premium blogad:
blogads:
advertisement:
sitemeter:
|
|
|
May 5, 2008
Month in Review: April
With April down the tubes, it’s time for Month in Review, a look at every nook and cranny of the Mets’ past thirty days. You can find other installments from seasons past here. The Mets kicked off 2008 with a 7-2 victory over the Marlins on March 31st. After that, the Mets hovered around .500 through the first month, ending up 14-12 overall. Most of their competition consisted of division rivals, so a stronger start would have been nice. The good news is that they did well against their NL East counterparts, going 12-7. In order for the Mets to take the division, that needs to keep up. Here are our full team-by-team splits with runs scored and allowed: Team W L RS RA Atlanta 2 3 19 26 Chicago 0 2 2 15 Florida 2 1 24 7 Milwaukee 1 2 14 16 Philadelphia 4 2 28 21 Pittsburgh 1 1 6 17 Washington 4 1 26 16 Home/away splits: Split W L RS RA Home 9 5 61 59 Away 5 7 58 59 The bad news is that while the team was more successful at home, their run differential suggests they pulled out some close ones. Next our run differential splits, which show the Mets’ record in games decided by certain numbers of runs: Split W L 1 run 4 2 2-3 runs 5 5 4-5 runs 2 1 6+ runs 3 4 Comings: Nelson Figueroa (4/2), Carlos Muniz (4/8), Duaner Sanchez (4/15), Gustavo Molina (4/24) Goings: Carlos Muniz (4/15), Brady Clark (4/29) At this point I’d like to announce a new award: The “Comings and Goings” Man of the Year Award. In 2006, Heath Bell was optioned to Norfolk or called up to the majors a total of nine times after the season started. In 2007, Mike Pelfrey was on the shuttle between New York and New Orleans seven times. Who will it be this year? Look for a running tally here. Carlos Muniz is the early leader. Injuries: Ramon Castro, Duaner Sanchez, Moises Alou, Orlando Hernandez, Pedro Martinez, Matt Wise Readers from last season will notice I’ve slightly altered the stat columns this season. Specifically, I’ve added splits against left-handed and right-handed hitters and pitchers, something that should have been included in the past to best highlight the Mets’ strengths and weaknesses. Runs Scored: 119 Runs Allowed: 118 Team OBA: .341 Team SLG: .371 Team BA with RISP: .243 Opponents’ OBA: .321 Opponents’ SLG: .363 Opponents’ BA with RISP: .227 The Mets aren’t exactly Murderers’ Row, but they are getting on-base at a decent clip, and they’re still out-slugging their opponents. Starters’ ERA: 3.88 Starters’ K/9: 7.2 Starters’ BB/9: 4.3 Starters’ HR/9: 1.05 Relievers’ ERA: 3.40 Relievers’ K/9: 7.0 Relievers’ BB/9: 3.6 Relievers’ HR/9: 1.07 Despite atrocious performances from key bullpen cogs Jorge Sosa and Aaron Heilman the bullpen still pitched pretty well, mostly thanks to Pedro Feliciano, Joe Smith, Scott Schoeneweis, and the nearly untouchable Billy Wagner. The starting rotation, meanwhile, is giving up way too many walks as a whole—everyone except Johan Santana allowed four walks per nine innings or more. OBA vs. RH Pitchers: .333 SLG vs. RH Pitchers: .338 OBA vs. LH Pitchers: .357 SLG vs. LH Pitchers: .434 RH Opp. OBA: .307 RH Opp. SLG: .328 LH Opp. OBA: .371 LH Opp. SLG: .428 The Mets seem to be having some major difficulties with right-handed pitchers—a .338 slugging percentage evokes nothing but absolute disgust. The Mets’ pitching staff has also done a tremendous job of shutting down righties. Longest Winning Streak: 5 (4/15-4/19) Longest Losing Streak: 3 (twice, 4/5-4/8 and 4/20-4/22) Pitchers “Beaten”: (Not necessarily the pitcher who took the loss) Mark Hendrickson, Andrew Miller, Kyle Kendrick, Adam Eaton, Manny Parra, Odalis Perez, Matt Chico, John Lannan, Cole Hamels, Jamie Moyer, Tim Redding, Tim Hudson, John Smoltz, Ian Snell, Pitchers “Beaten by”: (Again, not necessarily the pitcher who got the win) Rick VandenHurk, Tim Hudson, John Smoltz, Jamie Moyer, Ben Sheets, Jeff Suppan, Adam Eaton, Carlos Zambrano, Ted Lilly, Shawn Hill, Jair Jurrjens, Tom Gorzelanny Best Hitter: It wasn’t a good month for Mets hitters, as only two hit well: David Wright (.281/.417/.531) and Ryan Church (.316/.385/.469). Wright’s the obvious choice here, as his power and patience outweigh Church’s slightly superior contact skills. Worst Hitter: If the boos at Shea didn’t give it away, the .198/.297/.323 line should have. Carlos Delgado’s bat has looked slower than your Uncle Pete after Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe he just