April 5: Noah Syndergaard’s First Start

Noah Syndergaard was one of the best pitchers in baseball late last season and throughout the playoffs. You might have already read about his ascendance in these pages. In Spring Training, Syndergaard looked like he had made further gains, and he was a trendy preseason sleeper Cy Young pick. But until March turns to April and the real games start, you don’t know.

After Syndergaard’s start in the second game of the season in Kansas City, we knew. Per Brooks Baseball, Syndergaard threw 23 sliders in that start, more than in any career start to that point, and one of them hit 95 MPH. His average fastball and sinker velocities were both just a hair under 99 MPH. Syndergaard allowed just three hits over six innings, struck out nine, the Mets won, and the debate whether to crown Noah Syndergaard as baseball’s best had begun. – Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler)

April 5: The First Jim Henderson Experience

As Jarrett covered above, the second game of the season showed off plenty of important velocity, but not all of it belonged to our beloved Syndergaard. It had been a long road back to the majors for Henderson, who was the de facto closer for the Brewers heading into the 2014 season, but did not register a save thanks to some questionable managerial decisions, a shoulder injury and (finally) Tommy John surgery that August. In fact, it had been more than 23 months since he was on a major league mound. Yet, the most famous player the Mets signed to a minor league contract this off-season showed why he made the bullpen out of Spring Training very quickly.

He started off Alex Gordon with five fastballs; the slowest of which was a shade under 96 mph, and the last of which sent him back to the dugout swinging. With a few sliders mixed in, Henderson took care of the Royals in order and without incident that day. The return of the swing-and-miss stuff was a specter of what was to come throughout most of April, as Henderson got six whiffs in just 13 pitches that inning. Now, the challenge will be to keep him healthy (hi Terry) and operating as a key member of the bridge to Jeurys Familia. – Bret Sayre (@dynastyguru)

April 8: The Home Opener

Sure, we all enjoyed the 7-2 victory. Jacob deGrom threw six strong, Michael Conforto and Neil Walker previewed their stunningly great April hitting performances. It was even pretty cool when Rusty Staub, Edgardo Alfonso and John Franco raised the flag symbolizing the Mets’ appearance in last year’s World Series.

But my favorite moment of an April full of great ones arrived when it came time to introduce the Mets’ 2016 roster to the Citi Field faithful. The manager and coaching staff had already been announced; they were lined up on the first-base line across from the entire Phillies team. Then Howie Rose named the former starting shortstop — and nearly former Met — Wilmer Flores. The extended standing ovation for Flores got me almost as teary-eyed as Wilmer was when he learned he had been traded. Nicely done, Mets fans. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

April 10: Bartolo is the Willie Mays of the Infield

(I realize that I am in danger of my BP contributions gradually morphing into “This Week in Bartolo,” but that is a chance I am willing to take.)

I worry sometimes that we are on the wrong side of the line between laughing at Bartolo and laughing with Bartolo. Yes, he is a big, round man, but occasionally there is an edge in how we talk about him, a slightly hidden sneer like when Jerry Remy would call Rich Garces “El Guapo.” There can and should be genuine enjoyment in his outlier status. And his work on the mound is no less beautiful for being surrounded by a young staff that can touch 100 and throw terrifying breaking balls. Does Matt Harvey make this play? I don’t know. Bartolo did.

Range-based defensive metrics may be horribly broken. Still, I really want to believe that Bart has already saved two runs with his glove. My favorite part of this play is the wry smile that Bartolo allows himself after making the play. The 2016 Mets look like they are going to be pretty good, and players like Syndergaard, Cespedes, and Conforto will continue grabbing headlines here and elsewhere. But for me, Bart’s Willie Mays impression was a reminder that over a long season, baseball is about the simple, fleeting joys. And come on, Mays didn’t end his play with a behind-the-back flip. — Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro)

April 12: Thor Ascending

Noah Syndergaard was already one of the Mets’ most popular players when he took the mound in Miami for his second start of the season. After a promising rookie campaign and a memorable postseason, he had begun 2016 by fanning nine Royals to give the Mets their first victory of the year. Fans outside Queens knew he was talented, but he was still overshadowed by Matt Harvey and a little underrated. But with Harvey struggling, Thor’s second start truly seemed to capture the attention of the rest of baseball.

