Milestones Within Reach For Members of the 2019 Mets

We all want to reach a certain number when we set out to do things.  Some people want to walk 10,000 steps in a day.  Others want to consume no more than 2,000 calories on a daily basis.  And a select few want a minimum of five engagement rings in a lifetime.  (I may or may not be talking to you, J-Lo.)

Our obsession with hitting a round number is no different than a major league baseball player's quest to do the same thing.  The guys who will forever be known as members of the 2019 Mets are no exception, as several of the team's players could reach and - dare I say it - surpass various career milestones during the course of the season.

So which of the everyday players are going to reach a lofty numerical mark this season?  Is there a member of the I-work-once-every-five-days fraternity who will look at his Baseball Reference page and see a nice round number next to one of his cumulative stats?  And why does Jason Vargas look like he just attempted to rescue a struggling swimmer on the beach before he himself needed to be saved by the lifeguard on duty?  At least two of those questions will be answered below.  Enjoy!

Jason Vargas has nothing on David Hasselhoff or his hair stylist.  (Matt Ehalt/Twitter)

Attainable Individual Milestones (Position Players)

Michael Conforto:

• Needs 24 home runs to reach 100 for his career.
• Needs 150 hits to reach 500 lifetime base knocks.
• Needs 20 doubles to reach triple digits in that category.
• Needs to strike out less.  I mean, seriously, by the end of this season, he's going to be knocking on the door of the top ten whiffers in club history.  Make more contact, dude!

Robinson Canó:

• Needs 30 hits for 2,500 in his career.
• Needs 12 runs scored to reach 1,200.
• Needs 93 RBI to become one of baseball's all-time top 100 run producers.
• Needs to forget he's 36 and hit like he's 26.  Oh, and we're going to need him to play solid up-the-middle defense as well.  As the wise philosopher Bill Lumbergh once said, "That would be great".

Todd Frazier:

• Needs seven home runs to reach 200.
• Needs 93 hits to reach 1,000 for his career.
• Needs 69 strikeouts to also reach a grand.
• Needs to realize that no one is going to be lining up outside Citi Field two hours before the gates open to get his WWE bobblehead on Saturday, April 6.  Except maybe those fans who mistakenly think the Jacob deGrom Cy Young Award bobblehead is going to be given out that day instead of the following afternoon.

Brandon Nimmo:

• Needs 26 RBI to reach 100 in his brief career.
• Needs 81 walks for 200, a number attained by only three dozen Mets players.
• Needs to get hit by 23 pitches to match Lucas Duda atop the Mets' all-time leaderboard.
• Needs another solid year at the plate to become just the fifth player in Mets history to produce back-to-back seasons with a 5.0 oWAR or higher.  I'm not kidding.  Only Darryl Strawberry (1987-88), Edgardo Alfonzo (1999-2000), Mike Piazza (2000-01) and David Wright twice (2007-08, 2012-13) produced an offensive WAR of at least 5.0 in consecutive campaigns.  Hernandez, HoJo and Beltrán never did it.  I'm sure joining those franchise legends would finally give him a reason to smile.

Yoenis Céspedes:

• Wait, he's still on the team?

Pete Alonso:

• Needs 15 home runs to surpass the total Dominic Smith put up in parts of two seasons.
• Needs to be on the Opening Day roster.
• Needs to hit one up in the Budweiser Landing on May 25 since I'll be up there and I've never caught a home run ball (or foul ball for that matter) in the 700+ games I've attended in person.  Do it for this beleaguered blogger, Pete!

Do me a solid and hit one solidly on May 25, Pete!  (Photo by Gary Dunaier/Baseball Fever; Orange Text by Ed Leyro)

Attainable Individual Milestones (Pitchers)

Jacob deGrom:

• Needs 102⅓ innings pitched to reach 1,000 in his career. 
• Needs 173 strikeouts to move into the Mets' all-time top five in whiffs.
• Needs 12 wins to finally knock Steve Trachsel out of the team's top ten in that category.
• Needs to get a bigger wallet 'cause the man's about to get paid.  By someone.  Hopefully by the Mets.

