The Mets are blessed when it comes to power pitchers. In their stable, they currently house three starting pitchers who all top out over 95mph with their fastballs—Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, and Noah Syndergaard. Degrom is coming off a Cy Young and one of the greatest pitching performances ever by a Mets pitcher in 2018, but Syndergaard may be the most intriguing of the bunch.

Prior to 2018, if asked out of the three pitchers listed above, to pick the pitcher you thought would be the first to win a Cy Young Award, I bet the overwhelming response would have been Syndergaard. Most would have agreed, as he was named the opening day starter in both 2017 and 2018. His stuff is electric, and his fastball is overpowering. But I don’t think anyone was overly shocked that deGrom took home the award first.

There is no doubt that Syndergaard has the stuff to win a Cy Young Award if he stays healthy, and I think it may happen sooner than later—as soon as 2019 even.

As the 2018 season progressed, there were some things that Syndergaard did differently that could signal that he is ready to leapfrog deGrom as the Mets dominant pitcher again.

I wrote last week that deGrom’s increase in frequency and execution of his slider was one of the main reasons why he transformed from good to great in 2018. DeGrom uses his four-seam fastball as his primary pitch and his slider as his secondary pitch. Watching deGrom’s success may have influenced Syndergaard as he also went through a little bit of a transition in 2018. Maybe he picked up on what deGrom was doing to make himself successful.

Towards the end of the 2016 season, Syndergaard’s primary pitch became his sinker, using it over 30 percent of the time. It replaced the four-seam fastball as his primary pitch, which he used over 35 percent of the time in the seasons prior to 2016. The spin rate on Syndergaard’s sinker (2152rpm, ranked 51 amongst pitchers that threw over 2000 pitches in 2018) make the pitch incredibly deceptive and hard for hitters to barrel up—however, this could also lead to less control over the pitch because it moves more.

Velocity plus a reduced spin rate causes the pitch to drop in the zone, thus more ground balls are hit or increased swings and misses. If you’ve ever seen Syndergaard throw this pitch, it’s as filthy as Pig Pen from the Peanuts cartoons, which could be why he fell in love with it.

When looking at all the starting pitchers in the MLB that throw over 95mph, Syndergaard was one of the only pitchers to use his sinker as the primary pitch in 2018—the majority use the four-seam fastball as their primary pitch, and sprinkle in the sinker almost like it’s an off-speed pitch (deGrom utilizes the sinker like this).

Rewind to 2016 when Syndergaard was an All-Star. He got off to a tremendous start that season, and he put up a career low in ERA (2.60), a career high in strikeouts (218), and ended the season ranked in the top 15 in the MLB for WHIP (1.15). But here’s the kicker—in August 2016, Syndergaard changed gears and started to utilize his sinker more often.

By September of that year, it was his primary pitch moving forward. He also used it more often in June 2016—the three months where he primarily used his sinker were easily his worst three months of that season. In the months he used his four-seamer as his primary pitch, he pitched to the tune of 2.40 ERA—the months he used the sinker, his ERA was 3.12.

If Syndergaard was a doing so well with his four-seamer as his primary pitch, why would he go against the grain (compared to most of the other power pitchers), and start using his sinker as his primary pitch? I can’t really answer that, but I’m sure he had a very good reason as to why he went that route.

As stated above, in September 2016, Syndergaard’s primary pitch was his sinker from that point on. He utilized his sinker anywhere from 35-45 percent of the time, and his four-seamer was utilized around 15 percent of the time on average. Syndergaard missed most of 2017, but in 2018, the sinker was still his primary pitch and he posted his second-highest ERA (3.03), highest WHIP (1.21), lowest K% (24.1%) and highest BB% (6.1%).

One could make a strong argument that 2018 was his worst season. Don’t confuse what I’m saying—I’m not trying to say that Syndergaard had a bad year in 2018, I’m simply saying that maybe something was off—and by seeing what Syndergaard did towards the middle of August last year, maybe he felt the same way.

By September, Syndergaard started utilizing his four-seam as his primary pitch again. This looked to be a smart move on his part, as September proved to be his best month of the 2018 season (one of the best months of his career). He pitched to a 1.73 ERA, and hitters posted a slash line of .195/.264/.304—a powerful example of what he is capable of and a great building block headed into the 2019 campaign.

Prior to September, Syndergaard was starting his hitters off with a sinker 45 percent of the time—this dropped all the way down to 19 percent in September as his four-seamer became the pitch of choice in this situation. In addition, we saw an uptick in usage of his slider and changeup in two-strike situations—relying less on trying to blow a fastball by a hitter in those situations.

Let’s take this a step further. If we combine the months in 2016, the last time Syndergaard utilized his four-seamer as his primary pitch, with September 2018 (when he switched back to using it as his primary pitch), then project what a full season would look if he used his four-seamer as his primary pitch, this is what we get: Innings Pitched 208.5, ERA 2.16, 223K, 58BB.

I know that they take more into consideration when deciding a Cy Young Award, but with that stat line, Syndergaard would start to get his name into the discussion.

Maybe Syndergaard watched what deGrom was doing during his starts last season and began to apply a similar philosophy to his starts towards the end of the year. They say imitation is the best form of flattery (or something like that). Maybe Syndergaard looked at what made him an All-Star selection in 2016 and decided to replicate that. Whatever it was, Syndergaard decided to start using his four-seamer as his primary pitch and it helped him close out 2018 with an exclamation mark. If he can replicate what he did in September 2018 over the span of the 2019 season (and remain healthy), the Mets may have to make more room on the mantle for another Cy Young award.

