Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY

Baseball Prospectus released their PECOTA projections for the 2023 season, and the algorithm is bullish on the Mets chances this upcoming season.

The latest model projects the Mets to win 95.8 games, which is more than five games clear of the Braves (90.6), and six of the Phillies (89.8) in the National League East.  The Mets are third overall and second in the NL in projected win total in MLB this season behind only the Yankees (97.9) and the Dodgers (96.1).

According to the model, the Mets have a 95.3 percent chance of making the playoffs, and a 57.6 percent chance of winning their first division title since 2015. The Braves are given a 22.9 percent chance of winning the East for the sixth straight time, above the Phillies (17.8 percent) and the Marlins (1.7 percent). The Nationals have a 0.0 percent chance of winning the NL East according to PECOTA.

PECOTA also thinks New York has an excellent chance of winning the World Series. It gives the Mets a 12.6 percent chance of becoming champions in 2023, actually higher than the Dodgers (12.4), and trailing only the Yankees (17.1). The model gives the Braves just a 5.4 percent chance of winning the Fall Classic, while the Phillies are at 4.1 percent and the Marlins check in at 0.6 percent.

In addition to win projection, PECOTA also likes the Mets chances of having an elite offense, despite the team failing to land Carlos Correa. PECOTA projects the Mets to score 787 runs this season, five clear of the Dodgers for the most in MLB.  In terms of runs against, the Mets also project to be among the top teams in baseball. PECOTA has them allowing 646 runs this season, which is the seventh-lowest total behind the Yankees (569), Twins (613), Rays (625), Astros (632), Braves (633), and Dodgers (645).

It’s certainly encouraging that the PECOTA system thinks so favorably of the Mets chances in 2023, but it’s important not to get too hung up on projections. Last season, the model projected the Mets to win only 89 games, a number they blew past on their way to 101 wins.

The model is also constantly changing as teams perform above or below expectations, make roster changes, and deal with injuries. Six months from now, if PECOTA still as high on the Mets as they are now, a lot of things will have gone right in Queens this summer.

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Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

Baseball projections wait for no one—not even Carlos Correa.

Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs released the ZiPS projections for the 2023 Mets. Given the uncertainty of the Correa situation but reports that the Mets are still his most likely destination (at the time ZiPS was published), ZiPS has included Correa as a “maybe” member of the Mets’ lineup.

Though you can read the entire release and pore over the numbers here, let’s go over some of the highlights and most noteworthy or unusual projections for 2023.

Batters

It’s always important to keep in mind that projection systems tend to take a somewhat pessimistic view of any given player’s production compared to the previous season’s. Therefore, while the average fan may look at a player’s statistics and expect similar numbers the following season, that is usually not what the projection system will output. This is partly because it uses a weighted average of the previous few seasons rather than looking at the last season in a vacuum. ZiPS also takes into account aging curves and expects regression to the mean, particularly on BABIP, which is somewhat driven by luck.

ZiPS has rather modest projections for Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, and Jeff McNeil, who were the Mets’ three best overall hitters in 2022. Lindor’s projection is .255/.328/.440 a year after he hit .270/.339/.449. The projection has his fWAR decreasing from 6.8 in 2022 to 5.5. This is likely at least partially due to the two subpar years that Lindor recorded prior to last.

For Alonso, ZiPS projects a .261/.349/.515 line with 38 homers, 112 RBIs, and 4.1 fWAR. They forecast a significant dip in McNeil’s numbers, going to .289/.353/.419. The nearly 40-point dip in his batting average is likely due to his outrageous .353 BABIP in 2022, which was up from .280 in 2021. ZiPS projects McNeil’s 2023 BABIP to be .316, in line with his career average of .314, accounting for much of the batting average drop. They also forecast a drop from 5.9 fWAR in 2022 to 3.3 in 2023.

Correa is an interesting wild card here simply because he elevates the Mets’ lineup from top-heavy to balanced. His ZiPS projection is .265/.347/.461 with 23 homers and 5.4 fWAR, the second-most among Mets’ hitters. Without Correa, the Mets have only one batter projected to have 5 or more WAR; his added WAR puts less pressure on Alonso, Lindor, and McNeil to do it all hitting-wise.

ZiPS does foresee a significant decline from Starling Marte, with a projection of .266/.327/.415 and 2.4 WAR. This is likely due to his .340 BABIP in 2022 and the fact that he is entering his age-34 season. Brandon Nimmo (.270/.371/.419) and Mark Canha (.242/.360/.390) round out the outfield.