Zack Wheeler:

• Needs five starts to reach 100.
• Needs 184 strikeouts to be knocking on the door of the team's top ten lifetime fan artists.
• Needs 163 innings to enter the Mets' all-time top 25, an impressive feat considering he missed two full seasons due to injuries and surgeries.
• Needs to read the last attainable individual milestone I mentioned for Jacob deGrom and react accordingly.  Especially if he continues to progress as he did last season and doesn't turn into another Matt Harvey.

Noah Syndergaard:

• Needs 14 starts for 100 in his career.
• Needs 256 strikeouts to become one of the Mets' all-time top ten whiffer snappers.
• Needs 13 wins to reach 50, which would match Mike Pelfrey's total with the Mets and would continue to prove that wins are a meaningless stat for pitchers.
• Needs to decide what he wants to do with his famously flowing locks.  Man bun?  Shaved on the side, longer in the back?  What's next, a spiky hairdo a la Poindexter in Revenge of the Nerds?

Poindexter's hair looks like it had a date with Thor's hammer.  (Revenge of the Nerds/20th Century Fox)

Steven Matz:

• Needs 29 starts to reach triple digits.
• Needs 137 strikeouts for 500 in his career.
• Needs his grandpa to come out to more games.  He's fun to watch.
• Needs to stop being so streaky and start being more consistent.  The Mets haven't had many great southpaw starters in their history and right now he's closer to being Jon Niese than he is to being Jon Matlack.

Jeurys Familia:

• Needs 60 appearances to enter the team's all-time top five in that category.
• Needs two saves whenever Edwin Díaz needs a rest to reach 125 as a Met.
• Needs 40 strikeouts to have more Ks than any Mets reliever not named John Franco, Tug McGraw, Jesse Orosco or Armando Benitez.
• Needs to once again come into games with "Danza Kuduro" playing as his entrance music just so I can continue to use the Tony Danza GIF on Twitter.

Edwin Díaz:

• Needs 41 saves for 150 in his career.
• Needs 99 strikeouts for 400 lifetime whiffs.
• Needs to reproduce his 7.3 K/BB ratio from last year.  No Mets reliever has ever had such a season.  (Addison Reed's 7.0 ratio in 2016 - 91 K, 13 BB - is tops for Mets relievers.)
• Needs 34 saves to enter the Mets' all-time top 15, which says pretty much all you need to know about how few great closers this team has had in their nearly 60-year history.  I mean, Braden Looper and Doug Sisk are currently in the top 15, while Díaz has yet to throw a regular season pitch for the team.  Enough said.

Jason Vargas:

• No, seriously, what's up with that hair and why is he still a member of the team?

Borrowing Tim Teufel's old glasses isn't going to fool us, Vargas!  (SNY screenshot)

Joey's Final Letter to Sandy Claus (2018)

In addition to what I ask for in this letter, I could also use a less drafty winter hat.  I almost froze taking this photo.

Dear Sandy Claus,

It's me, Joey Beartran, with my annual letter to you about what I want for the holidays.  Alas, this will be my final letter to you.  It's not because I've found someone else to write to who has a better success rate at giving me what I ask for.  It's also not because of the rumor I heard that you've been sick and had to pass along the keys to your sleigh to Brodie the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  (Although my sources can confirm that this is not a rumor.  Get well soon, you jolly old elf.)

No, the real reason why this is my final letter to you is because I'm no longer a kid.  I'm 14 years old!  Plus, I saw my Studious Metsimus colleague actually putting the presents under the tree last year instead of you, so I put two and two together when I saw that.  Don't worry.  I didn't share that information with my younger siblings.

Despite knowing the truth, I'm still a believer in tradition, so I'm penning one more wish list for you.  If your red-nosed replacement wants to read it with you, please feel free to share it with him.

This time around, the items I ask for won't be as impossible to find as they were in previous years.  So I won't be asking for Travis d'Arnaud to play past the first week of the season or for Yoenis Céspedes to drink more water.  Likewise, I won't demand for 30 pitchers to put on a Mets uniform in 2019 just to surpass last season's total of 29.  I already know no amount of pitchers can hold a lead for Jacob deGrom anyway.

