29
2012
From Left Field: Mets Picked To Finish 4th?
An article by 
As most readers of this site know, I’m the eternal optimist. Until the Mets are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, I still have hope—no matter how bad the team is playing.
But even I have to admit that this year, it will be tough for the Mets to finish higher than fifth place in the NL East. That’s based though more on the other teams in the division on paper than on the Mets.
However, some experts think the Mets can maybe be a surprise team—maybe not as a division winner, but as a competitive ball club that will be fun to watch.
Newsday’s Ken Davidoff released his National League outlook on Monday, in which he predicted the final outcome for each division.
The NL East looks like this: Phillies, Marlins, Nationals, Mets and Braves.
I have to say, this is a bold pick. While the Marlins and Nationals are the most improved teams in the division, the Braves cannot be counted out.
Here is Davidoff’s reasoning for this pick: “The Braves have a collapse to move past, thanks to their woeful September 2011 which knocked them out of the playoffs. As opposed to their AL counterparts in Boston, Atlanta opted to stay the course.”
Even so, wouldn’t everyone think that the Braves are eager to overcome their late season collapse by starting fast out of the gate? Some analysts believe that the Braves will even challenge the Phillies for the division title.
Injuries will be a concern for Atlanta. Tim Hudson will miss the start of the season following back surgery and so will Chipper Jones to surgery to repair a torn meniscus.
After a breakout rookie year in 2010, Jason Heyward experienced a sophomore slump last year. The team will hope he can rebound in 2012.
Despite some holes, the lineup combines speed and power when everyone is healthy. Expect a big year from Michael Bourn, who will be a free agent after this season. Dan Uggla and Brian McCann will certainly provide pop in the middle of the order. Also, Martin Prado is a solid all-around player.
Once Hudson returns, the Braves starting rotation can be scary good, with Hudson, Tommy Hanson, Jair Jurrjens and a few talented young starters. The bullpen in the late innings—Eric O’Flaherty, Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel—is arguably the best in the game.
As for the Mets, Davidoff said that the team will get the most out of what they have, though they don’t have much. He cites the team’s lack of depth as well.
With these factors, it’s very strange that the Braves were picked to finish behind the Mets. Like I always say though, you have to play the games. The two teams will get to prove Davidoff right or wrong early on as they open the season a week from today.
About the Author: Jim Mancari
Jim Mancari hails from Massapequa, N.Y. He recently earned a Master's degree in Journalism at Hofstra University. He is a devout Mets fan and takes pride in his team, despite their lack of success over the last few years. Like all Mets fans, Jim has plenty of hope. He also writes as the sports reporter for the Brooklyn Tablet newspaper and the senior editor of metroBASEBALL Magazine. Click my name to view my personal website.
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The only way the Mets finish in fourth place is if one of the NL East team forfeits!…This team will be buried in the basement by Miid-May. They will be so far back that they will have to extend the bottom of the sports page to show them in the standings.
This team in awful and unwatchable. The Met Fans in Florida can’t wait for them to leave here they have stunk the place up so much!
Get out the Basement Bertha Gear baby!
We are The Houston Astros of the NL East!
If you say so, it must be true. And I don’t think you realize exactly how bereft of talent the Astros actually are.
The Mets are like a whole slew of other teams. mid pack, +/- .500 depending on how things break. They just happen to play in one of the 2 toughest divisions at the moment.
I was listening to MLBN this morning on my drive in and it was the Mets turn in their clubhouse a day. They made a comment that I had to laugh at. The Mets are no doubt the best last place team in baseball. Talk about a backhanded compliment. They predicted 76-82 wins.
I actually don’t even think that’s a true statement. My predictions were written yesterday and I believe are in the hopper to be posted here but I think the AL East’s 5th place team is the best last place team.
Mets battling it out with Baltimore? 1969 redux?
Man if that’s true then the Mets are going to win what Alex said, 69 games.
one of the few guarantees in sports is that most of this type of prediction is going to be wrong.
There are cases to be made for every team to move them way up or way down in expected finish. So many moving parts (guys returing from injuries, new injuries that will pop up, etc. And of course, guys just having break out (or big bust) years.
Very few teams have the overwhelming amount of talent that would let them lose multiple key guys and still dominate. Most need some good luck and good health to stay in the hunt or surprise people, and are a couple bad breaks away from being middle of the pack.
So hell yeah, the Braves could finish fifth (though in this division, that could still be upper 70s in wins). Or first. And you likely could make the same arguement for the Marlins.
Jim, you sound surprise???????? That’s where they will be, if not last place.. either one i agree with…
I can see the Braves in last. Take a closer look at them.
