Good morning, Mets fans!

Tough loss last night. But even though we came up short, there were a few bright spots. One of those bright spots was Wilmer Flores, who got the start at shortstop and had 3 hits.

Flores was called up a couple weeks ago, but due to sickness and Terry Collins, had mostly ridden the bench in Flushing. However, Wilmer has now started each of the past 2 games.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the Mets should start using Omar Quintanilla instead of Ruben Tejada, just to shake things up. The problem was that, while Tejada “is what he is” at this point, the same words applied to Omar.

Flores is different. We haven’t seen much of him. He has barely over 100 major league at-bats. He is 22 years old. He recently started learning to play shortstop. And so, despite the fact that we’ve been hearing his name for what feels like 10 years, he’s pretty raw. He has upside. He has potential.

And he’s already our best hitting shortstop, since the Mets had him reprise the role this season in the minors in an effort to eventually get his bat in the lineup. Ruben Tejada is NOT a hitter. Flores looks much more comfortable at the plate, can drive the ball to all fields, has a much better approach, and even when he fails, he just looks more competent out there than Ruben does. In the shortstop competition, Flores already has the battle of the bats won, and he still has a lot of potential and room for improvement.

Tejada is a better defensive shortstop than Flores. That’s the only reason he is still relevant in this discussion. But the gap between them is closing as Flores continues to adjust to the position and Tejada continues an apparent regression from his fantastic defensive play in 2011 and 2012 (when he was also solid with the bat, hitting over .280).

Neither player is a defensive wizard. Neither player has the best instincts. Neither player is fleet of foot. Neither player will ever be José Reyes.

But Flores is a hitter. Tejada is not. Flores is a prospect. Tejada is not. Flores has market value that can be parlayed into a package deal for an impact, game-changing player. Tejada does not.

Enough with the flip-flopping. Wilmer Flores should be out there 5 days a week. It’s time to really see what he’s got.

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Good morning, Mets fans!

Nobody has seen or heard from Jeurys Familia in ages. They say that if you listen hard, on certain nights when the moon is full, you can still hear him howling at the night sky. But I’m not buying it.

But seriously, where is Familia? After taking the loss on Opening Day, and struggling in his next outing as well, Familia seemed to find a bit of a rhythm during his next few innings of work. But Jeurys hasn’t pitched in a week and hasn’t taken the mound in a meaningful scenario in 2 weeks.

Familia was great during Spring Training, so it was a bit of a letdown to see him struggle out of the gate once the games started counting. But it’s clear that he has electric stuff and good potential, so despite his rough start, it’s pretty surprising that we haven’t seen him lately, especially given how often we hear about our older relievers needing rest.

Familia shouldn’t be the closer. But he should be pitching. And if Terry Collins doesn’t think he can be safely used in a Major League game, Jeurys should be sent down to the Minor Leagues so that he can join Vic Black in the “Strike Zone Training Program”. There is no way that a young, talented power arm should be wasting away on the bench.

Jeurys Familia should be pitching. Somewhere.

Have a good day, Mets fans! Maybe Familia gets some serious work in tonight if Zack Wheeler gets tossed in the 2nd inning for attempting hide pine tar on his neck, but that seems unlikely…

LGM!

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Good Morning, Mets fans!

Great win last night. The Mets, despite having had one of the league’s toughest schedules so far, are over 500 and are keeping pace with the fastest starters in the National League.

But they haven’t been hitting lately. The Mets rank poorly in nearly every offensive category (except for strikeouts!). So how have they been winning these games against good teams? Simple: their pitching and defense have carried them.

Mostly the pitching. Over the past 9 games, Mets starters have a 1.91 ERA and 8 quality starts. Over the past 4 games, the entire pitching staff (rotation & bullpen) has a 1.76 ERA. While occasional late-game bullpen shenanigans (mostly from Jose Valverde) have cost us a couple wins and made a few others very stressful, the men on the mound have given the Mets a chance to win nearly every night.

The defense has also had its moments. Sure, you’re probably still thinking about Ruben Tejada‘s botched play in the first inning. But from his point of view, in real time, it was probably hard to tell that Daniel Murphy had caught that ball on a bounce, so, if you allow him the fairly reasonable (but false) assumption that Murphy had caught the ball on the fly, his actions from that point on make sense.

Tejada went to step on the 2nd base bag, realized that wasn’t enough to get an out, and then tried to get a guy in a rundown. He should have ran back to the bag after making the first throw in the rundown, but on most plays, Murphy would have gotten there in time, so… I won’t bash Tejada too badly for that play, or the pop-up which he misplayed (nearly every fly ball gave the fielders trouble tonight with the heavy winds).