No, my desires are reasonable this year.  As reasonable as it is to expect that Noah Syndergaard won't be traded before Opening Day or that Wilmer Flores won't come back to deliver a walk-off hit against the Mets instead of for them.  So grab one of those blue and orange cookies from the World's Fare Market that hardly anyone ever goes to and hear me out.  It's the least you could do for making us put up with Jose Reyes being on the 25-man roster every single day last season.

I'm feeling melancholy knowing I won't see Wilmer Flores raise the apple anymore at Citi Field.

I'd like a promise that all our prospects won't be traded away to land reclamation projects and players who aren't sure things.  First, our top picks from the 2016 and 2018 drafts were dealt to Seattle for Robinson Canó and Edwin Díaz.  Then, rumors have been swirling that Brandon Nimmo and/or Michael Conforto (a.k.a. the Mets' 2011 and 2014 first round picks, respectively) could be shipped off to Miami for J.T. Realmuto.  It's a good thing Peter Alonso was a second round pick or else I'd be worried that he'd be on the trading block.  You can't have a good future if the future is playing somewhere else.

Speaking of Peter Alonso, I'd like to see him on the Mets' Opening Day roster in 2019.  Between his time at Double-A, Triple-A and the Arizona Fall League, Alonso appeared in 159 games, or just about the equivalent of one full major league season.  In those games, he collected 81 extra-base hits (38 doubles, one triple, 42 homers), crossed the plate 108 times and drove in 146 runs.  For the record, no Met has ever produced more than 80 extra-base hits or surpassed 124 RBI in a single season.  If the team wants to save money by not starting his countdown clock to free agency so soon, may I remind the powers-that-be that Alonso might make them a sleigh-load of money in the form of extra ticket sales, merchandising, etc.  Your red-nosed friend won't be needed to light up the sky once Alonso starts to do that with his monster shots.

I'd like you to make sure Zack Wheeler eats the same meals every day, sleeps on the same side of the bed every night and answers all of Steve Gelbs' questions the same way (okay, that last one won't be too hard).  What I'm trying to say is, whatever Wheeler did last year, make sure he doesn't change a thing, especially after finally having his breakout season seven years after the Mets acquired him and five years after making his big league debut.  It's funny that once the man he was traded for (Carlos Beltran) retired, Wheeler finally stayed healthy and became a productive player.  Maybe all we need is for Michael Fulmer to call it a career in Detroit so that Yoenis Céspedes can finally earn that nine-figure salary.

Pssst!  Mr. Met!  Can you run this letter over to Sandy Claus?  And please don't pull a hamstring doing it.

For the 2019 season, I'd like Jacob deGrom to finally get some run support.  That means the Killer Cs (Canó, Céspedes, Conforto) have to hit the way we expect them to.  The Mets went 14-18 in deGrom's starts in 2018.  In eighteen of his 32 starts, deGrom allowed no more than one run.  The Mets found a way to lose eight of those games.  In approximately two-thirds of deGrom's appearances (21 of his 32 starts), the Mets failed to score more than three runs.  Had the team averaged 4.3 runs per game like they did in games not started by deGrom, they would have gone 23-9 in his outings instead of 14-18.  Those nine extra wins would have given the Mets an 86-76 record in 2018 and, more importantly, would have given the team meaningful games in September.  But hey, maybe the team likes empty seats in September.  I know I'm okay with the food lines being shorter when the team isn't playing well.  But I'd be more okay if the hitters came through when deGrom was on the mound.  On a related note, I'd like some Metropolitan Club seats next year so that food can be delivered to me at my seat.

I'd like Mickey Callaway to stop making the occasional bonehead decision or four.  You could chalk up having players batting out of order, not having relievers warming up in the bullpen when they're needed and any other head-scratching moves to his inexperience as a team's skipper.  But he now has a year under his belt.  Those mistakes in judgment won't be so easy to forgive in 2019.  He's not Jerry Manuel, so he can't depend on being gangsta to talk his way out of those errors this year.

Do you remember when we all blamed Ray Ramirez for the team's injuries?  Well, Dr. Death wasn't employed by the Mets in 2018, but players still spent as much time at the Hospital For Special Surgery as they did in the clubhouse.  It's almost getting to the point where they should just rename various wings of the hospital after the Mets players who find themselves constantly walking through the halls.  That's assuming they're able to walk, of course.  Therefore, I'd like to request that the team do whatever it can to help its players stay on the field.  I'd rather buy tickets to see the players on the field, not in the hospital recovery room.  Plus, hospital food is not an adequate replacement for the fare at Citi Field.