It began in style, as Syndergaard struck out Dee Gordon on three pitches. A pop-up followed, and then Syndergaard reeled off five strikeouts in a row, dazzling talented hitters like Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich with his high-octane fastball and knee-buckling breaking pitches. Six of the first seven outs were strikeouts. Through five innings, 11 batters went down on strikes.

Thor strikes Fish

The Marlins scored a run only with the help of a couple ground ball singles. When the dust settled, Syndergaard had struck out 12 batters in seven innings of work, overpowering the competition. Perhaps a new ace had arrived. — Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA)

April 18: The Debut of #SNYWhale

All was quiet in the top of the fourth. Tied at one versus the Phillies, Lucas Duda innocently flew out to center. And then

RALLY WHALE

In an earlier age, this would be an isolated incident for those lucky enough to witness the technological absurdity in the regional market. But this is why baseball, augmented by the rise of social media, is a beautifully universal language. Anybody following #MetsTwitter would have witnessed a flurry of tweets (and the obligatory Twitter account) about this whale. The game took on a whole new meaning — even non-fans could interact over the technical error. The #SNYWhale is the best moment from the season’s first month because it’s the lone moment where everybody could meaningfully interact over a baseball-related event. For everything else, there’s bias: team bias, preferring pitching masterpieces or a bevy of runs, or whether you like your defensive plays made by large, majestic pitchers or not. The #SNYWhale has found a home in the baseball watcher’s lexicon. — Brian Duricy (@briansusername_)

April 18: David Wright’s Two-Homer Game

Questioning David Wright’s baseball mortality has become a daily ritual. Some of that is irrational. We’re Mets fans, after all. But Wright is 33 years old with a chronic back condition that requires hours of stretching and core work for him to even get on the field. This makes him a huge wild card for 2016 and beyond, but every once in a while he reminds us that he’s still alive and kicking. And swinging. Facing a familiar foe in the Phillies, Wright homered off Jerad Eickhoff in the first inning before taking Elvis Araujo deep in the ninth. That performance gave Wright his first two-homer game since June 20, 2013. Maybe this wasn’t as impactful as some of his other big moments at Citizens Bank Park. Homering with a broken pinkie finger in 2012 and in his first at-bat back from the disabled list last year come to mind. But he’s still adding to that list of moments, which is something that Mets fans shouldn’t take for granted. — D.J. Short (@djshort)

April 18-20: Back-to-Back Fever

My favorite moment of the season so far is technically a combination of moments. The Mets hitting four back-to-back home runs in a five-game stretch spurred me to do a lot of research on back-to-back home runs (which you’ll see in my very first article for BP – Mets later this week). When their barrage started, the Mets were 5-6 and people were questioning the potency of their offense after a rough spring training and a weak start to the season. Five games (and four wins) later they had succeeded in changing those perceptions and they’ve been crushing the ball ever since. — Craig Glaser (@sabometrics)

April 24: Jacob deGrom Wins First Start After Son’s Birth/Health Scare

As the parent of a 2-year-old, I can’t fathom what would tear me apart more than my son dealing with a major medical issue. So when I heard that deGrom’s newborn son, Jaxon, had an undisclosed health complication — something we later learned was a kind of sleep apnea that was hindering his breathing — I felt that kind of innate, vicarious fear that one parent can feel for another who’s going through an anxious period of uncertainty.

