mean. It’s exactly what we saw yesterday, and exactly why that game is reflective of the Mets season as a whole.

Were the Mets ever going to win that game from down 9-1, or the much worse 13-2? No. Too many things had gone wrong (mostly dingers) and snowballed to an insurmountable deficit. Were we released from the grips of a late-night West Coast matchup and impending series loss? Again, no. Herein lies the problem with the Mets this season. We knew what the outcome of that game would be after the fifth inning, but they kept us going regardless. It’s not that they are good enough to make the postseason or bad in general, it’s that (much like last night) they are in purgatory. Yup, that’s it. But you see, this isn’t the good purgatory where the Mets are some type of fun-loving Casper or some variation of a ghost that plays practical jokes on unsuspecting people. Nope, think more along the lines of the creepy girl whose intention is murderous and you see in your nightmares for days after leaving the movie theatres. The Mets are the type of undead aberration whose main purpose is to haunt the souls of any and all onlookers. Who knows what we as fans did to the baseball gods that was so devilish to deserve this fate worse than hell. Maybe it was doing nothing while the Mets willingly started Eric Campbell at first base. I don’t know.

WHAT HAPPENED, YESTERDAY:

It was just one loss, but it doubled as a metaphor for the Mets season as a whole. We all knew the end of the story, but we were still forced to wait for the ending.

WHAT HAPPENS, TODAY:

The Mets look to right the ship against another truly struggling team in the San Francisco Giants. Back at .500, the Mets have a great opportunity to gain some ground on a team in front of them in the wildcard standings. One thing is for certain in this upcoming series, one team has to win each game. Jacob deGrom is slated to square off against Madison Bumgarner in the first game of this crucial four game series.

Photo credit: Matt Kartozian – USA Today Sports

Through Saturday’s games, the team as a whole is hitting an inconceivably bad .204 in such situations. In the expansion era (since 1961), that’s tied for the second worst mark, the worst being the 1969 Padres, who hit .201 with RISP. They are tied with the 1968 Mets. Though to be fair to the Padres and 68ers, the league only hit .248 in 1969 and .237 in 1968, The Year of the Pitcher. League-wide batting average in 2015 is .255. In sum, it both feels like the Mets turn into Brendan Ryan with one eye closed with the bases loaded, and they actually have been.

That’s not the end of the story though. It also feels like the Mets aren’t lacking for good hitters having fine seasons. And, indeed, they are not. Judged by the park adjusted and context neutral wRC+, the Mets have the seventh best offense in the National League. It approximates the Nationals, Marlins, and Dodgers offenses.

It also feels like the Mets are suffering from a serious lack of depth on offense and have given far too many plate appearances to unproductive players. But this feeling is only partially true. To get a sense of this, we can turn to a stat that Matt Gross of SB Nation’s Colorado Rockies blog Purple Row developed a few years ago. The stat is called Drag Factor. As Gross has put it, Drag Factor “is designed to measure how much ‘bad offense’ . . . drag[s] down the positive production of the good hitters.” It offers a glimpse into a team’s depth and balance.

Drag Factor is determined with the following equation:

Drag Factor=((100-wRC+)*PA)/Team total non-pitcher PA

The formula uses wRC+ and will punish a player more for being bad and sucking up a lot of plate appearances—just like that player tends to punish the team for which he plays. Players with an above average wRC+ (which is 100) aren’t included because, ostensibly, they are not dragging down the squad’s offense at all. An excellent Drag Factor will be around 5, an average mark is around 10, and a Drag Factor above 15 is considered poor. Here’s how the Mets have done so far this season (stats through Friday):

Mets Drag Factor

The Mets total Drag Factor, which is between good and average, tells us that the worst hitters haven’t been getting enough plate appearances to really bring the offense down. Of the eight hitters who are not accounted for here because they have been above average according to wRC+, José Reyes, Kelly Johnson and James Loney might be reasonably expected to tumble below 100 and begin dragging the offense down. The chart also indicates that players with a wRC+ close to 100 don’t burden the offense.

To provide additional context, let’s look at the Drag Factor held by a couple division rivals, the Nationals and Marlins, as well as the Cubs, who are considered a great team with a lot of depth and few weak spots.