Starting Pitchers

The Mets own baseball’s oldest starting rotation at present, with all five starters looking at the wrong side of 30 come Opening Day 2023. Justin Verlander is projected for 4.2 fWAR in 165 innings pitched with a 2.84 ERA, while Max Scherzer‘s forecast is 3.3 fWAR in 141.2 innings with a 3.06 ERA. The Mets certainly hope that both pitchers defy aging curves and can record at least somewhat better numbers in more innings pitched, although Verlander only pitched 10 more innings in 2022 than his projection for 2023.

After that, Kodai Senga has 2.7 projected fWAR, while Jose Quintana is at 1.5 and Carlos Carrasco at 0.9. Based on the projected innings totals of over 100 each, ZiPS believes that David Peterson and Elieser Hernandez will both get some starts, with Joey Lucchesi and Tylor Megill possibly filling in, as well.

Relievers

ZiPS definitely believes in Edwin Díaz‘s 2022 season, as he is projected for a 2.28 ERA, 58 ERA-, 171 ERA+, 43.3% K%, and 2.06 FIP with 1.9 fWAR. ZiPS also thinks Adam Ottavino will be above average with 0.7 WAR a year after recording 1.1, although they do expect some elevation in his ERA (3.65) and FIP (3.68). Beyond that, Brooks Raley, Zach Greene, David Robertson, Drew Smith, and Stephen Nogosek are all forecast between 0.2 and 0.4 WAR with an ERA+ and FIP near league average. Megill (1.0) and Lucchesi (0.8) are expected to contribute in various roles, but their ERA+ is forecast at somewhat below league average.

Taking into account the overall lean towards pessimism in any projection system, what do you think of these numbers, Mets fans? Are you expecting any particular player to contribute more or less than ZiPS?

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While we still don’t have much of an idea as to when the New York Mets and the rest of Major League Baseball will actually get to start the 2020 regular season, we can at least hope it’ll happen at some point. Once it finally does, the Amazins will get to begin the next decade of Mets baseball in Queens at Citi Field.

Despite starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard now being on the sidelines until next season because of Tommy John surgery, manager Luis Rojas‘ squad is still expected to be a playoff contender, according to projections. When looking back on how New York entered the recently finished decade, its current outlook appears much brighter.

However, the one thing that’s escaped the Mets on a regular basis throughout team history is any real consistency when it comes to participating in playoff baseball. They’ve typically made the most of the handful of trips they’ve made to October, but those opportunities haven’t come nearly as often as anyone would’ve liked.

Heck, New York didn’t reach the playoffs in consecutive years for the first time until 1999 and 2000 before doing it again in 2015 and 2016 (although going one-and-done in the 2016 National League Wild Card game wasn’t fun). With the fresh slate of a new decade upon us — eventually — and the roster currently filled with a number of young and/or controllable players, the Mets at least have an opportunity to start fast and do something they’ve yet to accomplish as a franchise.

A Decade With More Postseason Appearances?

Something we can all agree on as Mets fans is that when there’s a winning team/contender in Queens, it’s incredibly sweet. One of reasons behind that is because it doesn’t happen every single year. We know that and can appreciate it.

During my infinite boredom of not having any new (and real) baseball to consume, I looked back on the Mets’ year-by-year results as a franchise. In doing so, there are some things that I noticed.

When it comes to consecutive seasons with a winning record, the Mets have experienced three different periods of time where they’ve been successful in doing so for at least five straight seasons (1969-73, 1984-90, and 1997-2001). Breaking it down a bit more, though, having consecutive years of 90-plus wins has been increasingly tough.

Between 1969 and 1973, only the ’69 World Champs posted more than 83 wins in a single campaign. The mid-80’s Mets from ’84 through ’88 collected at least 90 wins each season, but unfortunately only had two postseason appearances to show for it. Finally, the New York teams from 1997 to 2001 only posted 90-plus wins in 1999 and 2000 when they went to the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time ever.

Getting to the 90-win plateau is nice and all, but especially in today’s expanded (and possibly still expanding) playoff format, that’s far from a requirement in order to play postseason baseball. Of all the things I noticed when looking through year-by-year results, the trend sticking out the most was that New York has never reached the playoffs more than twice in any single decade since beginning play in 1962.