Thankfully, deBaby’s condition improved and dadGrom returned to the mound 16 days after his first and only start of the season. (And yes, deGrom also used that time to recover from some lat tightness suffered in his first start, but that was very clearly a secondary concern the entire time and it feels crass to even mention it.) So with a healthy son back at home, deGrom hurled an encouraging start in Atlanta, inducing 13 ground balls from 24 batters and allowing only one run in 5 2/3 innings. That 3-2 win secured the Mets’ first season sweep of an opponent and gave the late-April surge continued life. I can’t fully comprehend all the emotions that must’ve been swimming through deGrom’s head that night, but as a fellow dad, I have something of an idea. — Erik Malinowski (@erikmal)

April 26: Yoenis Cespedes’s Game-Tying 3-Run Homer

Some players just defy numerical value. We know their WARP, their TAv, their blood pressure, their zodiac sign, but none of that explains how their mere presence transforms a game. Anedote-y? Yes. Rife with recall bias? 100%. But last Tuesday night, when Yoenis Cespedes came up to pinch hit in the 7th inning, ice-cold from spending the previous 4 days on the bench with a bruised hip, he reminded Mets fans why his arrival last July changed the course of the season. Never one to miss an opportunity to swing, he launched the first pitch he saw over the left field fence, a line drive shot that left his bat at 110mph and took his team from a 3-run deficit to a tie in the span of 2.27 seconds. That’s a game-changer. — Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162)

April 29: The 12-Run Third Inning

In the third inning of Friday night’s game, the Mets did something beyond video game stats. The first 12 batters all reached base successfully (Steven Matz tried to sacrifice bunt and failed). Yoenis Cespedes was the last in the streak with a home run to left, setting several Mets records. The average MLB player had a .319 on base percentage through April. This means the chance of 12 straight batters reaching base is 1 in 900,528. To do this on a cold night? In a pitcher’s park? Records are meant to be broken but this one may stand for a long time in Mets history. — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

Photo Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports

Just because we know that time heals all wounds and regresses all stats, it doesn’t mean early-season lines aren’t fun while they last. For your enjoyment, selected small-sample performances by your New York Mets. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

David Wright’s Worst-Ever O-Contact Rate

Anyone who says they can predict what David Wright will do this season is either lying or a witch, but so far he’s putting up unexpectedly strong production, with a TAv of .315 (same as last year) compared to his .283 PECOTA projection. Wright is also drawing a ton of walks, which helps offset his well-below-normal .254 batting average. Wright’s bugaboo at the plate is a career-high 35% strikeout rate, 10 points higher than his second-worst season.

The reason for this is not hard to figure out — a 16% swinging strike rate and a 60% contact rate do not translate well. If this is his new true talent level, Wright may very well be looking at a Mark Reynolds-esque season. But there’s no back condition in the world that would let him maintain a 23% contact rate on pitches out of the zone, which is the worst in baseball and would be the worst in history. He may not get that number up to his 64% career average, and expecting a career high in strikeouts is not a particularly hot take, but David Wright has some pretty clear room for regression to the mean. — Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162)

Walker Isn’t Walking

Neil Walker is a liar. Sure, he’s off to a very nice start in a Mets uniform, hitting .288/.299/.606 with seven homers in just 16 games. Something odd should stand out about that triple-slash though. Walker has hardly lived up to his surname — until Saturday night, he did not have a single walk on the season. Only 16 players since the end of the Deadball Era have managed an OPS+ over 110 while drawing under 20 walks; could Walker be number 17?

Since Walker has been hitting so well, it hardly matters, but eventually he will need to incorporate more plate discipline into his game. Walker has never been a hacking Alfonso Soriano/Dave Kingman type. His walk rate has never dipped below seven percent in a season, yet it took 62 plate appearances in 2016 for him to take four pitches outside the strike zone.

Given his reliable history of normal walk rates, this is a trend that is unlikely to continue for much longer. Walker will walk the walking path to walks. — Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA)

Steven Matz Since An Anonymous Scout Called For His Demotion

I get the pressure that comes with having to fill column inches every week. I do. Sometimes there isn’t much baseball to talk about, and you have to conjure a little soft shoe number about fried ham product. Maybe that doesn’t play in the tabloids, I don’t know. There’s good reason why they never make me an editor. But making grand proclamations after one game is a good way to look foolish a couple weeks later. Since our secret scout’s hot take, Matz has thrown 13.1 innings, allowed two runs, struck out 17, and walked 2. So a bit of skepticism might have been useful here. Was Sean Gilmartin really going to be a short-­term upgrade? Being a blithe stenographer for a scout that wants his opinion in ink is all well and good, but it can on occasion make you look W A Y behind your peers.