Is it true that I get eight days and nights of presents if I light one of these up?

Well, that's it for my final letter to you, Sandy Claus.  To recap, I'd like the team to stop being allergic to keeping first round picks.  I'd also like to see Peter Alonso in April without having to buy a plane ticket to Las Vegas.  Please make sure Zack Wheeler's second verse is the same as the first.  (And don't let Steve Gelbs show him video of the "churro dog incident".  No need for Wheeler to change his eating habits now.)  Take Harry Caray's advice and "let's get some runs" whenever the ace takes the hill.  Tell Mickey Callaway to watch "Moonstruck", especially the scene where Cher slaps Nicolas Cage.  (He'll know what I mean.)  Also, schedule an exorcism to make sure the ghost of Ray Ramirez hasn't been hanging around Citi Field.

Do all that and my retirement as a letter writer to Sandy Claus will be as happy as the one I hope David Wright is having.  (Miss you, Captain.)  Oh, and make sure you don't allow anyone to wear Wright's No. 5.  Willie Mays' previously out-of-circulation No. 24 was already handed to Robinson Canó.  The last thing we want is for the number to go to a journeyman player who's played for four teams over the last seven seasons and can't outhit Mario Mendoza in his most recent campaign but still finds a way to appear in over 100 games in said season.  Ask Jose Reyes what I'm talking about if you don't know what I mean.

Thanks so much for reading my letter, Sandy Claus.  And you too, Brodie, for being such a nosy reindeer.  (I know you were reading it over Sandy's shoulder.)  I wish you both a happy holiday season and hope Sandy makes a full recovery.  After all, I might not be writing any more letters after this one but every once in a while I might need to sit on a jolly old elf's lap to ask for a few things.  Those moments never get old.

Love and Mex Burgers forever,
Joey Beartran

I'll never forget you, Sandy Claus.  I hope your lap is always available to me.  You know, just in case.

Milestones Within Reach For Members of the 2018 Mets

Goals.  We all have them.  It's no different for baseball players.  In this era of advanced metrics, pitchers still enjoy reaching 20 wins.  Similarly, hitters set goals of batting .300, launching 30 homers or driving in 100 runs.  And a bench player's goal might involve finding a voodoo doll that bears a strong resemblance to the guy blocking his path to an everyday job.

Players who reach these single season goals on a regular basis will eventually hit some career milestones along the way.  The 2018 Mets have several players who could reach and surpass some important personal milestones during the upcoming season.

So which hitters in orange and blue are within striking distance of an individual mark?  Is there a Mets pitcher shooting for a nice round number on the back of his baseball card?  And why does Wilmer Flores have effigies of several Mets infielders hanging in his locker behind his Friends DVD box set?  At least two of those questions will be answered below.  Enjoy!

Attainable Individual Milestones (Position Players)

Asdrubal Cabrera is close to several milestones, leaving Jay Bruce to wonder how this is possible.  (Billy Hurst/AP)

Yoenis Céspedes:

• Needs five RBI to reach 500 for his career.
• Needs 35 HR to reach 100 as a Met.
• Needs to stay on the field to make opposing pitchers shake in their cleats.
• Needs to let me borrow five bucks.  I know he has it.

Asdrubal Cabrera:

• Needs 14 SB to reach 100 for his career.
• Needs eight runs and 70 RBI to reach 700 in both categories.
• Needs 12 strikeouts for 1,000 lifetime whiffs.  (Not every milestone is positive.)
• Needs to stop asking for a trade if the season doesn't go to his liking.

Jay Bruce:

• Needs 23 HR to reach 300 for his career.
• Needs 28 doubles to reach 300 as well.
• Needs to remember to pack his first baseman's glove since you know he'll be there eventually.

Jose Reyes:

• Needs nine hits to become the second player with 1,500 hits as a Met.
• Needs 25 doubles to reach 400 for his career.
• Needs to continue to mentor Amed Rosario and give him confidence in his abilities.
• Needs to not lead the team in games played like he did in 2017.  (Stupid injury-plagued team.)