Nationals Drag Factor

Marlins Drag Factor

Cubs Drag Factor

The Cubs, fortifying the feeling that they have excellent depth and few weak spots, come out spit-shined here, besting the Mets by a decent margin. Their chart is also a reminder that Drag Factor is only about offense. Jason Heyward might not be contributing on offense, but he adds value in other ways. The Marlins and Nationals, however, have more offensive hindrances, on the whole, than the Mets. Each team has given more plate appearances to equally or comparably poor hitters than the Mets have.

One way of reading these charts as a mark against the Mets’ quality of depth is that they have simply had to rely on too many different players. While Ty Kelly and Eric Campbell haven’t accrued enough plate appearances to really hurt the team, the Mets have still had to call upon both players at different times. The Mets have 12 position players represented here; the Nationals and Cubs have eight and the Marlins seven. The Mets’ Drag Factor is spread out thin, whereas more than half of the Nationals’ Drag Factor is concentrated in Ben Revere and Ryan Zimmerman. But just by looking at the Mets’ Drag Factor (like the Mets’ overall wRC+ vis-à-vis the rest of the National League), nothing appears amiss with the offense.

This is where context-dependent stats conflict with context-neutral ones. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with the Mets’ offense. Their best hitters have been producing, and even the bad ones haven’t been disastrous. With the added context of runners in scoring position, however, they’ve been historically bad.

The Mets-inclined observer is left with the hope that this will all normalize. On the one hand, the Mets offense has been extremely poor in just the way it feels like they’ve been. On the other hand, they’ve been quietly good in a way that is not immediately apparent. If the context-neutral outcomes continue apace, the Mets should see their offensive fortunes turn soon. It seems impossible that, in light of everything else, that the team can’t manage a collective batting average with runners in scoring position upwards of 50 points higher than it is right now. After all, context-dependent statistics are more useful to describe rather than to predict. But a .204(!) average with runners in scoring position in four months of baseball should also have been impossible.

That’s baseball, I guess.

Photo credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

But then, Kelly Johnson went back to the Braves. The Mets looked like they had a lot of depth at the time, and no great need for a veteran infielder or a lefty pinch-hitter. Then Ruben Tejada became a Cardinal, Lucas Duda and David Wright both went down, and Eric Campbell, Ty Kelly, and Matt Reynolds wore out their welcome fast. So, it was no great surprise that the Mets were shopping for a nice utility player once again here in early-June. But in the meantime, Kelly Johnson was bad with the Braves, throwing up a .215/.273/.289 triple-slash in almost as big a sample as he had with the 2015 Mets. So why did the Mets go out and deal Akeel Morris—not a star, but a prospect name you’ve probably heard—to get him back?

Throughout the Sandy Alderson regime, the Mets have valued something that sabermetricians have long derided: familiar faces and overall clubhouse considerations. For a front office rooted in analytics, this is fairly unusual, but also fairly recurrent. Specific to Johnson, assistant general manager John Ricco told Maria Guardado of the Star-Ledger that “though he’s not having a great year this year, he’s a guy we kept our eye on because of the versatility and the fact that we know him and his veteran presence.” Terry Collins said much the same, calling Johnson “a great clubhouse guy.”

Johnson is far from the first player that the Mets have acquired while talking up his veteran presence; you could fill a book with stories about how awesome Juan Uribe is in the clubhouse, for example. Perhaps an even larger book could be filled for Bartolo Colon. Through the Alderson/Collins years, the Mets have filled out their roster with veteran “clubhouse presence” type players in spots down the roster. Sometimes, like Marlon Byrd and LaTroy Hawkins, they’ve contributed and worked into bigger roles. Sometimes, like Bobby Abreu and Willie Harris, they didn’t provide a whole lot more than the clubhouse presence. But three players in particular have hung around the Mets roster for years, even into the contention cycle the Mets are currently in, and the presence of all three is barely explicable in terms of on-field performance: Anthony Recker, Eric Campbell, and Eric Young Jr.