Everyone in their rotation is either injury prone or unproven. Hanson is an injury risk – He missed the end of last season with a shoulder injury. Jurrjens hasn’t pitched a full season the last two years because of injuries. Tim Hudson is 36 and will start the year on the DL. Beachy looked good last year, but even he spent some time on the DL last year too. The young pitchers that they have, are talented but, how will they pitch in their 1st full year up here? They aren’t sure things.
They also have the same awful lineup that they had last year. They struggled to score runs all of last year, and they have made no improvements to their lineup.
Their bullpen is really good, but I can’t seeing them having the same success as last year. I mean does anyone think the O’flathtety will have a 0.98 ERA again? There’s no way he can repeat that.
So, it wouldn’t surprise me a at all if they do finish last.
The Braves could definitely be due for regression but here’s the thing. They haven’t put all their eggs in just one basket.
I don’t expect anyone in the pen to be as good as last year. Dock ‘em once for the year to year variations in reliever performance and dock ‘em again for the wear and tear on the pen last year.
Jurjens, Hudson, Beachy and Hanson will probably have two go down and Vizcaino out for the season does hurt a lot. Tejeran, Delgado an Minor may very well have growing pains but they would have those anyway whenever they break in, just might hurt more if their expected to player larger roles this year than what would be ideal.
McCann might not be injured as he was last year and Heyward and Uggla will most likely be better. Bourn is an upgrade over Schafer/McClouth and Prado could be healthy all year too. Chipper will probably be in and out.
Braves aren’t all that far away from C Bethancourt 1B Freeman, 2B Pastornicky, SS Simmons, 3B Drury/Salcedo, RF Heyward and SP of Minor, Beachy, Hanson, Teheran, Delgado and a pen of Vizcaino, Venters, Kimbrel all between 23-25 and plenty of trade possibilities in the farm so their poised to compete for a long time, even if they take a step back this year.
The team that stays the healthiest and has the best intra-division record will win. The team with the most key injuries, yes even Philly, could finish last.
Phils have a good head start with position players, and some of the ones left have had significant injury issues over the last few years (and are not spring chickens).
the real wildcard with them of course is the front end of the rotation. top 3 pitched over 700 innings last year, and that is hard to repeat. If 2 of those guys come up lame, they can easily come crashing back to the pack.
The only goal the Mets should have is to finish ahead of the Nationals . That means we are at 82+ Wins at that time and with the second wild card, good things are an inch away … This division is the best in the majors right now and the Phillies will be on top of it with maybe 100W(plus minus 2 ) . The rest will be at 90-80 , so anythign can happen if you stay close and gets a streak running (most likely AGAINST a division rival ) So folks i just say enjoy , scream for our beloved mets , and … BELIEVE !!!!
NL east is kind of hard to predict this year. As all have been saying, b/c of the Phillies injuries they are much closer to the pack this year.
I’m going in with low expectations for the Mets so just going to enjoy the season and watching the kids develop. What will be, will be.
Oh, I am with you. Watch the games and enjoy. Root for whoever deserves it (individual players). The wins will be what they are, just hopefully they play hard and provide some exctiement.
It they only win 78 games, but have positives for the future (like Duda with his 35 HRs…), it is progress.
Somehow the Braves will find a dance partner to make a trade with for a bat, they always do. It wouldn’t shock me if they finished 2nd or 5th. They’re one of those ” IF” teams. If such and such happens they’ll finish 5th,if not anywhere but 1st. Tricky team to predict.
“Somehow the Braves will find a dance partner to make a trade with for a bat”
Enter David Wright, who’s my pick on the Mets front who will be having a big year and hopefully get a big return.
now that trade would certainly cause the internet to blow up.
and could never happen unless Chipper was out for the year.
“could never happen unless Chipper was out for the year”
BUT Chipper is on his way out, hanging up the cleats after the season. Wright would the right heir at 3rd for Atlanta IMO. He would mesh well with McCann, Freeman, Uggla and Heyward.
what I meant was, if chipper was playing I doubt they would pick up another 3B mid-season. After the year? differnet story.
Atlanta will pick up another 3rd baseman if Chipper is unable to play the field, but still capable to be used as a bat off the bench. It’s already been established that Atlanta needs another bat. I’ll be shocked if those knees of Chipper hold up past July. If Wright hits somewhere around the area of .330-.340 with 20 HRs come July, no way Atlanta doesn’t wait until after the season.
If Wright’s putting those numbers up in July then I don’t think they’ll move him. They are just as likely to extend him if that’s the case.