David Wright:

• Needs 11 HR to become the Mets' all-time leaders in homers.
• Needs 30 RBI to reach 1,000 for his career.
• Needs one at-bat to have one more than anyone expects him to have this season.

Brandon Nimmo:

• Needs to smile more.  He takes his job way too seriously.

The look of a way-too-serious baseball player.  Or a fan of "The Terminator".  (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

Attainable Individual Milestones (Pitchers)

Jacob deGrom:

• Needs 108 strikeouts to move into ninth place on the Mets' all-time leaderboard.
• Needs 269 strikeouts to reach 1,000 for his career.
• Needs 22 wins to finally knock Steve Trachsel out of the team's top ten in career victories.

Noah Syndergaard:

• Needs 82 strikeouts to reach 500 for his career.
• Needs four homers to pass Dwight Gooden as the team's all-time leader in home runs by pitchers.
• Needs to reach 100 on the speed gun all the way into September.
• Needs to fight Mr. Met and start an online petition to ban the wave.  (He's Thor; he can multitask.)

Matt Harvey:

• Needs eight strikeouts to reach 600 for his career.
• Needs 30 starts to have the first 30-start season of his career.
• Needs to have two more wins than losses to pass the legendary Oliver Perez in lifetime winning percentage as a Met.

Zack Wheeler:

• Needs 148 strikeouts to reach 500 for his career.
• Needs 18 starts to reach that mark for the first time in four seasons.
• Needs to figure things out quickly in the minors if he wants to reach those goals this year.

Jeurys Familia:

• Needs two saves to pass Jesse Orosco into third place on the Mets' all-time leaderboard.
• Needs 33 appearances to enter the Mets' all-time top ten in games pitched.
• Needs to accept that someone else should take the ball in the ninth inning if the Mets play meaningful games in September.

Jerry Blevins:

• Needs to eat more.  (Just kidding, Jerry.  We love you just the way you are.  You be you!)

"Maybe I shouldn't have asked Wilmer for a Jason Vargas effigy." (Zack Wheeler photo by Paul Bereswill/Getty Images)

Matt Harvey Could Make History, and Not In a Good Way

Looks like an Unhappy Harvey Day.  (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Matt Harvey's fall from All-Star Game starting pitcher to oft-injured, in-game batting practice pitcher has been well documented.  A year after going 4-10 with a 4.86 ERA and 1.468 WHIP, Harvey has somehow gotten worse.  Much, much worse.  In fact, if he doesn't show any kind of progress in his final few starts, he stands to make Mets history, and it's not the kind of history any pitcher would ever want to be associated with.

In 16 starts this season, Harvey has seen his ERA and WHIP go up to 6.14 and 1.574, respectively.  Should Harvey fail to lower his ERA under 6.00 before the end of the campaign, he would join an exclusive club.  How exclusive would it be?  Let's just say no one has been allowed to enter it yet.

Thanks to the baseball-reference.com Play Index, Pete Schourek and Matt Harvey can be mentioned in the same sentence.

Prior to Harvey's 2017 campaign, Pete Schourek was the Mets pitcher who came closest to posting an ERA north of 6.00 with at least 16 starts.  But Schourek's 5.96 ERA in 1993 was crafted as both a starter and reliever.  In Schourek's eighteen starts, he posted a 5.47 ERA, compared to the embarrassing 7.86 ERA he had in 23 relief appearances for the last Mets team to reach triple digits in losses.

Now if we only consider those Mets hurlers who made all of their appearances in a starting role, the closest one to Harvey is a another former ace whose career in New York was beleaguered by injuries.

What is it with guys named Pete or the Spanish equivalent of Pete and high ERAs?  Is Harvey secretly a Pete in disguise?

Harvey is not the only Mets starter this season to suffer from injuries, poor performance or a combination of the two.  Zack Wheeler had a 5.21 ERA in 17 starts before injuries curtailed his season.  Robert Gsellman is the owner of an unsightly 5.58 ERA in 19 starts and three relief appearances.  And had Steven Matz's season not come to a close after just 13 starts, he'd be in line to join Harvey in the Mile High ERA club (Matz finished the year with a 6.08 ERA).