For most of three seasons, the Mets kept Anthony Recker around on the roster as the primary backup catcher. As a sabermetric matter, it’s hard to figure why. Recker hit a lousy .190/.256/.350 over his career as a Met. His defensive reputation was not great, and BP’s advanced catching stats show Recker as nearly 21 runs below average defensively in those three seasons. The Mets had nothing invested in Recker, just a waiver claim, and he was regularly one of the worst backup catchers in the majors. In 2016, Recker couldn’t land a major league job, and has already moved between the Triple-A affiliates of the Indians and Braves. About the only obvious positives he had going were a willingness to pitch when asked, being insanely handsome, and some power off the bench, which would’ve been a better asset for most other clubs. But you start digging on potential behind-the-scenes positives about Recker, and you find a lot of stuff about how much his teammates like him, how hard he worked, and yes, of course, his “veteran presence.” That got him three years of major league salaries.

I’ve discussed Eric Campbell’s continued existence on the Met roster before in this space. Suffice to say, he’s not very good, and with no significant prospectdom or offensive output outside of the Pacific Coast League in his past, there was never much reason to believe he would be good. But it’s worth looking at his pure resilience as a member of the Mets. The Mets purchased Campbell’s contract in May 2014 to replace Josh Satin, a similar kind of player who struggled mightily out of the gate, and never got another shot in the majors. Campbell’s on-field play was indifferent, but he lasted the entire season and got semi-regular playing time. Campbell again defaulted into semi-regular playing time during the summer of 2015, and he was awful. Ironically, the addition of Kelly Johnson made Campbell largely expendable, and he was sent down in August. But he survived the 40-man cuts in the offseason, and at a real cost, because the Mets lost Matt Bowman to the Cardinals in the Rule 5 draft due to lack of 40-man space. The Mets once again created room on the 25-man for Campbell to start the 2016 season; he was once again so bad that the Mets finally sent him down seemingly for good when acquiring James Loney—and then they recalled him one more time to serve as the 26th man in this week’s doubleheader against the Pirates. As with Recker, if you start looking around, you find out out that Campbell is well-liked in the clubhouse, a “quiet leader,” and a good teammate who fits in well with the Mets.

The last player I want to discuss is the one whose reacquisition is most similar to Johnson’s: Eric Young Jr. The Mets acquired Young in mid-2013 from the Rockies for pitcher Collin McHugh, and Young played a lot, starting 149 games in left over the course of 2013 and 2014. The problem, as with Campbell and Recker, is that Young just couldn’t hit: aside from 196 plate appearances in 2012, Young has never even managed a 650 OPS, and he played a lot of his career in Colorado. The Mets non-tendered him after the 2014 season, and he ended up with a 661 OPS for Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate in 2015, still unable to hit. And yet the Mets traded for him again in August, to join the major league roster. Young would, thankfully, only see nine plate appearances for the 2015 Mets, but still, what on earth were they doing bringing him back? Young can run, and having a pinch-runner in September and October isn’t the worst idea, but guys with 80 speed who can’t do anything else are a dime a dozen (the Mets have one in their system already), and Young probably wasn’t an 80 runner anymore by his second Mets stint. Well, John Ricco had a quote for that one too, and it’s a direct echo of what he would later say about Johnson: “He’s a guy we know pretty well and brings a different dimension to the game, certainly with his speed and versatility … A guy we know well, fit into the clubhouse and provides a different dimension to our bench, however Terry wants to use him.”

Kelly Johnson might not be the best option. Kelly Johnson might not be the most efficient option. Kelly Johnson might not even be good anymore. But the Mets consistently value what they know over what they don’t. And so Kelly Johnson it is, again.

Photo Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

David Wright’s injury will require 6-8 weeks of rest from baseball activities during which he will undergo appropriate physiotherapy. #Mets

— New York Mets (@Mets) June 3, 2016

Instead of his spinal stenosis directly causing injury, it’s another part of his spinal column that seems to be holding him out. But while this isn’t the most unexpected turn of events, it still is devastating to a Mets lineup already missing Lucas Duda and Travis d’Arnaud. In many ways, the Mets’ offensive roster looks similar to what the team rolled out last season, just with Yoenis Cespedes replacing Duda’s offensive contributions and Michael Conforto standing in for the mess that was left field. It’s an upgrade, but with some combo of James Loney, Wilmer Flores, and Ty Kelly standing in at the corners, it’s not a particularly scary lineup.