The post Featured Post: 2019 Will Be Noah Syndergaard’s Year appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Jacob deGrom had a season for the ages in 2018.

Even Mets fans, who had grown accustomed to seeing his performances over the past few years, will agree that there was something extra out there last season. What transformed him from a solid ace into a dominant Cy Young award winner? Was there something he was doing differently in 2018 that got him to the next level? And if there was, can he repeat it moving forward?

I will attempt to answer those questions in this article.

The first thing I looked at when evaluating deGrom’s 2018 performance was his Quality of Pitch Average or QOPA. QOP looks at a combination of pitch speed, location, movement and quantifies the quality of a pitch. It has been shown to have a negative correlation with ERA (higher QOP = lower ERA). This would be a good place to start because if deGrom’s pitch quality was superior, it would ultimately be one piece of the puzzle explaining deGrom’s 2018 season.

Here is a chart I created on qopbaseball’s website which stacks deGrom’s pitch quality up against a few of the other top pitchers in the game:

qopabaseball.com

As you can see, deGrom’s overall pitch quality was 4.14 which was surprisingly below the major league average. Among all the pitches in his repertoire, the highest quality pitch was his two-seam fastball or sinker. This pitch had a QOPA of 4.69, which is above the MLB average. According to QOPA, this was one of his more effective pitches, but he only threw it a fraction of the time when compared to his four-seam fastball. If this was his highest quality pitch, why would he use it so infrequently? I wasn’t getting the answers I was looking for from QOPA so I kept looking.

The next thing I looked at was how often he used his pitches and how successful they were. Here’s a breakdown of how often he threw each pitch in 2018:

MLB Statcast

As you can see from the chart, there were two pitches that deGrom threw more often in 2018 than he did since 2015—his changeup and slider. While deGrom used his four-seamer as his primary pitch, his changeup and slider were used to keep hitters off balance and get them out. Two pitches that he threw less frequently in 2018 were his curveball and sinker.

MLB Statcast

DeGrom threw his slider 24 percent of the time in 2018, up two percent from 2017.

It wasn’t the increase in the frequency that made the difference as much as the improvement in spin rate and velocity. The harder it’s thrown and the tighter the spin on the slider, and the more it’s going to move and miss bats. And that’s exactly what deGrom did in 2018—his slider velocity increased almost 2 mph from 2017 and the spin rate increased from 2,453 to 2,496. These changes led to an increase in whiff% from 28.6 in 2017, to 36.1 percent in 2018!

Just as importantly, deGrom threw most of his sliders in a very good spot. As you can see from the heat chart above, most of his sliders were tailing away right-handed hitters and in on left-handed hitters. For a right-handed hitter, a pitch thrown like this would cause the batter to end up chasing pitches that start over the middle of the plate and then breaks late over the outside portion or even off the plate. Even if the hitter manages to get a bat on it, it would result in weak contact. It’s a similar outcome for the left-handed hitter who would end up getting jammed.

The pitch looks like it’s outside then breaks in over the inside portion of the plate. The left-handed hitter would have a better chance to barrel up a slider because it’s moving into his wheelhouse coming from a right-handed pitcher, which is why, I suppose, deGrom threw it more to right-handed batters in 2018. I should note that while deGrom through it less frequently to left-handed hitters in 2018, when he did throw it, it was used primarily when left-handed hitters were in a two-strike count.

I was also very surprised to see he threw more sliders to left-handed hitters in 2017, and a reversal in this trend alone could make a big difference in his ability to get hitters out at an increased rate in 2018.

Now let’s look at his changeup. Depending on who you ask, they may tell you that a good changeup is the hardest pitch to hit in baseball. I happen to be from that school of thought.

If you look at the heat map of deGrom’s changeup, you will see that he kept it low and inside to right-handed hitters. This is exactly where you would want to place this pitch, especially if it follows a four-seam fastball that was high and away—which, coincidentally is where most of his four-seamers ended up. This is also a very safe spot to throw the change against a left-handed hitter—left-handed hitters generally look for fastballs low and inside that they can drive—if you put a changeup down and outside on them, odds are they are going to be way out in front and not get good wood on the ball. This is probably why he used his changeup more frequently against LH hitters in 2018 (much more in 2018 compared to 2017).

DeGrom’s changeup went up in velocity by 2.3 mph in 2018 versus 2017. However, even though his velocity increased, his spin rate decreased. The decrease in spin rate would cause his changeup to have more downward movement and be more deceptive to hitters. This would cause the hitters to top the ball and hit weak grounders in the infield. These changes in 2018 led to an increase in Whiff% on his changeup by almost four percent. It was a very effective pitch in deGrom’s arsenal.

The improvement and increased frequency in his slider and changeup start to paint a picture as to how deGrom was able to transform from the solid ace of the Mets staff to one of the best pitchers in baseball. The effective use of these pitches led to career lows for deGrom in ERA (1.70), highest K% (32.2 percent), lowest Hard Hit % (32.2), WHIP (0.91), and second lowest BB% (5.5 percent).

While deGrom’s changeup contributed to his success, his slider was the difference maker in 2018. From improvements in his velocity, spin rate, and placement, to using it more against RH hitters and less against left-handed hitters, it was one of the key components to becoming one of the top pitchers in the game.

They say pitching is an art. If that’s the case, in 2018, deGrom used his slider to go straight from art school to the Louvre and earned himself a Cy Young Award. We can’t wait to see where he goes in 2019!