Hi Fonzi,
That depends more upon the Wilpon’s overall financial situation. If the problems haven’t gone away because of the Madoff decision (which more or less stopped the problems from only getting worse) if David is having a good year, his value goes up, the Mets can say they are ready to move Murphy to third and either hand the job to Turner or bring up Flores – thus being able to trade David for some more top prospects as part of the “rebuilding” process. That’s what they did last year with KRod and Beltran. That’s what they did this winter by not signing Jose. That’s what they might do this summer with Wright – for up until the civil suit decision, Sandy was insisting Madoff had nothing to do with the Mets financial plight – and would quote us often that $70 million loss. Now he’s telling us it was the uncertainty of the Madoff verdict that froze up money that couldn’t be used before.
The only thing we can be certain of is that the Wilpons, be it just the Mets or Sterling Equities as a whole, have not been honest with the public so we can’t suddenly trust what we’re now hearing about a new leaf being turned. Especially because it would have taken years before the Wilpons would have had to actually start paying back a court decision going against them due to the appeal process. So, for the moment, there would have been no reason to borrow a total $65 million to meet operating costs, make drastic across the board organizational cuts and hire CRG to straighten out their financial mess simply due to the uncertainty of what just might happen. Yes, be more fiscal conservative with their spending, but needing two loans to pay off operating expenses? Too many other things had to be occurring for this to happen.
And if Sterling Equities was in better financial shape, that $70 million loss would have been there for appearance on paper to enable the parent company to take advantage of the corporate loopholes common to big business. The selling of television rights to SNY on top of their share of the money SNY brings in, plus the national television contract and merchandise marketing alone with have easily allowed Sterling to absorb any losses attributed to the Mets.
If only there was a more balanced schedule in which the Mets didn’t have to contend with the Phillies, Braves, Nationals and Marlins more than any other team and could contend with Houston (one last hurrah), San Diego, Colorado, Pittsburgh as often as other teams – then we might actually have a chance to sneak in as the second wild card.
The unbalanced schedule gives some teams an advantage over others in the wildcard races more than the division ones. The Diamondbacks and Giants could pad up their victory total while the Mets suffer the opposite fate. But give the Mets the schedule that Arizona and San Francisco has and we might be talking wildcard instead of last place.
+1
Forgot to mention that the American League had it right but at the wrong time. When there were two divisions, there was a balanced schedule so everyone played everyone else the same amount of times, regardless of division. That took away some of the authenticity of being a division winner when a team that finished second had a beter record than the team in the other division that finished first.
So the balanced schedule was wrong for that time but correct for this one – only because there is a wildcard at stake. What would be fairer is for next year to have each team play teams outside their division eleven times and 13 times against division opponents and eliminating inter-league play. The schedule will still remain unbalanced but not nearly in the proportion that it is now, causing wild card contenders to play on more equal a field.
can’t get rid of interleague play now though, with the Astros moving over to the AL and having an odd # of teams in each league.
Hi stick,
That’s why I mentioned the unbalanced schedule beginning next year when the Astros move to the junior circuit and there are then fifteen teams in each league.
The breakdown would be:
13 games against 4 division opponents: 52
11 games agsint 10 non-division opponents: 110
___
Total games: 162
Of course, for us in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago that eliminates the popular inter-league series which many will miss. For other teams in close proximity, (i.e., Baltimore/Washington, San Francisco/Oakland, etc.) I do not know if the rivaly is so big that fans will feel any real loss. But eliminating inter-league play will also make the world series seem more unique.
One could also wonder if Jose would have run away with the batting title not having to face the Phillie pitching staff more than the juiced up Braun and perhaps twice facing C.C. Sabathia as well.
Think of the possibilities. In this case, I would welcome the sabremetric analysis putting everyone on an equal playing field to determine to get at least a recreated understanding of who might have possibly hit what. Is there such an analysis out there?
maybe I misunderstood, but if you want to eliminate interleague play, the only way you can do that is to have 1 team in each league off every day of the season. Once they went to odd # in each league it meant that you have to have IL for every team to be playing.
I actually think that once they went 15 each, they should have gone all the way and ditched the leagues and just gone with 2 divisions. That is effectively what they have done now.
Except that a team like Detroit will still have a huge advantage in the game won dept playing so many times inside their own division against weak teams like Minn and the ChiSox.
Now someone’s going to win that division regardless but if a team like KC could get to 90 wins by predominatly beating up on Minn and the ChiSox the 36 times they play them.
That;s a huge advantage in the Wild Card hunt against a team like Toronto or Boston having so many against NYY TB and themselves.
Hi T,
Yup, why I think having as close to a balanced schedule is vital to make the wild card really legitimate.