But as awful as Mets pitchers have been this year, no pitcher in the 56-year history of the franchise who made as many as 16 starts has ever finished a season with an ERA higher than 6.00.  That may change when the curtain falls on the 2017 baseball season in a couple of weeks.  And a former Dark Knight could be facing some dark nights of his own during the off-season as he reflects upon his historically bad campaign.

 

And Then There Were Three... (Soon To Be Two, Then One)

Wright may be Shea Stadium's sole survivor in 2016.  Niese is now a Pirate and Murphy and Parnell will be ex-Mets soon.  (All photos by Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

During the 2015 season, a total of 49 players played for the Mets.  Of those players, four of them - David Wright, Daniel Murphy, Jonathon Niese and Bobby Parnell - had been with the team since the days when the Mets called Shea Stadium home.

But with yesterday's trade of Niese to the Pittsburgh Pirates for second baseman Neil Walker, that number has dwindled to three.  And with Walker taking up residence in Murphy's primary defensive home, there might soon be two Mets left who played for the team at Shea.

The number could very well be one by Opening Day, as Parnell has pitched just 25 innings over the last two seasons and they haven't been very good innings, as he's allowed 21 runs (18 earned) and 50 base runners (32 hits, 18 walks) in those 25 frames.  For all you kids out there, that's a 6.48 ERA and 2.00 WHIP since the start of the 2014 campaign.  In other words, if Bobby Parnell was left off the postseason roster in 2015, he should be missing in non-action again in 2016 and beyond.

Once David Wright becomes the last Met standing from the halcyon days of Shea, the honor of being the second longest tenured Met will go from a soon-to-be former second baseman (Murphy) to a player who's familiar with seconds (Jenrry Mejia), as his second drug suspension for the same drug in 2015 will cost him much of his 2016 campaign as well.  Mejia will be the second longest tenured Met by a matter of minutes, as he made his Mets debut during the sixth inning of a game on April 7, 2010, just three innings before Ruben Tejada graced us with his presence for the first time.  And yes, that means that not a single player of the 26 men who made their Mets debut in the same year Citi Field made its debut (2009) remains on the team.

Besides Mejia and Tejada, the only other players who played for the Mets as far back as 2010 and were still members of the team last season were Lucas Duda and Dillon Gee (remember him?), although Gee has been granted free agency and will probably join forces with Bobby Parnell in the Land of Make Believe You Were Never A Met.

Just like 2009, there are no players who made their Mets debut in 2011 who are still with the team.  In fact, of the 22 players who suited up as a Met for the first time just four years ago, only one - Josh Satin - made it as far as the 2014 campaign, but he and his eyebrows are now property of the Cincinnati Reds.

That bring us to the 2012 season, a year that saw the Mets debuts of just three players who played for the team in the just-completed 2015 campaign.  And one of those players (Kirk Nieuwenhuis) had a cup of coffee with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Orange County near Disneyland this past season.  That leaves Matt Harvey (Mets debut in July 2012) and Jeurys Familia (Mets debut in September 2012) as the only players from the Year of the No-Hitter who are still with the team and have only played with the Mets.

So let's review.

There were four players on the 2015 roster who were in uniform at the Shea Goodbye ceremony.  One of those players (Jon Niese) will now be partaking of pierogies and Primanti Brothers sandwiches as a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Another one (Daniel Murphy) will be counting his money and his defensive lapses as a member of a new team in 2016.  A third (Bobby Parnell) was less dependable than Alex Torres's hat and is more than likely also going to be an ex-Met in 2016 - something Bartolo Colon will not be, no matter how much he slips up on the mound or elsewhere.

YouTube video posted by psu19420

Jenrry Mejia, Ruben Tejada and Lucas Duda will now replace Murphy, Niese and Parnell as the second, third and fourth longest tenured Mets.  They will join David Wright as the only players who know what it's like to be managed by Jerry Manuel and who remember firsthand what the Great Wall of Flushing used to look like before half of it was blocked by the Party City Deck.