The post The Key to Jacob DeGrom’s Success: The Slider appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

MLB Network

The MLB Network started their Top Ten Right Now series last weekend, kicking it off with their second and third base rankings. Two of the new Mets acquisitions were ranked in the top five second baseman with Jed Lowrie and Robinson Cano both making the list. This weekend, the show will tackle right fielders where the Mets should have another representative cracking the top ten.

Right field features some star-studded players with former MVP and current Mets fans’ heartthrob free agent, Bryce Harper, both 2018 MVPs Christian Yelich and Mookie Betts, and last year’s AL Rookie of The Year and MVP runner up, Aaron Judge. Most will have these four at the top of their rankings for the position (the typical order has been Betts, Judge, Harper and then Yelich). That’s where the debate starts for who the remaining six on the list will be.

Brandon Nimmo should make his debut on the top ten list when The Shredder spits out its rankings this Saturday. The question isn’t necessarily if, but where on the list Nimmo will fall. Some of the baseball analysts on MLB Network were discussing their choices considering this weekend’s show. Nimmo failed to crack any of the analysts top five, even though he ended 2018 with the third highest wOBA, second highest OBP, fourth highest fWAR and third highest wRC+ amongst right fielders—even Ron Darling failed to have Nimmo in his top five which could be concerning considering how much he saw Nimmo play last year.

So where will The Shredder slot Nimmo?

Most likely, Nimmo will be ranked around seventh. Some of the stats and rankings I listed above may seem to support that Nimmo should be ranked higher, maybe even top five, but there were some things to take into consideration that may cause him to drop to the back end of the top ten.

Nimmo’s R/L splits are a concern. In order to be considered a top player at your position, there should be some consistency in your splits—they don’t have to be 50/50, but they shouldn’t be lopsided either. Nimmo did most of his damage at the plate last year facing right-handed pitching—74% of his hits, 82% of his homers, 79% of his runs scored and 85% of his walks came against righties. Here’s a snapshot of some of his advanced stats which also highlight the discrepancy in the splits:

Fangraphs

After seeing some of these numbers as a manager, I would be hesitant to play Nimmo against left-handed pitchers—it was like two different players wearing that number nine jersey. If a manager is worried about playing you in certain situations, then you can’t be considered one of the best at your position.

Another red flag with Nimmo was his expected stats in 2018. Nimmo’s xwOBA was ranked 11 amongst right fielders and had the biggest differential by almost double that of the next nearest player. His expected slugging (xSLG) was 99 basis points lower than his standard slugging (SLG) at .384, making him the only player ranked in the top 15 for xwOBA to have an xSLG lower than .400.

MLB Statcast

The Shredder will take all that data into consideration while ranking the top ten right fielders, which is why I see Nimmo towards the bottom portion of the list. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Shredder has Mitch Haniger, Stephen Piscotty, Nick Castellanos, and maybe even Andrew McCutchen (another MVP winner), ranked higher.

Right field is stacked and only getting stronger with the emergence of guys like Castellanos, Piscotty, Haniger, and Nimmo to add to the already established stars playing the position. If Nimmo can sure up his splits and repeat his 2018 performance, he may be able to crack the top five in the future. But for now, Nimmo should have a spot cemented in the top ten, which isn’t too shabby for a guy who didn’t have a much of a role when the 2018 campaign began.

The post Will Brandon Nimmo Crack MLB Network’s #TOP10RIGHTNOW? appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

It’s not that I hate home runs, it’s I don’t like to see guys going up to the plate trying to hit home runs, Davis said. Home runs are mistakes by pitchers — they have to make the mistake before the home run is going to happen. You don’t hit good pitchers’ pitches out of the ballpark. You hit mistakes.

Davis thinks the Mets “have a young and talented lineup.” I personally agree, and if you read my article which highlighted Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil’s production from 2018, his hitting approach may be exactly what the doctor ordered for this team. The Mets don’t have a ton of power guys, so while launch angles and exit velocity are important aspects of hitting, the majority of guys in this lineup aren’t bangers. And even the guys that do have power could benefit from making more contact at the plate.

While I don’t like the idea of every hitter taking the same approach at the plate, it sounds like Davis will be tailoring the hitting approach to the Mets strengths. Just because Davis favors contact doesn’t necessarily mean he disregards guys getting on base with walks–it sounds like he understands the type of hitters he has, and there is also a reason why the front office thought he was a good fit. His philosophy may go against the grain and direction of what most teams are doing these days, but it could be the perfect recipe for the Mets offense in 2019.

The post Chili Davis Favors Contact Approach appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

I don’t have to rattle off many stats to show that the Mets didn’t have a good offense in 2018. The team scored 676 runs, and the league average was 721 runs scored. The more runs you score, the more wins you should have—hence, the Red Sox led the league in runs scored (876) and they also won the World Series. It may not work out as perfectly as it did in 2018 when the league leader in runs wins the World Series, but the concept is simple enough.

In their defense, the Mets did have some injuries that led to the lackluster offensive output last season. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t some promising signs for the future in 2018, as has been pointed out by many fans ever since the season ended.

Some of those include:
• Brandon Nimmo established himself.
• Jeff McNeil provided hope.
• Michael Conforto surged in the second half.
• Amed Rosario continued to improve.

I’ve seen many stats used to support the bullet points listed above, and they are something to be excited about. While I do look at many of the stats that are utilized to back up that excitement (like wOBA, wRC+, OPS, Contact% etc.), some don’t take things like bad luck, defensive positioning, or even quality of contact into consideration. I try to solve for those things when analyzing player performance.