needs to cut tryptophan from his diet. Best Pitcher: The winner is Johan Santana, who went 3-2 with a 3.12 ERA. He pitched 40.3 innings, more than ten innings beyond any other pitcher on the staff, and he also had the best strikeout and walk rates on the staff. The homerun rate is higher than anyone would like, and hopefully that will resolve itself. It should be the first of many wins in this category for Johan. Worst Pitcher: Here are my options: Pitcher IP SO BB HR ERA Aaron Heilman 16.1 17 9 4 5.51 Jorge Sosa 16.2 10 8 4 7.02 Sosa’s got a far worse strikeout rate and ERA, while they’re roughly even in the other categories. I’d say Sosa runs away with it, and if he doesn’t improve fast, he’s facing the end of his Mets career. Best Pitching Performance: Mike Pelfrey’s start against Washington on April 15th. While the competition was nothing special and Pelfrey wasn’t dominant, he got 13 groundballs and became the only Mets pitcher of the season to throw seven shutout innings. His sinker hasn’t been quite as potent since, but it did give Mets fans a glimpse of the pitcher he can be. Best Defensive Play: Ryan Church’s fantastic grab off the bat of Mark Teixeira at Shea on April 27th. When you consider the distance Church ranged and the fact he also had to contend with both the wall and a diving Carlos Beltran, nothing else comes close. Church’s defense has been a revelation this season, completely washing out the bad taste left from Shawn Green’s adventures there last season. Biggest Surprise: Nelson Figueroa. After a four-year absence, nobody expected anything from the Brooklynite. And he was the Mets’ second best starter in April. Two weeks into the season, the answer here was outfielder Angel Pagan, but he’s been a black hole of offense since. Biggest Disappointment: While Delgado’s the easy answer, he looked done in March, so his struggles are hardly surprising. The real answer is Jose Reyes, who at least showed strides in his plate discipline in a disappointing 2007. So much for that; he’s hitting .250/.307/.413. Carlos Beltran’s also been quite disappointing. What’s in Store for May: The Mets just finished their first series of the month, a three-game set in Arizona, and they’re now moving on to Los Angeles for three more. They’ll then have a travel day before returning home to host the Reds and Nationals. After that, the media circus that is the Subway Series begins at Yankee Stadium. The Mets then travel to Atlanta for a four-game set that starts off with a double-header on the 20th. After that comes a trip to Colorado before facing the Marlins and Dodgers at Shea. What do the Mets need to do? First and foremost, the bats need to wake up against right-handed pitching. A team just can’t be successful hitting that badly against two-thirds of the league’s pitchers. In general, the team’s power production is mediocre. It would be helpful if Delgado could start something up, but at this point I’m not very hopeful. Furthermore, it would probably help if one of the team’s starting pitchers—Johan Santana aside—could reliably throw six ore innings for a stretch of time, giving the bullpen a little more rest. I’m of the opinion that the bullpen isn’t terrible and has just seen too much work. An improvement in the starting pitching will have a trickle-down effect. References: You can see Church’s snag at Mets.com’s Top Plays archive. 18 Responses to “Month in Review: April”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
|
Not much to add. It’s easy to pick on Delgado, but Beltran’s putridity has been more surprising. The Mets starters are too talented to not get past the 6th inning more often. This pen won’t last being used this much. Wagner is a total stud. All his work with the slider and the changeup the last few years has made him into twice the pitcher he was before he came to the Mets. Alou’s return will help the offense a lot, including by getting Castillo down in the 8 hole, where at least his ability to get infield hits will allow the pitchers to provide useful at bats more often.
I just can’t understand why Reyes is the biggest disappointment.
I mean, on a team with Beltran and Delgado hovering around .200, Reyes is clearly at least outperforming them. His line drive rate is up, groundball rate is up, flyball rate is down, and popup rate is down, yet his BABIP was like .264 for the month or something. His recent breakout was no surprise to me. Balls are going to start falling for him.