How the Roster is Set Up to Accomplish This

Upon entering the decade that just officially wrapped up, it was hard to see any light at the end of a proverbial tunnel since Sandy Alderson was just put in charge to begin an organizational rebuild. But for the decade currently in front of us, there’s at least reason for optimism.

On the position player side of the roster, there’s an intriguing core group of young players who have multiple years of control left, like Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, J.D. Davis, Brandon Nimmo, Amed Rosario, Dominic Smith, Seth Lugo, Michael Conforto, and Edwin Diaz (especially if he gets back on track this season). That can help provide a solid foundation for any competitive ball club.

New York’s starting rotation situation will evolve much sooner, though. Jacob deGrom isn’t going anywhere, which is crucial given that he’s one of baseball’s best hurlers. However, Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha are free agents at the end of this season, as is Marcus Stroman, with Syndergaard and Steven Matz to follow suit following the 2021 campaign.

The next three or four years will be important when it comes to the Mets breaking their trend of not reaching the playoffs more than twice in any specific decade since coming into existence. Brodie Van Wagenen has made free-agent signings and trades with the thought process of being competitive and reaching the playoffs right now. If New York is able to get there once or twice, it’ll continue encouraging the organization to keep investing in the roster to get over the hump (hypothetically). If they keep falling short, there will likely be a time when the front office would decide to start over to some degree.

Who knows what the acquisitions of the past two years will do to the Mets’ big-league club toward the second half of this decade, as a good amount of minor-league talent has been shipped out. If those are leaner times, they could be a little easier to swallow if they came after the most consistent run of playoff baseball in Queens the franchise has ever seen.

Some playoff success mixed into this hypothetical run would be pretty cool, too.

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As we continue to wait to see what happens with the start of the baseball season, we continue to think about projections for different players. Under normal circumstances a player like J.D. Davis would be difficult to project. He’s coming off a breakout year without a clear position on to a Mets roster that gets increasingly crowded the healthier it gets.

J.D. Davis made me look like I had the worst take in the world last year, and I love it. Last year around this time I was vocal against the Davis trade because I was a big fan of both prospects the Mets gave up (Luis Santana and Ross Adolph) plus the Mets just signed Jed Lowrie and Davis looked like an extra player that was needed.

Lowrie ended up basically never playing, a story that is still continuing and Davis went from a 78 DRC+ in in 2017 and a 68 DRC+ in 2018 (meaning he was 22% worse and 32% worse than the average hitter in the league both of those seasons) to 122 in 2019 (flipping it, hitting 22% than the average hitter). Plus we all fell in love with his charm in the dugout.

2019 Stats: 453 PA, 410 AB, 22 HR, .307/.369/.527, 1.0 WAR, 122 DRC+

The problem for Davis is where does he play. The Mets have a million corner outfielders and no center fielders, and dozen fringe third basemen. It will be Rojas’ job to find time for him somewhere because when he plays, Davis delivers.

Looking at his 2020 projections, it seems that most places are saying that he played above his level last year, he’s projected for steep step backs in power and a moderate step back in OBP, but even with that a line of .270/.333/.472 is still quite good when you’re not supposed to be nearly the best bat in the linuep. And remember, of course, we are really only looking at his slash line, stats like homers, PA’s, AB’s don’t mean anything without knowing how many games will be played this season.

This is one of those rare projection articles where we see regression, agree that the regression makes sense but the regression is still so much higher than we were anticipating a year ago we don’t care.

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)

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When Brodie Van Wagenen took over as the New York Mets general manager, his first big splash was to make a blockbuster trade to acquire his former client Robinson Canó. That deal has become the defining trade for Van Wagenen and not for positive reasons.

Canó hit a homer on Opening Day in his regular season Mets debut (actually he played a role in all the scoring offense that day), but from that point on, he struggled to find any rhythm offensively through an injury-plagued season.

2019 Stats: 423 PA, 390 AB, .256/.307/.428, 13 HR, 28 2B, 39 RBI, 0.3 WAR, 89 DRC+

While his season was a disappointment as a whole, Canó did finish with strong second half that salvaged what turned out to be the worst season of his career. The 37-year-old hopes to build off that second half to produce better results in 2020.

The good news is that most of the projections see Canó making a step back in the positive direction. Even Baseball Prospectus, who basically see him performing the same, projects Canó to play more games, giving him a higher DRC+ than last year (putting him at 7% worse than the average major league hitter rather than 11% where he was last year).

