The New York Mets have their issues as we stare down the final few weeks of the 2020 regular season. However, one of them is not the offensive production players who grace the outfield grass.

Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto are the two constants, with a consistent revolving door for the third given the night. Even though he’s played his fair share of first base, Dominic Smith has still racked up more outfield appearances this season, so I’m going to push him into the outfield group.

Him and Conforto are the ones I want to focus on today. They’re both enjoying breakout seasons at different times in their respective careers despite some similarities. With Wednesday’s dramatic win against the Baltimore Orioles in the books, Dom and Scooter are right next to one another on the wRC+ leaderboard. Both are currently in the top 10, with Smith the owner of a 173 mark and Conforto right on his heels at 172.

Advanced statistics like wRC+ and OPS are pegging these two lefty hitters as equally impactful, but I’m finding it fascinating to see the different paths they’ve taken in their approach to reach those respective numbers.

(The statistics to follow are current prior to Wednesday’s game, unless otherwise noted.)

Batted-Ball Profile

Prior to 2020, Conforto had finished with a BABIP higher than .300 exactly once in his career (.328 in 2017). So far this season, though, that number is up to .405. This has been made possible by career-high marks in both line-drive rate (29.8%) and hard-hit rate (43.0%). After posting a 357 wRC+ on liners in 2019, that number is up at 441 this year.

The other part of Conforto’s batted-ball profile that stands out is his fly-ball rate, which is down nearly 10 percentage points at 30.6%. Scooter’s overall power hasn’t been sacrificed, though, as his 18.9% homers-per-fly-ball rate is hovering right around his career 19.7% rate.

On the other hand, Smith hasn’t made huge changes to his batted-ball profile — his line-drive right is up about three percentage points, his ground-ball rate is down about four, and his fly-ball rate is nearly identical to 2019. What’s changed more for Dom is the execution.

At the moment, his soft-hit rate has decreased approximately five percentage points, while his hard-hit rate has gone from 36.8% to 44.9%. Smith’s hard-hit rate specifically on fly balls has jumped about 20 (!) percentage points, which has been a huge factor in his .311 ISO through 140 plate appearances.

The one big difference when comparing these two against one another is the direction in which these batted balls are being sent. Conforto has been spraying the ball to all fields much more than he did in 2019, and Smith has amped up his pull rate.

Here’s the two-year comparison for each:

The biggest culprits for these numbers? Line drives for Dom and fly balls for Conforto. So far this season, Smith has pulled 65.2% of his liners (46.7% last year) and Scooter has gone oppo on balls in the air at a 43.2% clip (he’s pulled only 10.8% of them).

Plate Discipline

While Conforto has posted a higher walk rate (9.6% to 8.6%) and lower strikeout rate (20.3% to 23.6%) than Smith, the difference is negligible at this point. Shockingly (or not, if you’ve made it this far), their respective plate approaches have gone in separate ways compared to 2019.

For Scooter, he’s become a little more selectively aggressive — potentially taking a page out of Nimmo’s book — as his chase rate has basically remained the same (26.9%) and his swing rate on strikes has dropped five percentage points (67.3%). That change has also led to a rise in contact rate on strikes by nearly seven percentage points, meaning he’s obviously connecting with pitches he can do more damage with.

Smith has gotten slightly more aggressive, as his chase rate and swing rate on strikes between 2019 and 2020 are all within two percentage points of one another. His overall contact rate is almost identical to last year (75.3% in ’19, 75.4% so far in ’20), but there’s an increase in contact within the strike zone and a decrease outside the strike zone. Hence, the huge jump in quality of contact.

Does it Matter?

Is it actually a big deal that Conforto and Smith are taking different roads to pretty much the same kind of production? Well, no, of course not — it’s just fun to look at. Conforto’s success seems to be a product of his previous big-league experience and how he’s learned to adjust along the way. As for Smith, his surge in production last year and (more importantly) this year could result in the opposition still making some adjustments in the near future.

The one similarity we all want them to keep up, though? Mashing the baseball on a daily basis. These two are major cogs in Luis Rojas‘ every-day lineup, and if the Mets want any chance of sneaking into October over the next few weeks, they’ll need to get and keep the offense firing on all cylinders, which appears to be happening at the moment.