The Mets 2019 season has been a failure. When Brodie Van Wagenen was hired he promised to win now and made moves this offseason to do so. Not only did it not work, he doubled down on this strategy midseason by trading for Marcus Stroman.
By missing the playoffs Van Wagenen’s first season as GM has to be seen as a failure. That’s not the whole story though. By all past measures, there is no reason that based on the way they played this year that the Mets should have missed out on the playoffs. It goes against every historical standard in MLB history.
Statistics
The Mets broke several team records this year. First, Pete Alonso broke the Mets rookie and single-season home run records. Alonso became the first rookie to set his team’s single season home run record since Johnny Rizzo in 1938.
Alonso also leads MLB in home runs this season. If Alonso holds onto his lead and becomes the MLB home run king he would become the first rookie to lead MLB in home runs in the modern era.
Continuing with home runs the Mets set two other records. They set a new franchise record for home runs in a season, and they set a record with five 20+ home run hitters in a single season.
These stats don’t stand out as much as Alonso’s due to most teams setting new franchise home run records this year, but that shouldn’t take away from what the Mets have done. The Mets play in one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in baseball while they set this record. The same can’t be said for many of the other teams who set new records.
On the pitching side of things, the Mets are likely to set two new records. The first record, which has already been broken, is strikeouts in a single season (currently 1484). The Mets have broken the franchise record that they set just last year. leading that charge has been Jacob deGrom. DeGrom leads the NL in strikeouts this year and it will likely stay that way when the season ends.
That is one of the reasons that Jacob deGrom is likely to win his second straight Cy Young award. Despite the Mets long history of elite pitching with names like Tom Seaver, Doc Gooden, RA Dickey, Johan Santana, and Jerry Koosman they have never had a back-to-back Cy Young award winner. Jacob deGrom is the heavy favorite to become the first Mets pitcher to accomplish the feat, and only the twelfth pitcher in MLB history to do it.
Despite the Mets setting franchise records in power hitting and power pitching, they missed the playoffs this year. That’s only the beginning of the team’s wasted greatness this season.
Awards
Come November the Mets are likely to have two award winners. Pete Alonso is the overwhelming favorite for the Rookie of the Year award, while Jacob deGrom is a heavy favorite in his own right for the Cy Young award.
If both Alonso and deGrom win those awards as expected it would be the first time since the 1994 strike year that a team would have had both the Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young winner and miss the playoffs.
During the 1994 season, the Royals had Cy Young winner David Cone and Rookie of the Year Bob Hamelin. The Royals were just four games back of the division and three games back of the wild card when the season ended prematurely. It was entirely possible that given a full season the Royal would have made the playoffs.
The last time a team had both the Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young winner and failed to make the playoffs in a full season was in 1976. The Padres had Cy Young winner Randy Jones and co-Rookie of the Year Butch Metzger.
The Mets didn’t reach the level of futility that the Padres did, having won just 73 games, but this is an instance that shows how rare it is for teams to have such high-level play from two players and miss the playoffs.
There has never been a team who has played a full season with both a stand-alone Cy Young winner and Rookie of the Year winner to miss the playoffs, until now. If everything goes as expected the Mets will become the first of their kind. The Mets are about to set a record for incompetence in this sense.
Bullpen and Fielding
There is no reason the 2019 Mets shouldn’t be in the playoffs given all the records they set, the health they got form their elite players, and the elite performance from deGrom and Alonso. It took something special to tank this season.
The first thing that fans and the media alike will point to is the bullpen. The Mets had a 4.99 bullpen ERA this year, which is the sixth-worst ERA in the league. It’s not a viable excuse though, Washington is playoff-bound but they have the worst bullpen ERA in baseball at 5.75.
Mickey Callaway pointed to the Mets blown saves when asked about why the team failed to make the playoffs this year saying “Our bullpen didn’t perform the way we’d like to in the first half and it cost us. We blew how many, 30 saves?”
That isn’t a viable excuse either, the Mets blew 27 saves this year, which is 22nd in MLB. The Nationals, A’s and Dodgers all had more blown saves than the Mets did this year and are headed to the playoffs.
What really ended the Mets season was their poor defense. The Mets ranked second to last in MLB with -92 DRS.
That’s the second-worst DRS by a team with a record over .500 since 2003, when Fangraphs started tracking DRS. The only team worse than them was the 2005 Yankees, who won 95 games with a -120 DRS. They lost to the Angels in the ALDS.
The only team worse than the Mets this season was the Orioles. The Mets are the only team in the bottom five of the league in DRS with a winning record.
In fact, two of the teams in the bottom five lost 100 games this year. Four of the bottom six teams lost at least 90 games this year. The next worst team with a winning record is the Red Sox, who rank 23rd in the league with -31 DRS.
That giant 61 run difference is the what cost the Mets the playoffs this season. The worst DRS by a playoff team was the Nationals who had -6 DRS.
If the Mets want to compete for a playoff spot next year they have a lot of things to fix. At the front of the line is not the bullpen, but rather the defense. You can win with a leaky bullpen, but you can’t overcome a poor defense in today’s MLB.