It’s interesting that Steamer and ESPN feel the same about Canó. ESPN classically overvalues players, making them more enticing to draft. Yet Steamer has a reliable record of accuracy in their projections and came to a similar conclusion as ESPN on Canó.

Although the average projections across the board aren’t pretty, if Canó can stay healthy and consistent, he will be just one key cog in what should be a formidable offense for the Mets.

What will be tricky for manager Luis Rojas is to figure out how many games Canó plays and how to balance the players making the most money vs the players with the best bats.

Of course, we have no idea what this means in a shortened season and we can’t accurately make a prediction until we know how many games will be played next year. With that being said, 15 homers feels incredibly optimistic (it didn’t feel optimistic when I first drafted this article on 2/17).

Still, Canó appears to be an X-Factor this season because of how low the expectations are for him after 2019. If Canó can produce anything close to his career .843 OPS in 2020, that would be a pleasant surprise.

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)

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Right before everything shut down, we all got word that Michael Conforto tweaked his right oblique, throwing is Opening Day start into jeopardy.

That feels like a lifetime ago, right?

Almost lost in Pete Alonso’s amazing rookie year, Jacob deGrom’s back to back Cy Youngs and Jeff McNeil’s arrival as one of the better hitters in baseball was Michael Conforto. Conforto, very quietly, had a good year on offense hitting over 30 homers, getting on base over a .360 clip and slugging nearly .500.

According to Baseball Prospectus he was 22% better than the average hitter last year, which is very, very good. (A couple of years ago Nimmo had the best ranking in that stat on the whole team).

2019 Stats: 648 PA, 549 AB, 33 HR, .257/.363/.494, 3.5 WAR, 122 DRC+

It looks like computer projections have Conforto putting up practically the same season, especially where it counts in OBP and SLG. A consistent Conforto is the backbone of this team and at some point the Mets are going to need to lock him up on a long term deal. As we have discussed with each article in this series so far, we can’t look at the raw homer numbers, we have no idea how many games will be played in 2020 (but a 30-34 homer season if Conforto was given the chance to play would just be *chef’s kiss*).

The only question is will the rest of the league recognize Conforto for what he is. He’s only been named to one All-Star game, 2017, but if he puts up the numbers he did last year again like the consensus of projections show, then he should be in the All-Star game every single year.

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)

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As the the novel coronavirus situation changes daily, it’s becoming even more difficult to think about projections. Following CDC guidelines, it looks impossible right now for baseball to come back before June.

This is an interesting scenario for some players, including Yoenis Céspedes. The outfielder was supposed to debut in spring training sometime around when baseball games were suspended. Having more time off means he should have more time to get healthy.

Céspedes had quite the year last year. He was recovering from massive heal surgery, a procedure that was probably delayed because Mets ownership wanted him to play through pain. While recovering, he broke his ankle after an encounter with a wild boar on his ranch, a story that some how only broke during the off-season. In complete, peak, Mets-Universe, being attacked by a boar doesn’t even begin to crack the most important and wildest stories of the Mets off-season.

It’s not clear what he will be able to do once he’s fully back. What is clear is that he has been working hard at coming back and wants to be back.

First off projection wise, everyone except ESPN sees Céspedes playing for about half a season, with a significant slugging percentage and good OPS, especially for missing the last year and a half of baseball. I can’t shake the memory of 2015 Céspedes, putting the Mets on his back. If he has a positive DRC+ this season like BP is suggesting, he could be a catalyst on this team. As always with projection articles for 2020, it’s important to focus on the slash lines. We have no idea how many games are actually going to be played.

This team is so much fun when he plays. This lineup is so much more dangerous when he plays. The Mets still have a ton of corner outfielders, and hopefully Luis Rojas can make it work. If Céspedes is healthy, then we could be in for a fun year.

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article).

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Not having any baseball right now is tough and we are looking for ways to still engage with our favorite pastime and dream about the 2020 season, whenever it starts. So we are going to start examining the Mets roster and look at projections from Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, ZiPS and Steamer to them in perspective with the 2019 season.

We wanted to address COVID-19 directly first. All of our favorite baseball players are humans, first.

“I’m a normal guy. Like I love baseball with all of my heart, but at the end of the day, baseball is a job title,” Pete Alonso said. “Like me as a first baseman for the New York Mets, that is a job title. I want to be a human being first.”