There will still likely be growing pains for Matz during his first full season in the majors, but the stuff matches up with the rest of the Mets’ big four, and one shaky outing after almost two full weeks off a mound shouldn’t have been above the fold on the Op­Ed page at Panic City Press. Fortunately, lessons have been learned, and we now wait for three or four starts before proclaiming a Mets starter toast. — Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro)

Lucas Duda Since the #SNYWhale

Mets Twitter, like every kind of Twitter, understands the occasional outage, even if we experience acute withdrawal for the few minutes our timelines fail to update. Mets Twitter is far less understanding when our underrated first baseman, he of the career .297 TAv, opens the season slashing .195/.233/.244. That kind of performance deserved its own Fail Whale, and SNY was ON IT.

Following the #SNYWhale’s appearance during Lucas Duda’s second at-bat on April 17, he’s hitting .333/.320/.909. That’s three doubles, three dingers and two singles, along with a sacrifice fly, in 25 post-Whale plate appearances. We all knew Duda would start hitting soon — we just didn’t realize he’d need to be rebooted first. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

Logan Verrett’s Microscopic ERA

Until a scoreless inning of mop-up duty in the Mets’ 8-2 win on Saturday night at Turner Field, Verrett was sporting a 0.69 ERA through 13 innings on the year. To say he’s been an especially nice buffer for a rotation that suddenly found itself without Jacob deGrom is an understatement. In starts against Miami and Philadelphia, Verrett allowed no earned runs in 12 innings and struck out 10 against only nine hits and three walks. Sure, consider the competition, but Verrett had command of his pitches — a four-seamer sitting at 91, mixed in with an 84-mph slider — and gave Dan Warthen some emergency starts that kept the team afloat during some early-season uncertainty.

Now that deGrom is back, Verrett returns to the pen, but he’ll surely be called upon to make more spot starts as injuries and circumstances arise. Ultimately, his major contributions this season may come more as a valuable long man-with-starting-experience. Think of Yusmeiro Petit with the 2014 Giants team that won the title. Plus, Verrett is still only 25 and learning just how good he can be. OK, his stuff doesn’t rival that of the others on this staff, and his ERA will surely level off as the year progresses, but he doesn’t need to be deGrom or Harvey or even Colon for the Mets to get decent value from him going forward. For now, they’ll take what they can get. — Erik Malinowski (@erikmal)

Noah Syndergaard (Also) Has A 59 Percent Ground Ball Rate

Hahaha. It’s cool everyone. Despite Jake Arrieta continuing to improve towards a 0.01 ERA and despite Clayton Kershaw putting on a convincing “Sandy Koufax, but longer-lasting” impersonation, some people are calling Syndergaard the best pitcher in baseball … right now. Yes, Thor has more velocity than the Autobahn and a world-beating strikeout rate of 13.1 batters per nine innings, but it’s his ridiculous ground ball rate that has me scratching my head. Yes, it will definitely go down. It must! However, if Syndergaard can raise his ground ball rate from last season (48 percent) and keep it inching up, then that’s a great sign.

Why? Because as much as we’d like it, his velocity is not going to be top-of-the-heap for his entire career. Eventually, someone else will take the velocity crown, and Syndergaard will have to do all the things that mid-career pitchers learn to do: change eye levels, sequence their pitches, and get some grounders. In the meantime, a rising GB rate means that there’s less stress on the young fella’s arm (more short PAs!) and more indication that Thor can not only shove, but he can do literally everything a great pitcher can do. There’s no way he’ll maintain this Keuchel-ian rate for long, but it’s a good, tiny sign. – Bryan Grosnick (@bgrosnick)

The Mets Are #OnPace To Break The Team Home Run Record

What new deadball era? The 2016 Mets could set a new team record for home runs in a year. Through 16 games, the Mets have hit 25 dingers, on pace for 253 for the season. Perhaps even more remarkably, the team only put two balls over the wall in the season’s first eight games, improving to 23 homers, nearly three per game, in their last eight contests.

