Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
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By Steve Adams | at
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
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“The Mets have improved, but they’re also losing Baez, Conforto, Stroman, so they had a bit of work to do just to get back to where they were in the first place.”
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A very good point that few, if any, posters here bring up. Of course when transactions resume the Mets should continue to be active.
But what’s missing is what Mr. Cohen is doing – he’s an activist owner that’s powering the direction the Mets are now going in. He wants high OPS from his offense and prefers power pitchers. The team is being restructured that way. He appears not to be concerned with speed, nor too much with defense. His GM is going along with it, and Buck as a manager has always favored 3 run HR’s.
Citi Parks’ dimensions are that of a standard MLB park. The walls were last moved in 2015. I can see them being moved in a bit in the next few years – giving their offensive OF’s less ground to cover; their batters shorter distances to aim at for HR’s; and with power pitchers emphasizing K’s the shorter dimensions won’t affect them that much.
Home runs and strikeouts is always a fun way to go when building a team. I think most people emphasize small ball too much. The Braves just won it all and I think they were one of the league leaders in run percentage scored by home runs. If memory serves about half their scoring came via the home run. Defense is important though. You don’t want to end up like the Nationals. I don’t know the numbers but the eye test had the Nats looking atrocious on the field last season. When you are forcing Juan Soto to be a right fielder you are in trouble. Bell looked pretty awful to me at first base. Schwarber just needs to be a DH.
@ Please, Hammer. Don’t hurt ’em.;
If small ball includes smart ball – as the Royals played in their large home park from 2014-16 – it can work.
Playing for HR’s are fine, but it helps if some guys get on base before the HR’s. However, in general power pitchers that depend on K’s tend to suddenly develop arm problems, as well as often run out of gas.
My experience in watching teams is that balance works best. MLB is all about one team playing a series against another one – both during the season and post-season. It’s best if a team can give the opposition different looks during a series. Plus a manger should have a number of ways to win a game.
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As for what the Mets are going – Cohen seems to be channeling the Yankees, and doing a better job of it than Hal / Cashman have done. What’s impressed me most is that after getting backed into a corner with Lindor’s contract, so far this off season he’s limited FA contracts to 4 years and under. I like Conforto but understand Boras, and there’s no way in the the world that Boras would negotiate a multi-year contract for less than 5 years for a player that’s 28 years-old (he’ll try for a one-year/make good if he has to). Plus Conforto (as well as Dom Smith, McNeil and to some degree JD Davis) had problems when Cohen egged them on to increase their OPS. Those guys are line-drive hitters that get some balls in the air over the fence, but primarily they’re trying to hit in the OF gaps….and none of them possesses great speed.
Anyway, while I have some doubts about Mr. Cohens’ methods and how he appeals to FO people in today’s MLB, he does join 2 other moneyed owners in the NL East; hired a GM that not a slave to analytics – same as those in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami, and DC; and hired an experienced manager that will look at analytics but will not be driven by them in his decisions……nor put up with BS from their players ….same as the other 4 NL East managers have done.
Should be an interesting year in the NL East. Again.
angels bullpen built by eppler in ’19 was full of power pitchers. they were good but then by next season their arms started falling off.
@Samuel Great points, but another that many forget is that in the shortened 2020 season one of the Mets best offensive players was Cano. While most Mets fans dread hearing this, he’s coming back in 2022, and may be a key part of their offense. Now of course, he was cheating the whole time, and will likely be cheating again, but his offense can’t be overlooked.
Hello VonPurpleHayes……
Between Cohen and Buck, Cano will act professionally and produce, else the Mets will eat the contract – as it would be a PR disaster for any other team to take it on.
Before ST starts I expect the Phillies to make a lot of moves, the Mets and Marlins some, and the Braves offseason will depend on if they have to replace Freeman. I wrote that the beginning of last season that the Nationals were in trouble as I projected them for 5th place – primarily due to their awful tract record the past 5 or so years with their farm system graduates. But I never expected what has happened. Beyond my wildest dreams. I don’t think they can straighten that out before Soto is up for FA.
With the way things are rounding out, the NL East teams seem to be more involved with developing and fielding traditional baseball teams as opposed to what much of MLB is doing.
I totally agree with you, Samuel. I have an interesting theoretical question, though. Cano for Ozuna. Who hangs up first? Based on talent it should be the Braves but based on PR it might be the Mets. I’ve also thought about Cano or Ozuna for Bauer. Trading expensive problem children.
I am not bemoaning my question not getting answered by any means, just want to open this up to my fellow baseball geeks.
I am testing a home brew stat through linear regressions, what stats for pitchers should I test against? I have K% FIP and opponent OPS, anything else?
Cool, more sabermetrics. We certainly don’t have enough of those. Fips. And zips. And bwar. Fwar. It’s really enough.
Bucky LaGrange:
Yep, and astronomy should have stopped with the earth at the center of the universe with the sun, stars, and planets all revolving around it. The world would be simpler without all those pesky advances.
Cool nice to hear from you again what was it? I cant remeber which of the 18 usernames
@Bucky Lagrange Don’t forget bOFA+
Not sure how this would work in your model but I’ve always thought first pitch strike percentage is a very valuable and underrated stat.
Thanks for the shout out to us Iowa folk who have the 5 team black out. It’s literally the worst. Luckily the Braves usually aren’t in the Midwest lol
Only way the Cardinals trade DeJong is if they are in on one of the other free agent shortstops or if they think Nolan Gorman is ready to be an everyday 2nd baseman and move Edman to short.