The two players I want to focus in this piece are Nimmo and McNeil, mainly because they had breakout seasons in 2018. Let’s attempt to answer the question if their season was really as good as we all thought?

We know that one player can have a higher contact percentage than another player, but does it really matter if the person with a higher contact percentage is hitting weak ground balls (or even just foul balls)? On the other hand, a player can tear the cover off the ball, but he can’t control a Center Fielder robbing him of a home run—in other words, he could have hit a ball just as hard or far as another player that it landed for a home run for (creating a completely different outcome). In either of those situations described above, the descriptive stats may not paint a complete picture of what’s happening.

I generally look at two stats to go along with my two eyes to determine a hitter’s skill: O-Swing% and Expected Stats (like Expected Weighted On Base Average (xwOBA)). You may have heard of O-Swing% before—the percentage of pitches outside of the strike zone that a player swings at, but Expected Stats are a relatively new type of stat developed by MLB Statcast. If you’ve never heard of it and are getting tired of hearing about new stats already, I get it, I really do. But trust me, I only talk about the really cool and helpful stats (like Goose Eggs).

xwOBA basically takes wOBA a step further to try and determine the skill shown at the point of contact by the hitter. What the heck does that mean? Well, the way I use it is to determine if one player’s offensive stats were better than another player’s due to “luck” or maybe some other factor. xwOBA applies weights based on launch angle and exit velocity (quality of contact), then based on historical data on whether similar contact led to hits (hit probability), it spits out the Expected OBA (or what should have happened in that situation based on history). Here is the exact definition from Statcast:

“Expected Outcome stats help to remove defense and ballpark from the equation to express the skill shown at the moment of batted ball contact. By looking at the exit velocity and launch angle of each batted ball, a Hit Probability is assigned based on the outcomes of comparable historic balls in play. By accumulating the expected outcomes of each batted ball with actual strikeouts, walks and hit by pitches, Expected Batting Average (xBA), Expected Slugging (xSLG), and (most importantly) Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA) tell the story of a player’s season based on quality of and amount of contact, not outcomes.”

The reason I use O-Swing% is that it is the one plate discipline stat that correlates closest to runs produced by a hitter. A lot of the plate discipline stats have to be taken with a grain of salt, but I think everyone will agree that good plate discipline is necessary in order to become a good major league hitter. By looking at the Expected Stats and the O-Swing%, I get a really good idea of a player’s offensive skill set. Let’s take a look at the Expected Stats chart for the 2018 Mets taken from the Statcast website:

Chart Data From MLB Statcast.

There are two players that jump out to me on that list and they happen to be Nimmo and McNeil. As you can see, their expected performance based on the quality of contact they made last season is much lower than their actual recorded stats.

Expected Batting Average, Expected Slugging and Expected OBA were all significantly down compared to actual Average, Slugging and OBA. Not only that, but the variances are way off compared to the league averages (in each stat), which all fall under .01 difference between actual and expected. That means that the skeptics about these to players performances from 2018 may have a leg to stand on after all.

Nimmo and McNeil seem to have been extremely fortunate in 2018. To put it into perspective, Conforto led the Mets in 2017 with wxOBA, but the variances for all of his stats were right around the league average—the same goes for Yoenis Cespedes who led the team in 2016. This means that the contact they were making historically produced similar results as their actual results—the quality of contact that Nimmo and McNeil made in 2018, did not do this.

What caused such a variance?

Nimmo and McNeil both had excellent BABIP, .351 and .359 respectively. This, in turn, drove their actual batting averages up. But when you consider the quality of contact, their xBA was much lower. Their speed was the first thing I looked at as what could have played a factor in the inflated batting averages. One of the things that the Expected Stats can’t measure for is player speed—so an infield hit for a fast player would historically be considered an out for most players, and then lower their Expected Stats. This may be the case for McNeil, because he legged out a total of 9 infield hits (bunts included), in limited plate appearances. But Nimmo only had 10 infield hits (bunts included), and that wasn’t enough to make that much of a variance in his Expected Stats based on his mount of plate appearances.

In McNeil’s case, it could have been a combination of infield hits and some bleeders that caused his BABIP to increase and drive up those Expected Stats. The other thing that Expected Stats can’t measure for is defensive positioning. It seems like the variances, in both of their cases, could have been caused by opposing defenses being situated in a way that caused a few more balls to drop in for hits that normally would be caught—a.k.a good old-fashioned “luck.” And there ain’t nothing wrong with that, it’s just not sustainable.

Now take a look at the xSLG. Both of them had a lower xSLG than actual SLG, but the player of concern here is Nimmo. Based on his quality of contact last year, his expected slugging should have been nearly 100 points lower than his actual slugging. This immediately has me questioning whether we can expect the kind of power from Nimmo that we saw in 2018 (17 homers), in the future.

In all likelihood, based on historical launch angles and exit velocity, some of those home runs should not have been. Maybe a couple of those dingers got a little boost from the wind, but historically, the ball would have landed in the park for double or maybe even an out (either one would lower xSLG). Speed isn’t normally linked to slugging, but in both Mcneil and Nimmo’s situations, legging out triples that would have historically been doubles (and possibly even outs), could attest to the drop off in xSLG versus SLG as well.

I was really hoping that there would be an explanation that led to the Expected Stats confirming that to Nimmo and McNeil would be able to replicate the type of season they both had in 2018, but there was nothing concrete to support it. It should be noted, however, that although there was fairly wide variance from expected to actual stats, their wxOBAs were both still better than the league averages.

As I stated earlier, the other stat I like to look at when evaluating a player’s offensive skill is their O-Swing%. Here is a breakdown on how the 2018 Mets faired in this category:

Fangraphs

Nimmo was fantastic in 2018 with O-Swing%–not only did he lead the Mets, but he was also ranked third in the entire MLB last year. Nimmo has developed a skill that generally translates into a player being able to hit well at the major league level. Batting Runs produced also has a higher correlation with a good O-Swing%. McNeil, on the other hand, has some work to do. Based on 200 plate appearances for the Mets last season, only Rosario swung at more pitches out of the strike zone. He makes a ton of contact on balls in the strike zone, but as we discussed earlier, the quality of that contact wasn’t relative to what his BABIP indicated (higher BABIP is generally caused by hard contact).

Needless to say, there are questions as to whether Nimmo or McNeil can repeat their performance in 2018. After deeper analysis, I am slightly more confident that Nimmo will be able to repeat his 2018 performance (because of O-Swing and his ability to barrel up more balls and get that quality contact). Despite Mcneil’s promising contact numbers, the quality of that contact and his discipline at the plate give us a better understanding of why the Mets did not just hand him a starting role headed into 2019.

The post Can Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil Repeat Their 2018 Campaign? appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

We are entering the era of big data.  Like it or not, it’s everywhere. There’s data for everything, and everyone is using it to be more efficient in whatever it is they’re doing. The same applies in baseball. While I don’t always agree with some of the advanced statistics out there, I find many of them quite useful. After playing/coaching/teaching the game for 30+ years, many of the traditional stats were ingrained in my brain. It’s all we ever used or cared about while we played.

It wasn’t until 5-6 years ago that I started to embrace many of the advanced statistics to determine how a player is performing. Now one of my hobbies is to look back and see which awards may have changed (MVP and Cy Young) through the years if advanced stats were taken into consideration.

Stats aren’t the only thing changing about the game. As a young hitter, I remember being taught to swing down on the ball to create backspin (which created lift)–now they teach launch angles and swinging more upwards, ala Ted Williams, to create more lift.

The game is changing, it’s being played differently and has to be measured differently than in the past. Many of the traditional stats that we use have been around for more than 100 years when it was a much different game. While it may have taken a while for me to cozy up to some of the stats being used today, there was one stat I always felt was the biggest crock in the game. Oddly enough, it is considered a traditional stat. That stat is the Save.

I’m not going to get into a history lesson about how the Save stat came about because it can easily be researched if one chooses. I will tell you that the major argument against the Save, one that I absolutely agree with, is that somewhere along the line, managers started coaching to the stat.  Managers started to reserve their best relievers, now called closers, for the ninth inning of games in order for the player to compile more saves, rather than use the player when they are most needed (in high leverage situations).

I’m not completely sure why it started, but it was sensationalized as closers became these dominating figures that would come marching (sometimes running) in from the bullpen, usually to some very aggressive music. It was like a WWE wrestler getting ready to enter the ring. All the theatrics probably came from watching the movie Major League, because in the climax of the film Ricky Vaughn comes out of the bullpen to the song “Wild Thing” with all the fans going bananas in the stands. Kudos to Lou Brown for bringing Vaughn in during a high leverage situation.

When you think about it, the only place where the Save truly matters is in the major leagues. In little league, high school and college baseball, Saves don’t get any hype. Their seasons are relatively short in comparison to the big leagues and every win matters. It forces coaches to use their best available pitchers in high leverage situations because they want to win the most games possible. This doesn’t mean the best reliever can’t come in the ninth inning—if that’s the high leverage situation, that’s when they should be used.

It just means that you use your best reliever when you need them the most—seventh, eighth, or ninth inning. If the opposing team is threatening to take the lead, or your team is up by one run in the eighth inning and going to face the heart of their lineup, isn’t it wiser to use the best reliever in those situations so the opposing team has lower odds of scoring runs and potentially winning the game?

It’s funny because when major league teams are in the playoffs with their asses on the line, you will see them operate in this fashion (completely opposite of what they would most likely do in the regular season). Managers call on the best pitcher available (sometimes even starters on short rest, although this is unlikely to happen in the regular season ) in order to stop opposing offenses in their tracks. Why? Because they know it gives them the best chance to win, and that’s the ultimate goal after all.

So if the teams know that if they use their best relievers in high leverage situations, it gives them a better chance of winning, why does anyone care about the Save stat?

I can’t answer question…tradition, maybe? Because that’s the way we’ve always done it? All I know is that I have grown to hate the Save. However, the good news for people that feel the same way as I do is that there finally seems to be a stat which properly evaluates relief pitchers.

That stat is the Goose Egg (this time, I will give you a brief history).

The Goose Egg was created by Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com. He posted a very in-depth explanation of the stat which can be found here, but I will give you the basics so when you look at the Mets relief pitcher breakdown below, there is some context.

The stat was developed to try and find a better way to analyze relief pitchers. The stat was named after, you guessed it, Goose Gossage. It was a blend of troll and praise for Gossage as he has gone on tirades in the past about hating the Save statistic, but he also happens to be the all-time leader in Goose Eggs.

But what exactly is a Goose Egg? (I’ll refer to them as GE for the remainder of this post).

Simply stated, any time a pitcher is in a high leverage situation (7th inning or later) and they fail to give up a run (earned or unearned), they’re credited with one GE (a player can receive multiple GEs in a game). If they give up a run in the situation (inherited runs count), it’s a Broken Egg. There’s a conversion rate, and gWAR (Goose WAR) also associated with it GEs. Here is a graphic from the article on fivethirtyeight.com (linked earlier) that show the actual criteria for a GE:

Keep in mind that while many organizations still seem to be managing their bullpens around the Save, at least in the regular season, there is one manager that has embraced the GE: Gabe Kapler.

Now this being a Mets website and all, we have to take a look at how the Mets do with this stat. We will look at 2018 GEs to see how Mets relief pitchers performed last season, as well as how their two new acquisitions in Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia performed. Then we will take a look at some of the all-time numbers from Mets relievers.

First, here is a side-by-side comparison which shows the Mets relievers from 2018, and the top 15 GE leaders in the MLB from 2018:

The Mets will head into the 2019 season with two of the top 15 relief pitchers in total GEs from 2018 in Diaz and Familia. There is a good chance that they can both end the season with 40+ GEs. Rob Gsellman and Seth Lugo were also just outside the top 15, and Mickey Callaway will be looking for them to repeat that type of performance in 2019.

Now let’s take a look at some of the Mets best relief pitcher through the years according to gWAR and total GEs:

As you can see from the list, Tug McGraw had three of the best seasons ever recorded by a Mets reliever according to gWAR. He also holds the top two spots for GEs by a Mets pitcher in a season. This is probably a combination of him being put into more high leverage situations (as relief pitchers were used differently back then), and his ability to get out of innings without allowing runners to score. Edwin Diaz ended the 2017 season with 40 GEs and a 3.5 gWAR—had it been with the Mets, it would have been one of the best seasons by a relief pitcher in Mets history.

Here is also a list of the Mets all-time GE leaders (top 10):

Little surprise here seeing Franco and McGraw as the top two in Mets history. Familia also cracks the Mets top 10, and he will be able to add to his total now that he is back with the Mets—keep in mind that he will also be used as a setup man for Diaz, which could put him in more high leverage situations than Diaz (and it should probably be the other way around).

It’s also worth noting that there are also some former Mets ranked in the top 25 for GEs all-time (not shown): John Franco (589), Tug McGraw (521), Fransisco Rodriguez (430), Billy Wagner (421), Jesse Orosco (416), and Randy Myers (404).

There you have it. It may not be a perfect stat, but I think it does a better job of evaluating relief pitchers based on their job description—coming into games during the later innings, usually in high leverage situations, and not allowing the opposing team to score.

Special thanks to John Edwards for helping me track down some of the GE data.

The post Goose Eggs: The New Standard For Relief Pitchers appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

The MLB Network is almost done with their annual “Top Ten Right Now” series, having gone through every position aside from Right Field and Catcher. So far, the New York Mets have not been well represented—the “Shredder” has not been kind to the Metropolitans.

We have had two players make the cut so far—Neil Walker was ranked No. 7 amongst second baseman, and Yoenis Cespedes, who will be the primary center fielder for the Mets in 2016, came in at No. 4 amongst left fielders.

Surprisingly enough, no Mets pitchers were represented in the top ten—again, the “Shredder” no likey the Metsies.

Another position where the Mets could have arguably had a representative was at first base. Lucas Duda continues to be one of the most underrated and overlooked players on the team. I’m not talking about amongst Mets fans, I’m speaking in general terms.

Duda’s stats in 2015 merit him being in the top ten first baseman discussion, at least from an offensive stand point.

Here’s where Duda ranked amongst his peers in some of the more prominent statistics:

Those are some impressive rankings when you consider some of the players that also play the position: Paul Goldschmidt – Arizona Diamondbacks, Joey Votto – Cincinnati Reds, Miguel Cabrera – Detroit Tigers, Anthony Rizzo – Chicago Cubs, Edwin Encarnacion – Toronto Blue Jays, Jose Abreu – Chicago White Sox, Adrian Gonzalez – Los Angeles Dodgers, Freddie Freeman – Atlanta Braves, Chris Davis – Baltimore Orioles, Brandon Belt – San Francisco Giants.

The players listed in the previous paragraph are the top ten first baseman that were spit out by the Shredder (in their exact order of ranking). Granted, the Shredder is supposed to remove all human bias, and my analysis is riddled with it, but I didn’t pull the numbers (from the chart above) out of the sky.

You could definitely make an argument that Duda outperformed a few of those guys listed on the MLB Network’s top ten.

Duda’s splits, and how he fares against left handed pitching can be alarming. But truth be told, he didn’t fare very poorly against lefties in 2015. I think we may see Wilmer Flores give Duda a breather every now and then against left handed pitchers, but I don’t see this becoming a full blown platoon situation. You don’t platoon guys that put up the type of numbers that Duda can.

How the lineup shapes up for the Mets in 2016 could ultimately determine whether or not Duda can cement himself as a top ten first baseman in this league.

If Duda has a right handed hitter behind him that can offer some protection, it should allow him to see more pitches in the strike zone. For the past couple of seasons, Duda provided the only punch in the Mets lineup. If pitchers didn’t want him to hurt them, they just stayed away. This Mets lineup is much deeper now, so hopefully, the pitchers won’t have that luxury anymore.

In 2015, the amount of pitches Duda saw in the strike zone was the lowest of his career (42.9%). However, Duda also swung at a higher percentage of pitches in the strike zone than he has since taking over the job from Ike Davis a couple of seasons ago (62%), and he also made more contact than he has since taking the job (76.9%). So hypothetically speaking, if Duda gets more pitches in the strike zone in 2016 (due to a deeper Mets lineup), and his trend of being more aggressive with pitches in the strike zone continues, and he also continues to improve on his contact percentage, he could be primed for the best season of his career.

If it were only that easy. Unfortunately, there is no crystal ball, and we can only hope that things play out the way we think they will.

Regardless, Duda will be a player to watch early this season and could potentially put up some monster numbers in this lineup. He won’t have the weight of trying to carry this lineup on his shoulders anymore, and won’t be pressing to keep his team in the game with one swing. That should allow Duda to relax a little more this year, and it will hopefully translate into a career year for the lefty slugger.

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“People have gotten away from that, people are getting soft these days. I don’t care, if somebody is showing me up or throwing at one of our guys, you are going to get something inside to let you know I noticed that.” – Zack Wheeler in his recent New York Post interview.

Remember when the pitchers owned the inside of the plate? Hitters didn’t wear helmets, and it was much easier for a pitcher to intimidate a hitter. The inside half of the plate belonged to the pitcher. If you ventured too far into the pitcher’s territory, you more than likely got a nice clean shave from a pitch that was high and tight, reminding you that you crossed the line.

The pitchers used the inside pitch to keep hitters off balance. Hitters that were overly conscious of an inside pitch blazing in at 95mph were left vulnerable to off speed pitches and pitches on the outside part of the plate. Logically speaking, the pitchers that used the inside part of the plate as part of their strategy seemed to be more successful. Bob Gibson used the inside pitch to intimidate hitters. So did Pedro Martinez. Matt Harvey and Wheeler seem to like it. Heck, even a young Roy Oswalt commented on pitching inside in an early ESPN interview:

“It’s fun to see the fear of the hitter — especially if you’ve got a big-name hitter up there, and you throw inside, you can tell it gets under their skin. They want the ball out over the plate. Especially a young guy like me throwing inside, they don’t like that too much. I believe you have to. If you don’t knock ’em down once in a while, then they get real comfortable. The biggest key to being successful is throwing balls inside for strikes and balls inside to move their feet. You have to throw a pitch to get them out of their stance.”

I always believed that pitchers chose to shy away from pitching inside because of the steroid era freaks being able to turn on the inside pitch consistently, and park it in the bleacher seats. The hitters began to crowd the plate more and more as advanced equipment came out to protect them — remember Barry Bonds‘ robo-arm guard? The hitters had less fear of getting hit by an inside pitch, and had more ability than ever (due to the enhancements from PEDs) to do more damage with the inside pitch.

But the question is, now that game has been cleaned up from rampant PED use, why haven’t the pitchers taken back the area of the plate that was once rightfully theirs?

Since we are in this golden age of advanced statistics, I wondered if there were any that could show that pitchers are more successful if they don’t pitch inside. If that were the case, it would explain why pitchers have all but abandoned pounding the ball in.

The search didn’t take long. Sure enough, I stumbled on to an incredibly detailed article on Fangraphs which tackled this very topic. In the article, they use statistics to either validate or void some comments that Zack Greinke made about pitching inside. I’m not going to get into great detail here (Read article on Fangraphs), but Greinke basically says while he found that hitters made better contact and hit the ball harder when he stayed away, and hitters tend to get on base more on inside pitches.

The first part of the sentence made perfect sense to me, but the second half was hard to believe.

He goes on to add that even though the hitters tend to hit the outside pitch harder, most hitters don’t have the power to hit a ball over the outfielder’s head to the opposite field. If a guy hits a ball 300 feet in the air, it’s more than likely an out. When he came inside to hitters, they had just enough power to get a squib hit that would often drop in.

Very interesting. But did the stats back up what Grienke was saying?

I have to admit, I was skeptical in thinking the stats would back up all of his claims, but they did. In fact, the hitters had a higher batting average and slugging percentage on inside pitches. That means that not only were they getting on base more successfully, but they weren’t exactly squibs either. The data was so convincing, that they go on further in the article to question why any pitcher would pitch inside anymore.

Well that just busted my bubble. I was hoping that with this dominating Mets staff, where the average pitch speed is something like 94mph on the radar gun, we would see some old school pounding of that inside corner. Now I don’t think it’s such a great idea. Wheeler may have been right about people getting soft on pitching inside, but is more than likely the statistics dictating new pitching strategies as everyone is looking for every advantage in their journey to a World Series title.

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Although it may sound like a M. Night Shyamalan movie, the sixth tool does exist in baseball, and is arguably the most important and yet overlooked tool a player can possess.

We know the traditional five tools are hitting for average, hitting for power, base running (speed + skills), throwing ability and fielding ability. Players are generally rated on a scale which determines where on the spectrum of each tool that they lie. If they excel in all five, that is the coveted five tool player that every scout is trying to find.

As they stand alone, these tools are nothing more than abilities, and make no determination as to whether or not the player will be successful on the field of play. So what determines whether a player with three, four, or even five tools becomes a successful player at the major league level?

This is where the sixth tool comes into play.

The sixth tool has been incorrectly identified by some in the past, as the pitch recognition tool. While this is very important to develop, I would still list that as one of the attributes that fall under one of the traditional five tools — hitting for average. You can’t hit for average if you can’t recognize pitches.

No, the sixth tool is much more than that.