Since Kirk Nieuwenhuis sported Angels red for a spell in 2015, that will leave Matt Harvey and Jeurys Famila as the fifth and sixth longest tenured Mets, respectively.  So who rounds out the top ten as far as longest tenured Mets are concerned?  Try this on for size.

• No. 7 - Juan Lagares (Mets debut on April 23, 2013)
• No. 8 - Carlos Torres (Mets debut on June 16, 2013)
• No. 9 - Zack Wheeler (Mets debut on June 18, 2013)
• No. 10 - Wilmer Flores (Mets debut on August 6, 2013)

With Neil Walker and new Mets shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera on board, the days for Ruben Tejada as a Met could be numbered.  Jenrry Mejia is one suspension away from not only being an ex-Met, but also an ex-major league baseball player.  That means Lucas Duda might soon find himself as the only Met besides Wright who remembers Omar Minaya signing anyone.

The days of players who were continuously with the Mets for nearly a decade are long gone.  The way things are going, half-decade players could be a thing of the past for the Mets as well.  How long will it be before players on the team start calling Wilmer Flores the old man on the team, assuming Flores sticks around long enough?
 

Studious Metsimus Presents The Happy/Crappy Recap For 2014

We've made it through another year, Mets fans.  The 2014 campaign marked the sixth consecutive season without a winning record for the Mets, putting the team one sub-.500 season away from tying the franchise record of seven straight sucky seasons.  (They posted seven losing seasons in a row from 1962-68 and repeated the flustering feat from 1977-83.)

The 2014 season had its usual shares of ups and downs.  It was a year without a Harvey Day, but it was also a year where we were delighted with deGrom.  It was the season we impeached Ike and replaced him with a 30-homer hitter whose post-game interviews made Marshawn Lynch look like a well-versed wordsmith.

As we do every year as Mets fans, we felt both happiness and crappiness.  So why not recap those happy and crappy moments now that the year is coming to an end?  Let's start with all that was good in 2014.  Come on, get happy!

The Mets signed starting pitcher Bartolo Colon to go deep into games and be a veteran presence in the clubhouse that could help the younger pitchers as they adjusted to their increased workloads.  He did everything that was expected of him, as he led the team with 15 wins and also surpassed 200 innings.

Zack Wheeler and Jacob deGrom filled in for the injured Matt Harvey with aplomb.  Both Wheeler and deGrom averaged more than a strikeout per inning and combined to win 20 games.  In addition, both pitchers improved as the season progressed.  Wheeler went 8-3 with a 2.71 ERA in his final 16 starts and deGrom posted an 8-1 record in his final 12 starts with a 1.90 ERA and 0.94 WHIP.  And let's not forget the game in which deGrom tied Jim Deshaies' major league record by striking out the first eight batters he faced.  Now imagine Wheeler, deGrom and Harvey in the same rotation in 2015 and the future looks very bright for the Mets.

The threesome of Wheeler, deGrom and Harvey will need help from their bullpen, and the Mets have one of the better relief corps in baseball.  Who'da thunk it after the 2014 season began with Jose Valverde and Kyle Farnsworth blowing more games for the Mets than umpire Angel Hernandez ever could?  The trio of Vic Black (2.60 ERA, .206 batting average against), Jeurys Familia (2.21 ERA, five saves, .209 batting average against) and Jenrry Mejia (28 saves, 98 Ks in 93.2 IP) made it a lot easier for Terry Collins to remove a tiring young starter from a game after just six innings of work, especially if that starter had an innings limit for the season.

We already knew Juan Lagares was a brilliant defensive outfielder, and he was rewarded for his fielding greatness with his first Gold Glove.  But Lagares was much more than this generation's Garry Maddox.  ("Two thirds of the Earth is covered by water.  The other third is covered by Garry Maddox.")  Lagares was a great contact hitter, striking out just 12 times in his last 119 plate appearances.  He also proved he could be a leadoff hitter, stealing nine bases in a 14-game late-season stretch and reaching base safely in all but two of those games.  Continued improvement by the 25-year-old center fielder will make it much easier for Mets starting pitchers, especially those who are susceptible to fly balls.