Looking at the positives: Ruben was a key part of a great play to save the game in the ninth inning for the Mets. Kirk Nieuwenhuis battled a spiraling wind gust that grabbed hold of a deep fly ball and dropped it to the ground. Kirk then fires a solid cut-off throw to Tejada, who turned and fired a strike to Travis d’Arnaud, who made an excellent diving tag to get the out at the plate.

Ruben also made a few highlight plays in his last game, and has been looking a bit better with the leather lately. Daniel Murphy‘s range has improved a good amount recently, as he continues to really get the hang of the 2nd base position. I also think that Travis d’Arnaud is looking more and more comfortable behind the plate with each passing game.

Trading Ike Davis will hurt our infield defense a bit, but Lucas Duda has been improving at first base, which is by far his best position. In the outfield, Duda and the other plodders of the past have been replaced by quality, speedy defenders, and David Wright is a Gold-Glove caliber third baseman, although I have noticed his range seems to have decreased just a tad this season. All in all, our defense looks solid, despite the occasional frustrating lapse.

The Mets will need to hit if they want to make some real noise in this league. But so far, they are off to a decent start even with many players struggling at the plate. If the hitting can start to trend upward and reach an acceptable level—and i think it will— and the pitching and defense keep excelling, the Mets will be poised to achieve Sandy Alderson’s ultimate goal: “Meaningful Games in September”.

Have a good day, Mets fans! I’ll be back this afternoon with the game recap. Let’s take the series!

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Good Morning, Mets fans!

What a frustrating loss last night. At least we fought hard. Anyway, the moment from the game that’s weighing most on my mind this morning is, of course, “The Shoe Play”. With 2 out and 2 on, Freddie Freeman hit a ball “straight into the ground” which seemingly ricocheted off of something and bounced towards Bartolo Colon, whose subsequent throwing error cost the Mets two runs and, arguably, the ballgame.

I’m convinced that it was a foul ball. The ball hit Freeman’s shoe before changing direction. It seems like simple physics to me… a ball hit into the dirt like a normal chopper wouldn’t have taken such a whacky bounce.

Terry Collins was suspicious, too, so he came out to argue the call. The umpires convened and asked each other if they had seen anything suggesting that the ball hit Freeman’s shoe. Meanwhile, replays indicated that the ball probably DID hit the shoe, although it was hard to tell for sure.

But the replays didn’t matter. Why? Because it wasn’t a reviewable play. Even though baseball has utilized instant replay to a much larger extent this season than in the past, there are still several plays which have been deemed “not reviewable”. To me, this is ridiculous. Sure, let the umps keep their balls-and-strikes, because each ump has a different strike zone (which might be a problem, but let’s not get sidetracked). But when you’re talking about things like fair-or-foul, safe-or-out… plays where it comes down to whether a certain object such as a ball touched a certain object such as a foot… the camera can give a yes-or-no answer to a yes-or-no question and it seems foolish to not use the technology available. The MLB lets umpires use replay to determine whether a pitch hit the batter, but not whether a foul ball hit the batter? I just don’t see the logic behind that.

Now, you might be jumping out of your seat, itching to make an argument about how replay slows down the game. But Terry and the umps ended up spending a few minutes talking about the play anyway, so the game was delayed regardless. Again, why not just turn to the cameras?

Baseball is a slow game. If they really want to speed it up, they can cut down the t-shirt cannon launches or something. But the most important thing should be getting the calls right, and crucial plays such as The Shoe Play from last night deserve to be reviewable, just as most other plays are.

Hopefully, this was just a result of the MLB’s rule-making executives not having considered the possibility of a play like this, and plays in which it is unclear whether or not a ball hit a batter will become reviewable in the near future.

Have a good Easter Sunday, Mets fans. Hopefully Wheeler can help us avoid the sweep. LGM!

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Good Morning, Mets fans!

Our Mets got a nice win last night. Zack Wheeler looked pretty solid, Lucas Duda was great, and Daniel Murphy turned into a Gold Glover for a night.

But I have something a bit more troubling on my mind this morning, and that is the Injury Bug. Us Mets fans know all about the Injury Bug by now… with this team, it’s not a question of If, but When, How, and Who the Bug will strike. We had our first battle of the year with the Bug on Opening Day when Bobby Parnell tore his UCL. Actually, this season’s bug began last season, when it was announced that Matt Harvey would miss the entirety of the much-awaited, magical year that was to be “2014”. 