I loved that quote from Pete Alonso from the perspective of “we are not defined by our jobs” but now I love that quote because we have to protect all of us during these unprecedented times by remembering we are all humans first. It’s not enough to play in front of empty stadiums, the players are humans and they shouldn’t be playing.

And with that, I’m excited to kick off the 2020 series of projections with Pete Alonso. This year we decided to go in alphabetical order, hitters first than pitchers.

First in the alphabet is the 2019 non-roster invitee to spring training who wasn’t sure he’d make the 2020 team out of camp due to service time considerations.

It’s a good thing they didn’t try to obtain an extra year of control as Alonso’s call up paid dividends immediately.

By playing a whole season, he smashed the single-season homer record for a New York Met and a rookie with 53, picking up the Home Run Derby title and the Rookie of the Year along the way. He’s already rocked spring training this year claiming that his goal is to “be on a float drunk as hell”.

Don’t we all want that? Either for him or ourselves?

Let’s take a look at his amazing 2019 stats and then peak at how different sites think he’ll do in 2020.

2019 Stats: 693 PA, 597 AB, 53 HR, .260/.358/.583, 5.0 WAR, 141 DRC+

There are two dubious math things happening here. First, all of these projections have different histories of being correct, predict different playing time and have vastly different formulas that make them up. Averaging them all together cannot be taken seriously as an aggregate line.

Rather, it’s a line of stats that can point us in a general direction of what projections think are going to happen. Second, all of these projections were made based on a 162 game season.

We aren’t going to pretend to know what the length of the season is going to be at this point. Cumulative stats (homers for example) are going to need to be prorated. The slash line is what we should focus on here.

Looking at the slugging percentage, most projections see a very slight drop in power. That makes sense since it’s very hard to break records in back to back years. What’s interesting is who thinks a drop will happen vs. who doesn’t.

BP tends to be more conservative about back to back performances and they are projecting almost an identical year to last season, putting up the same WAR and an almost identical DRC+. ESPN, usually more bullish, is one of the more dampened projections.

Even the worst line from the ultra-conservative on projections baseball-reference has Alonso hitting a line that would lead the offense (where they see a significant drop in power they also see a rise in OBP).

The Mets are hoping Pete Alonso carries the offense again and the projections show that a strong sophomore season could be in store for Alonso

BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must-read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. 

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With pitchers and catchers in reporting to Port St. Lucie in 18 days, BetOnline.ag has set the over/under win total for the Mets during 2020 season at 86.5.

The number is eerily similar to last seasons final record, in which the Mets finished 86-76. The 2020 win projection has the Mets falling behind both the Atlanta Braves (91.5) and the defending World Series Champion Washington Nationals (90.5). This is an uptick in projections, however. Going into the 2019 season, the Mets were projected to win 76 games, ten less than their final total.

The Amazin’s are looking to build off of a 2019 that to some may have been disappointing, but saw the Mets make a push for the Wild Card Spot that many did not see coming. Ultimately being the last team eliminated, finishing the 2019 campaign three games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the second wild card spot.

This offseason, the Mets have added right-hander pitchers Rick Porcello, Michael Wacha, Dellin Betances, and outfielder Jake Marisnick. They also brought back veterans Brad Brach and Rene Rivera. The biggest loss of the offseason is clearly Zack Wheeler and he signed with the Phillies.

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Division champions? It’s not that far fetched.

On Tuesday, Baseball Prospectus co-founder and baseball sabermetrician Clay Davenport released his 2019 projections, and has the Mets finishing the year 91-71 and winning the National League East. Not only will they win the division, according to Davenport, but they will allow the fewest runs in baseball as well (612).

Davenport has the Washington Nationals finishing second (89-73), the Philadelphia Phillies third (85-77), the Atlanta Braves fourth (82-80) and the Miami Marlins last (67-95).

In the American League, Davenport has the New York Yankees winning the American League East (96-66), the Cleveland Indians winning the American League Central (90-72) and the Houston Astros winning the Amerian League West (97-65).

For the rest of the National League, he has the St. Louis Cardinals winning the NL Central (85-77) and the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the NL West (97-65).

How did Davenport come to these conclusions?

“The standings above are based on a combination of computerized projections for performance rates and my estimates of playing time,” the website reads. “These player projections have been manipulated to produce league totals that mirror the 2017 season. Only major league projections are included.”

So what do you think? Do you agree with Davenport’s projections?

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