As far as actual winners, during the mid sixties the American League was considered vastly inferior to that of the senior circuit and the talk was always how much better even the Mets would have done being in the other league, let alone better teams like Pittsburgh and San Francisco which lost out to the Dodgers the final weekends of 1965 and 1966. In contrast, the Twins and Orioles both ran away with their pennants those two seasons.
Then when divisional play came into it, teams like the Royals and Twins in the mid eighties had poorer records than many of the AL eastern division teams but by virtue of being in the west, they went on to the playoffs, even with a balanced schedule.
At least with a balanced schedule even teams like the Tigers might have the advantage of winning the division, there being such weak competition, however, for the better clubs, the unbalanced schedule favors a weak team in a weak division instead of a better team in a good division.
Bud Selig has been helping the Wilpons so much, perhaps he can do something to give teams like the Mets who are in tougher divisions a handicap. Let’s say a certain amount of aded victories when applied to the wildcard race?
I agree 100% Joey.
The current format clearly favors the mediocre team in a weak division over the good team in a strong one. I’m quite sure this is parity by schedule and it’s not something I see MLB doing away with.
When I read your comment I interpreted it as something that was going to be done in 2013. Are they going to a balanced schedule in 2013? Done deal?
I certainly hope so because while some teams who wouldn’t have had a prayer have either “been in it” or won a Wild Card and even Division winners get swept in the post season from the AL Central in particular. Stronger teams miss out by one of two games because of imbalances in the schedule and that’s provides an inferior post season.
At least in the old two division format all teams were playing the same number of games against the same opponents as everyone else and the won loss records reflected that such as 1973 for instance but here the won loss records actually bury the issue as a team like Detroit can beat up on KC, Minn, ChiSox and Clev (combined 50-22) and skate to a title while being merely .500 vs everyone else.
I really don’t see MLB going to a balanced schedule unless they ditch the divisions because the very reason it was instituted was to artificially prevent a sub .500 team from qualifying as would have happened in 1994 in the AL West if not for the strike.
Stick,
You’re right about that – cannot have just one team off but two on an particular day since this presents an odd number of games (seven) that can be played on any one day.
Guess that means MLB has blown it with fairness as far as the wild card is concerned.
Joey D,
Is it true that there will be a more balanced schedule next year?
The Mets NYY series isn’t occurring every year?
No T,
I was only trying to determine if a balanced schedule would be feasible so the Mets wouldn’t have such an unfair advantage in the wildcard race being in the east.
Joe
Got ya Joey,
It really is a joke that a team like Detroit skates to a division while being just .500 vs non divisional opponents while Boston (90 wins) or even Toronto (81) could have easily beaten up on KC, Clev, Minn, and the ChiSox themselves and both of those teams did play better than .500 vs out of divisional opponents.
Toronto especially got killed by being in such a tough group as they were 6 games under in the division and 6 games over vs everyone else.
Sure you can say they had their chance and didn’t take care of business but was it the same chance every other team has? Is it random where some years some teams will be up and others down? To some extent but not really with Boston and NY and TB while not having the margin of error of the Yankees and Red Sox has even managed to retool on the fky and continue winning.
Overall how much of a difference between Toronto’s 81 wins and the Tigers 95 is there really when Detroit has such a huge difference in strength of schedule? 14 games? Not even close. I’d say more like 5, and Boston? I’d say they were a better team over the entire season and had they played Clev, Minn, ChiSox and KC 18 times each they win 105 games.
Bud Selig says that 10 teams is fairer than 8 but how is it fair when teams play different schedules?
T,
What was really a joke was the 2005 San Diego Padres winning the division title with an 82-80 record while the Mets and Marlins, who were never serious contenders for post-season, were tied for third at 83-79.
Maybe having seen his mediocre team win a division his first year as CEO explains why Sandy’s spending so little on medicore players for the Mets.
Joey,
It’s not that uncommon. The Dodgers got one with 84 wins, Cubs 85 and Cards 83 all obviously while playing almost half of their schedule against teams that won less or considerably less.
The whole format is really designed to give mediocre teams (usually smaller market) a better chance to at least remain alive deep into September if not get an occasional pennant.
Where it really becomes unfair is with an additional Wild Card team being added teams are competing against you while playing such an easier schedule.
See what I mean, T?
There’s lots of teams Sandy can point to in order to justify his moves!
The Phillies do not have the right side of their infield and backups are not great either. They can finish 3rd or 4th. Their pitching might have to work harder to stay on top.
the phillies pitching was incredible last year. Going to be very difficult to repeat that.
Is that 4th with Big Pelf?