But last night was the first night of the season where I think we all thought: “This is why we can’t have nice things”. Juan Lagares, who has been the best story of the season so far, went down with a hamstring injury while running to first in the seventh. We don’t know how bad it is yet, but hamstring injuries usually lead to at least 2 weeks on the disabled list, and setbacks, recurrences, and exacerbations seem to occur quite often when it comes to hammys. You could sense the “here we go again” tone in Keith Hernandez‘s voice last night when replays showed our dynamic young center fielder reaching for the back of his leg.

Oh yeah, our biggest offseason acquisition got hurt too. Curtis Granderson crashed into a wall in the first inning, then had to leave the game 5 innings later with apparent injuries to his arm, ribs, and knee.

According to reports, Lagares is likely to go on the disabled list, and Granderson is day-to-day but “very sore”. I guess we just have to hope that Lagares comes back in 2 weeks and can put all of this behind him and pick right back up where he left off, and that Granderson can get back in the lineup after a day off. But that’s wishful thinking, and our wishes as Mets fans are rarely fulfilled.

We might see Bobby Abreu. We might see Kirk Nieuwenhuis (did I spell that right?). We will see Chris Young within the next few days. Hopefully, these guys can fill in and produce if they are needed as replacements in the outfield. But it’s frustrating to see our biggest offseason acquisition leave a game, and it’s concerning to see a young player who is off to such a hot start go down with an injury that often seems to lead to more problems.

But maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I just have Post-Reyes Stress Disorder when it comes to hamstrings. Let’s hope for the best, and let’s see if we can get ourselves another win tonight. LGM!

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Good morning, Mets fans!

Another crazy game last night. Why do the Mets always do this to us? I know I’m not the only one who actually expected the unthinkable to happen… but once Jose Valverde threw ball 3 to Erick Aybar and the guys in the SNY truck cut to Raul Ibañez looming on deck,  I said “Ibañez will probably hit a home run” out loud… 2 minutes later, well… you all know what happened. But we got the win in the end, so… I think we can let this one slide, Mr. Valverde.

Anyway, Omar Quintanilla is on my mind this morning. Q made his first start of the season at shortstop and had 3 hits while driving in a pair of runs. Omar also made a few very nice plays on defense.

Omar Quintanilla is 32. Ruben Tejada is 24. Neither player is very good, but since he is the older one, many people view Q as the more boring option. If Tejada were a serious prospect with a high ceiling, I wouldn’t even consider letting Quintanilla take the starting job (this is why I don’t think Anthony Recker should be given a chance to take Travis d’Arnaud‘s job, but that might be a post for another day). But Tejada is not a prospect. He is a weak hitter, he doesn’t run particularly well, his baseball instincts aren’t too great, and his fielding has seemingly gotten worse over the past couple years. He also has had trouble staying healthy.

So why not give Q a shot to win the job? At first base, the Mets are trying to take a look at both Ike Davis and Lucas Duda and hoping one of them sticks. In my opinion, they should do the same at shortstop. Neither player is a star, and I’m not sure either player can even perform at an MLB-Average level, but if one shortstop can establish himself as better than the other, he should get to play. Neither player is the shortstop of the future (we hope…), so, unlike at catcher, “development” shouldn’t be a factor here.

Obviously, Q has only started one game, but even last season, we saw that he is pretty decent in the field, he can drive the ball more than Tejada, and he always plays hard. I think the Mets should take a good look at all of their options, and this includes Omar.

And hey, once we get to June and it would no longer cost us a draft pick to sign Stephen Drew, we can always go for that…

Have a great day, Mets fans! Let’s try to take the series this afternoon with Big Bart on the mound.

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Good morning, Mets fans!

Crazy game last night. Or this morning. I’m not even sure anymore. Anyway, as far as losses go, it wasn’t that bad. The Angels have a pretty imposing roster and we fought with them in a back-and-forth battle for 11 innings. What I think cost the Mets in this game, and what is definitely on my mind this morning, is New York’s inability to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

I’ve been watching the Knicks, the team with the lowest Basketball IQ I’ve ever seen, for the past 6 months. So seeing the Mets make several foolish decisions in the first couple weeks of the season hasn’t really been too much of a shock. But there was a lot of foolishness from our Mets last night, coming from both the coaching staff and the players.

First of all, Dillon Gee just isn’t a 100-pitch pitcher. He really starts to lose steam after the 5th or 6th inning, once he gets around 85, 90, maybe 95 pitches. The 3rd time around the order is usually worse than the first 2, and by the 4th time he sees a hitter, he usually has a lot of trouble getting the guy out. The Mets simply have to accept this and start pulling the plug on Gee earlier, instead of leaving him in to ruin what usually starts as a solid outing.