The 2006 Mets currently hold the franchise record for home runs in a year, at 200. I suspect many fans could recall the stars on that team — Carlos Beltran (41 homers), Carlos Delgado (38), David Wright (26) and Jose Reyes (19) — but how many remember that Jose Valentin added 18 long balls to finish 5th on the squad? Meanwhile, back in 2016, Neil Walker and his seven jacks are on pace for 71, Yoenis Cespedes is on pace for 51 and Curtis Grandslamderson is on pace for 41. — Toby Hyde (@tobyhyde)

Bartolo’s Leading The Mets in K/BB Ratio

Strikeout-to-walk ratio is a fun metric for pitchers because it takes two related but distinct results and provides a balanced statistic. The Mets’ small-sample strikeout to walk leader among all pitchers so far this season is Bartolo Colón, with 8.5 strikeouts per walk. Notably, Colón is the leader among a staff with a rotation-mate, Noah Syndergaard, who is striking out 13.1 batters per nine innings. Colón is not merely leading the pack on the strength of his command (although his miniscule 0.96 walks per nine innings helps). Colón wouldn’t be the leader if it weren’t for 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings. And that figure is worth noting because it’s Colón’s best K/9 in the majors since the year 2000, when aforementioned rotation-mate Syndergaard was seven years old. — Eric Garcia McKinley (@garcia_mckinley)

Bartolo’s BB = HR

Over his first three 2016 starts combined, Bartolo Colon has walked two batters and given up two home runs. Allowing the same or fewer walks than home runs feels unusual, so I went on Baseball Reference’s excellent Play Index tool and looked it up. This used to be a fairly unique trick — it only happened five times before 1998, but has happened 20 times from 1998 through 2015.

The list is littered with pitchers that had good-to-great careers: David Wells four times, Brad Radke twice, Bret Saberhagen, Greg Maddux, and Curt Schilling once each. These starters have some traits in common with each other and Bartolo Colon. They’re extreme command/control artists, flyball pitchers, and they often accomplish this feat late in their careers. The most recent pitcher to give up more home runs than walks over the course of a season? Why, that’s Bartolo Colon in 2015, of course. – Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler)

Antonio Bastardo Ks > Matt Harvey Ks

Antonio Bastardo has more strikeouts than Matt Harvey. At Bastardo’s current pace, he will punch out 152 batters in only 94.5 innings. Both the raw K total and the innings-pitched marks are outstanding (and unlikely to continue) for a modern reliever. On the other hand, Matt Harvey has struggled to start the season. He has the lowest strikeout rate (5.6 K per 9) and highest walk rate (3.2 BB/9) of any Mets starter. On Friday he kept leaving the ball up, needing 101 pitches to get through five innings. Opposing batters are more likely to make contact with Harvey’s pitches out of the zone instead of swinging and missing. It’s possible that Harvey is still warming up after an aborted Spring Training and has some mechanical issues to sort out. — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

Jeurys Familia Has The Highest Velocity Of Any Mets Pitcher

Zero-point-one-four. There’s only a 0.14 mph difference in velocity between Jeurys Familia and Noah Syndergaard, but anything over 0.01 is excess. This stat is prime #smallsamplesize material because the sample is exactly what determines Familia’s minuscule advantage over Thor. Over 129 pitches during the 2016 season, Familia has thrown only one pitch under 95 mph on average — his slider — and has used that pitch but 15.5% of the time; his primary pitch, the sinker, averages a shade above 95.5, which is impressive but a full three mph below Syndergaard’s. The starter, however, utilizes his slower changeup and curve over 28% of the time, and with 285 pitches under his belt, this slows down his velo enough to give the closer the temporary edge. — Brian Duricy (@briansusername_)

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports