Like most people, I like to look at all the preseason projections at this time of the year as we get ready for a new season of baseball, and of course I’m particularly interested in how all these projection models view the Mets.
While much attention has been made about the recently released projected standings by FanGraphs that has the Mets winning just 84 games, not at lot of attention has been paid to the different drivers to that calculation. While I spotted a few very conservative player projections, one thing that jumps out is that they were not too kind on the Mets’ trade of Jon Niese for Neil Walker.
Let’s start at the switch from Daniel Murphy to Walker. Last season, Murphy slashed at .281/.322/.449 and that’s very comparable to his career line of .288/.331/.424. He’s played most of his career with Citi Field as his home park. Murphy worked with hitting coach Kevin Long and saw some increased power. His replacement, Walker, is projected to hit .258/.329/.427 in 2016. Essentially, FanGraphs views Walker as a downgrade offensively from Murphy at second base.
As we know, the side effect of the Walker trade was Murphy signing with the Washington Nationals. Now that he’s away from Citi Field, FanGraphs projects him to hit .308/.351/.440 this year. Effectively, Murphy is taking the place of Ian Desmond because Danny Espinosa is moving from second to short.
You could argue that Murphy’s projected 2.3 WAR isn’t that much better than Walker’s 2.2 WAR, but it becomes a little more lopsided when you consider the Mets had to give up Jon Niese to replace Murphy. Niese was a big trade chip who had a reasonable, team friendly contract with team options for $10 and $11 million respectively in 2017 and 2018.
For his career, Niese has a 3.91 ERA, 3.84 FIP, and a 7.0 K/9. A good comp to Niese which underscores his value is Wei-Yin Chen, who has a career 3.72 ERA, 4.14 FIP, and a 7.0 K/9. Both are left-handed. Both put up similar stats. Niese is 29, and Chen is 30.
Chen just received a five-year, $80 million deal. Niese makes $9 million this year. If he gets injured, a team can walk away. If Niese is good, a team has him on a two year, $20 million deal. Niese’s production and his contract carry a lot of value.
So in a a nutshell, FanGraphs does not view Walker as an upgrade at second base and that there was a high price to pay for him. Meanwhile the Nationals scooped up Murphy who they say is a significant upgrade that made Washington markedly better. They project the Mets for 84 wins and the Nationals for 88. Of course, these projections are not at all expected to be predictive, but good food for thought.