Second of all, Jeurys Familia is here because of his “stuff”. So when he comes in and waits until his 3rd inning of work to throw something other than a fastball, that’s a problem. When that first slider, his 36th pitch, bounces in the dirt and moves the winning run into scoring position, that’s an even bigger problem. Familia was basically throwing 100% fastballs, but even the heater was impossible for Jeurys to control tonight.

So with a wild pitcher on the mound, what did the Mets do? They intentionally loaded the bases, putting their young, erratic reliever in a situation where he could not walk a batter. To Familia’s credit, he did not walk Hank Conger. He hit him with the pitch. Game over.

So yeah, there were some frustrating decisions made on our side in this one. Why leave Gee in? Why would Familia stick with one pitch, when it wasn’t even working? Why would we force a young pitcher who can’t throw a strike to be in a situation where he has no safety net for his wild arm?

I get that we want to have Gee try to eat some innings and save the bullpen, and I get that walking the bases loaded sets up a force at the plate. But the bullpen, if managed correctly, should be able to last long enough to replace a tiring starter after 5 innings. And having runners on the corners isn’t that much different than loading the bases… you can still turn the double play and you just need 1 extra split-second to tag a runner if the play goes to the plate.

Anyway, like I said, while it was a frustrating loss, it wasn’t too bad in the end. There were definitely some positive signs. Travis d’Arnaud hit his first homer of the year and the bullpen was solid from innings 6 to 10. We’ll get ’em next time.

Infuriating fact of the day: The Mets forfeited the 24th pick in the 2009 MLB draft as compensation for signing Francisco Rodriguez. Mike Trout was the 25th pick in the 2009 MLB draft. If it makes you feel any better, the Yankees sent the 25th pick to Anaheim when they signed Mark Teixeira.

Have a good day, Mets fans. Let’s get some revenge on the Angels tonight. Game time is nine or midnight, or something like that.

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Good morning, Mets fans!

Great win last night. Juan Lagares is on my mind after getting the game-winning hit to help us beat the Braves, so let’s talk about him, and see if I can get through this entire article without making Juan single pun. Wait, never mind.

During the offseason and throughout spring training, the entire Mets community was abuzz with a raging debate in the outfield: Eric Young or Juan Lagares?

Juan Lagares has shown us from the start that he is one of the best defensive players in all of baseball. He has a cannon, good speed, a knack for reading the ball, and the ability to make incredibly acrobatic catches look easy (see my artistic rendering below of his amazing play from Wednesday night’s game).

However, Lagares wasn’t too good with the bat in his rookie campaign. For that reason, a lot of people in the organization were leaning towards giving Eric Young the 3rd spot in the outfield.

To me, the debate, “Young vs. Lagares, Bat vs. Glove”, was always based on a false premise. Why? Because in 2013, Eric Young wasn’t a very good hitter either. The second-baseman-turned-outfielder hit .251 after being traded to the Mets in June. As for speed? Yes, Eric is very fast, but Lagares is no slouch on the bases himself.

I’ve always thought Lagares was the better player. Fortunately, Juan was given the starting job in center field and hasn’t looked back. Lagares a clutch home run on Opening Day, and in our first 9 games, the 25 year-old Dominican outfielder is hitting .303 and has knocked in 6 runs. The glove has been great, but that was to be expected. It is the bat of Juan Lagares that has been the most pleasant surprise of the season’s opening stretch.

However, Eric Young definitely has a few things to bring to the table as well. Due to the injury to Chris Young, the Mets have been able to use both Eric and Juan for the first couple weeks of the season. If Chris returns soon, and stays healthy, the Mets will be faced with a choice. Curtis Granderson will not be heading to the bench, and Juan Lagares has been too good so far for Terry Collins to remove him from the lineup. Chris Young will probably be given a chance to take the job from Eric, and if he can hit like he did in the spring, the job should be his.

The Mets have a young, gold-glove caliber player in the outfield who has shown that he might be able to do some damage with his bat. After months of debate, Juan Lagares looks like the J— the one who belongs in center.

Enjoy your day, Mets fans. Get ready to stay up late to watch us play the Angels on the West Coast tonight. I hear they have a pretty good center fielder, too…

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Good morning, Mets fans!

I was originally going to write about how it was nice to see our bullpen finally do a decent job last night, despite the loss. Then, I started digging through the box scores from the past few games and I realized something…

The Mets’ bullpen has not given up a run in the past 4 games.

That’s right, we’re 8 games into a season in which many horrible things have been said about our bullpen, and yet, in half of those games (the most recent half), the pen has been spotless.

