In the analytics era, lineup construction comes down to two central concepts that are often conflicting: batter strengths and handedness matchups. In 2022, Buck Showalter seemed to stick with the dual philosophies that handedness > strengths and lineup consistency > matchups. Those ideals are also contradictory at times, which led to some strange lineup decisions. The Mets will roll back a...
What truly is an MVP? Is it the player who provided the most overall value to an individual team? The player who displayed the most prowess on a playoff-bound club? The player who rewrote the history books? Or is it the player who simply added the most value to his team’s win total, with respect to the club’s payroll? For small-market teams, it might be the latter. “Most Valuable...
Note: All statistics cited in this article are current through the All-Star Break. Over the past several seasons, the Mets have earned the reputation of being a below average defensive team. Indeed, while defensive metrics are notoriously fickle, the underlying numbers back up that sentiment. For example, from 2017 through 2020, the Mets ranked 29th, 26th, 26th and 25th, respectively, in...