Pick a biggest disappointment from this group right here:
Beltran: 85 AB, .200/.364/.365
Delgado: 93 AB, .204/.299/.333
Castillo: 78 AB, .256/.348/.282
That was our #2, #4, and #5 hitters for most of the month of April.
I explained my reasoning for not picking Delgado. After his spring, I just wasn’t expecting anything. Disappointing is different from worst, in my eyes.
As for Beltran vs. Reyes, I made the distinction between their OBAs. Beltran might be hitting .200 but he’s getting on base 36% of the time. Ditto for Castillo, who really hasn’t been very far south of reasonable expectations (if you add 20 points of average to Castillo, nobody would even think of calling him a disapppointment).
Perhaps I should have worded it “Jose Reyes’s plate discipline.”
His walk rate has only spiked recently, in the month of May. That was a problem last month, I definitely agree with that.
So if Beltran were batting leadoff and Reyes 4th, would that make a difference? I’m just curious how much the position in the batting order colors our perception. Reyes still made an impact by having a lot of pop in his bat in April.
But as for Castillo, I mean, he slugged .282. That has to be significantly worse than your expectations.
Why would anyone in their right mind give Castillo a free pass?
What, he fouls off tough pitches and stays in there? Is that what you think?
If pitchers can disappoint I think you have to say Heilman beats out any of the hitters.
Thanks for the write-up, lots to mull over here.
P.S. The other Mets are feeding Delgado tryptophan so they can play with his toys
Jorge Sosa’s atrociousness cannot be overstated. He is the kind of player that should be on the fringes of major league rosters at best, yet he threw more innings than any other Met reliever. I think the monthly recap should include a Most Innings or Most Appearances by a Met Reliever category.
Day-by-Day, 3/31-4/30
Games
Heilman 16
Feliciano 15
Sosa 14
Smith 13
Schoeneweis 13
Wagner 11
Innings
Sosa 16 2/3
Heilman 16 1/3
Wagner 12
Smith 11 2/3
Feliciano 9 1/3
Schoeneweis 8 2/3
Significantly? Yeah, I suppose. Last year the guy slugged .359 with a .058 ISO. This year, the ISO is under .030, which certainly isn’t good, even relatively speaking. But he’s still getting on base at a reasonable clip despite looking terrible at the plate, which has always been the lion’s share of his value. In that regard, I can’t be terribly disappointed.
First of all, Reyes had no more pop in his bat than Beltran. The difference between Reyes and Beltran was that Reyes hit a handful more singles than Beltran did, and Beltran made fewer outs than Reyes did, despite the worse contact rate.
The ultimate goal of an at-bat is to not make an out and advance baserunners, in that order. Beltran did the first very well in April, which is doing half of what he traditionally does well (and the more important half).
Considering that Jose Reyes OBA was .350 last season, and he started off at .307 is very disappointing to me. The improvement in his IsoD was the most encouraging thing that happened to Reyes in 2007, and I’m more disappointed about that than Beltran’s lack of power, at least personally. Maybe because I’m more concerned that Reyes’s lack of discipline is an actual problem for him than Beltran’s lack of power.
Again, if Reyes batted .270/.320/.460 in April (as he is now) I wouldn’t have chosen him and would have gone with Beltran instead.
I think the real reason what I wrote feels wrong is because Beltran did most of his “damage” at the beginning of the month and Reyes did his at the end.
kind of odd that the worst pitcher on the staff leads the team in wins, no?
I would agree that beltran has been the biggest dissapointment…for a guy who is a proven allstar, at the prime moment in his career…he has been invisable.
he seems reluctant to swing the bat while waiting for the perfect pitch, that never seems to come.
beltran BABIP: .257 LD%: 25%
his BABIP should be much, much higher. he’s getting unlucky. give it time.
Alex, thank you for taking it easy on me and not giving me a Geoff-like smackdown.
don’t worry danny, the fact that reyes sucked in April means that he is a candidate for “most improved” or “biggest surprise” for May. Of course, he is going to have to play better defense………
I took on the great Alex Nelson and lived to tell about it, pj. It’s going on my tombstone.
Bah, Geoff ain’t seen nothing yet.
And sorry if I seemed short or curt. Not my intention, I assure you. Sometimes the written word is a struggle.
Made me laugh hard, buddy.
You can’t be serious.
leave John McEnroe out of this
simple starement of two facts
sosa = worst pitcher on the team
sosa = 4 wins