Scott Rice replaced Dillon Gee with 1 out in the 8th on April 5th and retired 2 batters before Carlos Torres came in and pitched a scoreless ninth.

The next day, Gonzalez Germen entered in the 6th to help clean up Jon Niese‘s mess, after which Germen, Kyle Farnsworth, and Jose Valverde each pitched full, scoreless innings.

On Tuesday, Farnsworth and Valverde each tossed scoreless frames after Bartolo Colon pitched 7 strong innings.

And last night, Jeurys Familia and Gonzalez Germen helped the Mets keep the Braves off the board after Zack Wheeler gave up 4 runs in 5 innings.

The jury is definitely still out on the bullpen, but it’s been nice to see some competence from that unit in these past few games. The starting pitching has been pretty good as well, although our starters have generally had poor final innings in their outings this year.

However, the bats, after exploding for 7 runs on Opening Day, have been pretty disappointing. Wheeler wasn’t great last night, but he and the bullpen kept the team in the game and gave us a chance to win. The Mets rallied in the ninth and eventually got the tying run to third base, but you can only string so many hits together against Craig Kimbrel (who hadn’t started the inning, mind you), and the Mets, after struggling at the plate for the first 8 innings, predictably fell short.

The Mets have been lousy in innings 2-8 all season. That’s not a tendency that you see from winning teams. We can worry about the bullpen all we want, but at the end of the day, if the bullpen is being asked to control deficits rather than preserve leads… the come-from-behind, walk-off grand slams won’t always be there to save the day.

So, while our bullpen hurt us a bit in the first few games, it has been on the upswing lately and is not to blame for our more recent losses.  What do YOU guys think about the pen so far this year? Who has impressed you? Who has fallen short of your expectations? Which internal options would you like to see the Mets add to the relief corps, and who would you like to see the Mets bring in from the outside?

Enjoy your day, Mets fans! Let’s take the rubber game tonight; I’ll be back after the game with the recap.

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Good morning, Mets fans… I’m excited to announce that I have been tasked with bringing the “MMO Morning Grind”— which Joe D used to run a couple years ago— back from the dead.

The Morning Grind is a daily feature where I’ll talk about something that stood out to me in the previous night’s game, the latest hot-button issue in the Mets community, or whatever pressing Mets thought is on my mind that morning. Then it’s up to you, the readers, to get the day started off right with some lively, heated debate! Just remember the one, very important ground rule.

So anyway, our Mets got the win last night, beating the Braves 4-0 behind a great game from Bartolo Colon. One thing that stood out to me is that the Mets got nearly all of their offensive production from the bottom of their order (and from slumping leadoff man Eric Young).

For the second game in a row, the Mets got nothing from Daniel Murphy, David Wright,  and Curtis Granderson (Grandy did walk twice, which is nice, but he’s not here to walk). But the Mets still managed 4 runs behind the offensive heroics of Ruben Tejada (not a typo), Travis d’Arnaud (who broke out of his 0-for-2014 with a pair of hits), and Eric Young (who had only beaten Travis to the hit column by a couple of days).

Lineup balance has been a big issue for the Mets in recent years. In the past few seasons, we all became familiar with the sinking, “there goes our only chance to score” feeling that came whenever David Wright failed to reach base. The Mets don’t have the budget or the absurd Designated Hitter rule needed to stuff a lineup from top to bottom with dangerous hitters like the Yankees have always been able to do. But in the past, we have sent out lineups with 5 or 6 easy outs slotted in there game after game after game. If d’Arnaud can start hitting, Tejada can hit at an acceptable level (I’m thinking .250, .260…), and Bartolo Colon can learn how to get a damn bunt down (he actually managed to finally move a runner over last night, but that was probably just to spite Gary Cohen, who had just said the big guy would never figure out how to bunt), the Mets could finally have what all good teams have: a reasonable chance to score in any given inning.

So, on the positive side, last night we got some production from places where we haven’t been getting it, and it led us to a victory. However, Ruben Tejada won’t be racking up RBIs every night, and we can’t fall in love with unsustainable production. Having a decently productive bottom of the order, and getting the occasional hit from your speed-and-defense guys, is important. But to have any consistency, the Mets need to get production and health from Juan Lagares, Daniel Murphy, David Wright, Curtis Granderson, Chris Young, and whoever our first baseman is by the time you read this article (my money is on Josh Satin. Terry probably wants to keep us on our toes).

Let’s enjoy the unexpected sources of offense that helped us to victory last night. We need lineup balance. But let’s not forget that, in the long term, the Mets will only go as far as their bigger hitters take them.

Enjoy your day, Mets fans. It’s Wheeler Day!

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