After one week into the season, New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns met with the media on Monday before New York’s series opener with the Miami Marlins. Stearns addressed the topics surrounding the team this season, such as Pete Alonso‘s hot start, the team’s starting pitching, the bullpen, and Matt Allan. The most notable were his feelings about Brett Baty and Luisangel Acuña‘s struggles and how the Mets are taking Dedniel Núñez‘s progression.
Photo by Ed Delany of Metsmerized
Baty and Acuña
With the Mets not re-signing Jose Iglesias and the injury to Jeff McNeil, New York hoped their two young infielders would step up. So far, neither Baty nor Acuña has contributed much. Especially Baty, who is off to a dreadful start, going 2-for-21. He hasn’t even drawn a walk. Stearns talked about the evaluation of those two.
“Offensively, I think on both players they haven’t gotten off to the starts they would have liked. Brett had a really hot spring training, and we saw the type of potential and quality at-bats that he had. I think for him it’s just getting back to that approach and frankly seeing some results. That’s a big part of this at the major league level you kind of need to see some results to get that confidence back. If we can have some hits fall for both of those guys, I think hopefully we can get one of them on a roll here and allow us to have a really healthy complement when we get fully healthy.”
Defensively, both have done fine splitting time at second base. Acuña’s recovered well since his throwing error on Opening Day. Offensively, they have combined for four hits. Baty has hit .095/.095/.143 with a .238 OPS and a -33 OPS+. As for Acuña at the plate, he’s hit .143/.200/.214 with his OPS at .414 and OPS+ at 18.
Baseball Savant has Baty’s Batting Run Value at a negative four, .165 xwOBA, .171 xBA, and .213 xSLG. Acuna’s xwOBA is .185 and .147 xBA. Pitchers are attacking and beating Acuna with the fastball by throwing the pitch to him 57.4% of the time, and for Baty, it’s the breaking and off-speed pitches. Pitchers have thrown breaking and offspeed pitches 29.7% of the time to him. The fastball has come to him 40.7% of the time.
Photo by Ed Delany of Metsmerized
Dedniel Núñez Update
Even though the Mets’ bullpen has been strong out of the gate, they are still missing a key piece. Dedniel Núñez hasn’t pitched a major league game since late August last year. He’s been recovering from a flexor injury. He pitched well late into spring training and has been throwing in the minors since. Stearns gave an update on how Núñez is doing in Syracuse.
“We’re going through a pretty structured progression here. So that when we call him up, he has the ability to reallyfunction as a full-go major league reliever, but the stuff has been good, he’s throwing well, and it’s been encouraging.”
In the absence of Núñez, the bullpen has put up a 1.29 ERA, which leads all of MLB. Middle relievers such as Reed Garrett, Huascar Brazobán, and Max Kranick have combined for 18 1/3 innings pitched, a 0.44 WHIP, and have allowed zero runs. When Núñez is ready to return, the odd man out seems to be Danny Young, who has struggled to throw strikes in his appearances. That would, however, leave the Mets with one left-handed reliever in the bullpen, A.J. Minter.
Núñez was vital to the bullpen last year when he was healthy. So, only having one left-handed reliever out of the bullpen might not matter to New York. Last season, he pitched to a 2.31 ERA in 25 games with 48 strikeouts. If he stays healthy,getting him back into the fold will be a huge plus for the bullpen.