Although his late-2015 and early-2016 performances caused much joy in Panic City, it appears that it may be time for the Mets to start taking a long-term look at third base. As part of our Monday staff post, you’ll see what some of our writers predict for the second half of the season, but I’d like to quickly hash through some of the internal and external options for the team, and how this squad could best address the hole that’s been created.

Internal Options

I don’t think the Mets want to leverage Ty Kelly or Eric Campbell as the team’s everyday third baseman, and for good reason. Neither of these players have been exceptional hitters even in the PCL, and neither non-prospect projects as an effective big-league hitter or especially savvy defensively. Both are PECOTA-projected for about a .264 True Average for the rest of the season, but neither has hit well at the big league level, nor project to be an average defender at third base. Soup has gotten plenty of chances over the last couple of seasons, and he’s probably out of luck. Kelly may still have a chance to establish himself, but the team likely would prefer a stronger overall option.

Wilmer Flores is probably the immediate replacement, and he only barely tops the other two in terms of MLB performance and defensive ability. With a .260 projected TAv by PECOTA, he may not be an offensive upgrade over those previous two according to the projections, but in 2015 he actually hit that well over a full season. Sure, his OBP is a mess and he could use a platoon partner, but he hit 16 homers in 510 PA and didn’t embarrass himself at shortstop.

The other option I hear bandied about by armchair GMs is a pair of moves: move Neil Walker to third base and let prospect-but-not-technically-a-prospect Dilson Herrera get started at second base. Herrera has a lot of potential and solid defensive chops, while Walker would be a fine fit at third defensively. But the problem here is that sometimes moving a player creates more problems than it solves, and Herrera hasn’t completely covered himself in glory during his MLB stints. Right now he’s hitting for more power than ever in Las Vegas … but it’s Las Vegas. If you buy Las Vegas offensive stats, then you’re probably just fine rolling with Ty Kelly because he’d be due to hit .300 or something based on his MiLB numbers in that park. Though Herrera’s PECOTA-projected TAv is in the ballpark of the team’s other options–it’s .257–and his defense projects to be plus at the keystone, there’s an argument that he still needs another few months of work in the minors.

Honestly, I really like this idea, and think Herrera could get his shot sooner rather than later, but uprooting one of the team’s most productive players and asking him to take on a new position may cause it’s own set of problems. There are simpler solutions in the interim.

External Options

I don’t want to break down every available third baseman in the league, but suffice to say names have been thrown around. Today on MLB Central, the hosts seemed to advocate for Evan Longoria as a replacement in part because of his alpha-dog, leadership-role nature … that’s great and all, but hardly a necessity for this Mets team. I like Longo, but his price tag is likely to be too high given his role as the face of the Rays for so long … not to mention his actual price tag in terms of both years and dollars. He’s regressed to an average third baseman, while likely costing the team more money and prospects than an average third baseman should cost.

Other names include Trevor Plouffe of the Twins, Danny Valencia of the Athletics, Luis Valbuena of the Astros, Yangervis Solarte or Brett Wallace of the Padres, Kelly Johnson of the Braves … there are a lot of options out there. The trick is finding an option that appeals to a team without tons of money to spend, without a lot of prospect capital, and looking to win now. Valencia and Plouffe could cost too much for the Mets’ comfort, while guys like Wallace and Solarte might not even be better options than the players already in the mix in NY. Personally, Valbuena’s my guy here … he might be the right mix of guy and cost for this team, and he’s got a little bit of flexibility if needed. (Another appealing option from my vantage point is Tommy LaStella of the Cubs, but I’m not sure that team wants to mess with anything they’ve got going right now.)

Regardless, there are lots of choices that the Mets could make. The one thing I’d advocate is this: whatever decision the team is going to make, make it soon. Trading for a player later in the season is all well and good, but the road to the playoffs may be a bit bumpier even than it was last season. There are question marks in the rotation–though not the ones the team expected–the offense isn’t firing on all cylinders, and wins today mean just as much as wins down the stretch. Now that the team knows that Wright will miss much of the season, it’s the right time to experiment just a little, then make a strong decision. No one can replace David Wright, but with a little luck or creativity, perhaps the team can come close to matching his production.

Photo Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports