It was so exciting to watch the the Kansas City Royals come back in extra-innings and beat the Oakland A’s last night with a stunning 9-8 victory. What high-drama, what suspense, what a game… If any of you hated the sudden death one-game Wild Card round, you may want to reconsider. What happened last night was epic.
I love this game so much, especially in October, but I would be remiss if I didn’t also share how bittersweet last night was for me. I wish it were the Mets I was watching… It feels like ages since the last time we were in the postseason.
It’s obvious the Met offense needs to be better in 2015. We all know what the problem is, it’s not a big secret. We finally have the arms in the rotation and a bullpen to go with it, but what we lack and need now is the resolve to beef up this offense.
I got so uptight last Sunday, hearing Sandy Alderson labor on about needing to win 10-12 more games and needing to score 50 more runs. No kidding…
“But we don’t have to get a lot better,” Sandy Alderson told reporters after the final game of the 2014 season.
“First of all, look at where we are today, I think we finished probably middle of the pack in runs scored,” he said.
“We’re basically in the middle of the pack runs-wise in the National League. If we’re going to be one of the top-five teams, we’ve got to be in the top five in run production, we’ve got to be in the top five pitching-wise. Do I think we can get from No. 8 to No. 5 with what we have? I think it’s possible. That doesn’t mean we’ll rely on what we have. I do think we need to get better in that regard, but we don’t have to get a lot better.”
Shooting for mediocrity, the Mets way since Fred and Jeff Wilpon took over. Do enough to compete, the fans will fill the park, and who knows, with some luck maybe we’ll actually get into the postseason.
“There are a couple of places in the batting order and in the field where we probably need to take a look at things,” Alderson added. “At the same time, we’ve seen a lot of progress. … I’m very pleased with the way things ended this season.”
That’s fantastic, so our GM is on top of the situation and will look to add 50 runs. Make that 130 runs if we trade Daniel Murphy…
I’m surprised Alderson – sage of the sabermetric universe – would rely on such an archaic counting stat as runs scored to present his case for evidence of progress at his State of the Union address.
Perhaps it was the only statistic where he could say the Mets offense was in the middle of the pack… It’s better than saying the Mets ranked 28th in batting, or 27th in slugging or 28th in OPS. I wonder how many more runs the Mets would have scored if some of those walks were translated into hits or even contact?
You see that’s the problem… That’s the disconnect… The Mets need more contact more than they need more home runs.
As you saw last night, contact creates action, it can create chaos, it could lead to many different ways to impact a game.
The Mets think they can cure their run-scoring woes and make up for a 50 run gap by moving in the fences and praying some of those former warning track flyballs turn into one and two run homers. Talk about convoluted thinking and no concept of constructing an offense…
The Mets have had more opportunities to score more runs as almost any team in baseball. But when you’re batting .198 with the bases loaded or .244 with runners in scoring position, of course you’re going to struggle to score runs and lose games.
Hearing Sandy say that our OBP was fantastic in it’s correlation to batting average made me a little nauseous. What did that mean, you ask?
Let me illustrate his point this way… The Mets ranked 23rd in batting with runners on base this season at .240. However, their OBP was 80 points higher at .320. Hurrah! Sandy calls that fantastic… I say um, whatever…
Do you know that the Mets led the league in walks with a runner or runners on base? Yes, it’s true, 269 walks with men on – tops in the NL and third in the majors.
I’m not saying to swing at balls in the dirt, I’m saying if you see something in the strike zone – particularly with men on base – shorten up those swings and make contact. You’re not blind, you see all those first pitch called strikes too.
The runs and RBI opportunities are all there my friends. The problem is that we need to make more contact and do some damage. If we can achieve that, we’ll score a hell of a lot more runs. It’s not really that complicated. It’s very simple…
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