Mets’ Offensive Woes Are A Familiar Sight Around Baseball

It is no secret that the Mets’ offensive woes have been minimized by the excellent work of the pitching staff. Not many hitters on the team have played up to the standards they have become accustomed to throughout their careers. Hitting coach Chili Davis was fired after a Pete Alonso persona known as Donnie Stevenson took over as the “hitting approach coach”.

Even Francisco Lindor was booed at Citi Field not even a month into his 10-year contract. It would be easy to think such a poor start offensively is an anomaly, but the Mets are far from the only team to start the season with such large issues at the plate.

It is not unusual for offenses to start the season slow. Between hitters finding their timing and the cooler weather’s affects on the ball, April tends to be a slower offensive month. The problem that Major League Baseball is having is that offense is at a historic low so far. So how much of the Mets’ struggles are their own issues rather than a larger trend in baseball?

One of the most noticeable issues is the low team batting average. Although batting average isn’t looked at with the same importance as it may have a decade or two ago, it is still tough on the eyes to see a batter go up to the plate with an average in the low .200s. With Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Davis not having enough at bats to qualify, the Mets current leader is Pete Alonso with a .259 average. Mitch Haniger of the Seattle Mariners, who is also hitting .259, is the only other player to lead his team with an average as low as Alonso’s. Considering the team had been visibly pressing leading to poor pitch selection and low averages, the Mets’ .238 team batting average is surprisingly in the middle of the pack at 13th in baseball.

Struggling stars is another area where the Mets are not alone. There has been plenty of attention put on Lindor’s poor start to the season, but there are other proven star caliber hitters off to similarly bad starts. Reigning NL MVP and known Met killer Freddie Freeman quietly went into a 1-28 slump over the past week and a half, and is currently hitting .219 on the season. Reigning AL MVP Jose Abreu was also hitting below .220 at the beginning of the week before back-to-back multi-hit games brought his average up to .238. Both MVPs hit well above .300 in 2020.

Marcell Ozuna, coming off of a .338 average in 2020, is hitting just .201, .001 point behind Lindor. The Mets’ shortstop might be the most notable struggling star due to him being in a new home with a new contract, but he has plenty of company. With this many top tier hitters struggling to start the season, it is fair to wonder just how much of it is a result of hitters preparedness versus MLB’s attempts to change the game.

In an attempt to generate a greater following, it seems as if MLB attempted to recreate the steroid era without the steroids by juicing the baseballs. Home run races saved baseball in the 1990s, and now instead of having Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire hitting home runs, everybody would be able to get in on the fun. The result was baseball evolving into a game where action was at a premium and the “three true outcomes” (strikeouts, walks or home runs) dominated due more players selling out for the long ball and home run records being shattered.

With the focus on getting more action in the game, MLB decided they would deaden the baseballs ahead of the 2021 season, with the hope being that the loss in homers will create more balls in play, creating more action. So far, not many hitters have altered their approach, and the home runs lost are just being replaced with fly outs.

One issue that seems to be specific to the Mets to this point is just how drastic the drop in power has been. The Mets currently have 22 home runs as a team, which ranks last in baseball. While it is easy to just assume the amount of postponed games is the main culprit for that, their home run rate shows that to not be the case. At their current rate, the Mets would would only be ahead of the light hitting Pittsburgh Pirates if they weren’t behind in games played. Their team slugging percentage of .350 is also in the bottom two in baseball, ahead of only those Pirates.

The biggest reason for this is most likely due to the teams approach at the plate. The Mets have been over aggressive and chasing pitches out of the strike zone, leading them to be in the bottom half of baseball in average exit velocity and in the bottom third in barrel percentage. It would not come as a surprise to see more extra base hits and better pitch selection under new hitting coach Hugh Quattlebaum, as they have already seemed to embrace his philosophy emphasizing not chasing balls out of the zone.

Major league hitters are collectively hitting for a .234 average so far in 2021. In 1968, the year of the pitcher, the league average was .237, which is currently the lowest in MLB history. It was the first and only season where pitchers won both American League and National League MVP Awards, and it was followed with the mounds being lowered from 15 inches to 10 inches in 1969. The Mets certainly have room to improve on their offensive approach; however, it is clear that the changes brought on by MLB are still too new for teams to have an answer for them.