The sixth tool is having an in-depth knowledge of the game, as well as one’s self. It’s primarily mental for the athlete. It gives the player the ability to get a better jump on a ball, or know what pitch is coming next. This is the sort of thing that can’t necessarily be measured, which is why it is often the most underrated and overlooked tool in the player’s tool box.

The sixth tool is not just some way to explain how crazy plays happen — like the iconic Derek Jeter “Flip Play” during the 2001 ALDS. There is no such thing as “right place at the right time” to explain how a crazy play just took place, it was the player’s innate sixth tool which allowed it to unfold.

The sixth tool is what I would argue gets a promising prospect to the big leagues, and it also transforms good prospects into eventual Hall of Famers. These players are able to read angles, understand strategy so well that they are thinking three steps ahead, and know themselves better than the other players on the field know themselves. They tend to rise to the occasion no matter what you throw at them. When you watch these players, you say they have “it.” I usually say they’re just damn good ball players.

The most recent player that comes to mind that demonstrates the sixth tool is Joe Panik, of the San Francisco Giants. I followed Panik’s career very closely due to the fact that he is the only athlete to ever play professional sports from my alma mater high school. He wasn’t drafted out of high school, but went on to St. John’s University and was one of the top college short stops in the nation back in 2011. He was selected at the end of the first round of the 2011 draft, and the pick immediately drew criticism.

The criticism didn’t stop there. Although Panik was listed as a top prospect in the Giants organization, all you heard was people questioning the guy’s tools, and question if he would be anything more than a fringe platoon player due to his lack of “standout tools.” Unfortunately for them…no…actually, fortunately for them, Panik did have a standout tool — the sixth tool. The kid could just play ball. It more than compensated for his lack of standout tools. And now, the Giants are reaping the benefits of having an All-Star second baseman, just starting to test the limits on what he can accomplish on the field.

Amed Rosario (Photo by Jim Mancari)

When evaluating prospects and players, it is wise to not get too excited when we hear about “toolsy players” that have done little-to-nothing to show they can play the game of baseball. A player that jumps out at me with this distinction is Amed Rosario. Everyone gets googley eyes when someone is rated highly with their tools. They have visions of the next Ken Griffey Jr., or Ozzie Smith in their minds. The reality is the majority of those players are going to wash out, and the players who possess the sixth tool — the players who may have been ranked towards the back end of the prospect list due to their lack of standout tools, are the players that make an impact on a team.

However, when you do find that coveted five tool player that possesses the sixth tool…it’s magic. That’s when you get your Mike Trouts, your Griffeys, and your other iconic players that define generations. But that doesn’t necessarily mean players need all five tools to get to that level either. Larry Bird, the godfather of the sixth tool (applied it to basketball), proved that.

So how do you know when you have a player in front of you that possesses the sixth tool? I said earlier there is no way to measure it — I hate to say it, but you just know it when you see it. After watching the player perform day in and day out it becomes easy to identify. And even though it may be obvious that they have the sixth tool, the players that possess it often take a back seat to players with the standout tools that can be measured on a scale. That is, until you can’t ignore it anymore.

The post The Sixth Tool appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

The temperature is in the mid-40s. It’s a dreary, early spring day on the east coast. It’s not exactly the type of day you would be running to the ballpark to watch a game. That is, unless, the pitching matchup features Stephen Strasburg and Matt Harvey.

Below, you will find an actual text conversation that took place between Joe. D and myself at about 2:00 pm this afternoon:

I said “he looks pretty damn good” after he blew a 97mph heater past Bryce Harper to end the third inning. It may only be one game, but if you didn’t know any better, you would think Strasburg was the pitcher that was pitching in his first official game since coming off Tommy John surgery, not Harvey.

We didn’t need to watch an E:60 on ESPN to let us know that Harvey was back. Although, the fact that he agreed to take part in an E:60 shows why Harvey is successful on the mound. How many other players would have the balls to put that type of pressure on themselves? And the fact that ESPN even approached him to do it is equally as telling.

There were a lot of questions as to why ESPN would have run that episode on Harvey when he seemingly has accomplished so little in his short time in the major leagues (dudes were straight sipping haterade on Twitter). The answer is simple for anyone with two eyes to see—he’s a special talent. He has “it,” and every other cliche superlative you want to use to describe him.

On the cover of Baseball Maverick by Steve Kettmann, it states “How Sandy Alderson Revitalized Baseball and Revived the New York Mets.” I didn’t read the book, but the second half of that statement is clearly false—it was Matt Harvey who single-handedly revived the New York Mets and their fan base. Harvey is the type of player that a city and team rally around—the type of player that says get on my back, and everyone else get the eff out of my way.

The fan base had slowly been getting the life sucked out of themselves since 2006 until Harvey arrived on the scene. Now we have #HarveyDay, and all the Mets fans can be found in front of their television sets every fifth day when he pitches.

Much like Batman gave desperate Gothamites the hope of better times, Harvey has done the same for Mets fans. As fans, we felt as if the ground was ripped out from under our feet when we heard Harvey had to undergo TJ surgery. It was a quick reminder of how cruel this game and life could be as we watched a young man who had taken the game by storm, brought to his knees.

I believe everything happens for a reason, and as Thomas Wayne once said “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.” Mets fans have certainly learned to pick themselves back up over the years, and after nine strikeouts in his first game back, it seems Matt Harvey has as well.

I’m sorry Mr. Kettmann, but I have to disagree. If anyone revitalized the Mets, it was Matt Harvey, not Sandy Alderson.

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