Lucas Duda and Curtis Granderson combined to hit 50 home runs in 2014.  It was the first time since 2008 that two lefty swingers combined to hit 50 balls out of the park for the Mets.  Back then, it was Carlos Delgado (38 HR) and Ryan Church (12 HR) who turned the trick.  But even more noteworthy was that it was the first time in team history that two players who batted exclusively from the left side of the plate both reached the 20-homer mark in the same season.  The closest any lefty-swinging duo had ever come to turning this feat prior to Duda and Granderson was in 1999 when Robin Ventura smacked 32 homers and John Olerud hit 19 of his own.  And now that the right field fences at Citi Field will be closer to home plate than they've ever been, perhaps the dynamic duo will improve upon their unprecedented power numbers.

Travis d'Arnaud set a Mets rookie record for catchers by blasting 13 home runs in 2014.  But it was what he did after being called back up from the minors in late June that raised eyebrows.  In his last 68 starts, d'Arnaud batted .272 and had an .805 OPS.  The catcher clubbed 19 doubles, three triples and ten homers in those games, while driving in 32 runs.  Let's look it at this way.  It would not be a stretch to say that d'Arnaud can catch 136 games over a full season.  That's exactly double the amount of games he started after he was recalled to the big leagues.  So repeating his post-honeymoon-in-Vegas numbers over a full season would result in 38 doubles, six triples, 20 HR and 64 RBI, or as I like to call it, the closest any catcher has come to Mike Piazza since Mike Piazza.

Looks like a lot of happy recaps up there, doesn't it?  But there was also a whole lot of crap going on.  (And I'm not just talking about the Austin Mahone concert this past September at Citi Field.  My ears are still ringing from all the prepubescent shrieks.)  Let the blue and orange toilet paper lead the way.

Wilmer Flores performed well with the bat, especially over the last month of the season, when he had almost twice as many extra-base hits (12) as he had strikeouts (7).  Similarly, Ruben Tejada, who was the author of one major league home run prior to this past season, found a way to blast five long balls in 2014.  That being said, Flores makes Derek Jeter look like the best defensive shortstop in history and Tejada still has fewer home runs as a Met than Dwight Gooden.  The Mets can either hope Flores can make people forget he's a defensive liability by putting up big numbers with the bat, or they need to find a two-way shortstop - one who can hit AND field.  The team has used up all of its toilet paper trying to clean up that mess since Jose Reyes left the team.

Let's talk about the bench in 2014.  Or what passed for a bench in 2014.  When Bobby Abreu and Eric Campbell combine to play in 163 games (or one more game than a team plays in a full season), you know you need better bench players.  Eric Young, Jr. gave the team speed off the bench.  It's too bad he had a .299 OBP in 2014.  Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Matt den Dekker both played good defense and had decent on-base percentages.  Unfortunately, they're pretty much the same player taking up two roster spots.  And let's not even talk about the Mets' $7 million dollar man, Chris Young, who played so badly, even Jason Bay was shaking his head.  The Mets need to improve their bench in 2015 for late-inning situations and to sub for any everyday player who needs a rest.

Speaking of needing a rest, what the fudge happened to our captain in 2014?  David Wright had the worst year of his career, posting the same slugging percentage (.374) as Anthony Recker and the same number of homers (8) as Chris Young.  At least the third baseman didn't forget how to hit singles, as laced 105 of those in 2014.  Wright is earning $20 million a year, or more than 20% of the team's payroll.  He'll need to go back to his 20-25 homer, 90-100 RBI ways if he wants to be worth his salary and keep batting third in an improving Mets lineup.

Finally, is this the last hurrah for Terry Collins?  It's true that the team improved by five wins in 2014, giving Collins the most wins he's had in any of his four seasons as the Mets' skipper.  But some of his in-game decisions didn't exactly help the team reach that "lofty" 79-win total.  And none of those decisions angered fans more than his infatuation with the bunt.  Let me break it down for you.  A bunt with a man on first pushes the runner to second.  The Mets batted .235 in 2014 with a runner on second base.  Similarly, a successful sacrifice with runners on first and second moves the runners to second and third.  How did the Mets fare when they batted with two runners in scoring position?  Badly, to the tune of a .202 average.  So bunting runners over usually meant those runners stayed where they were.  You're not going to win many games when you give up too many outs.  And Terry Collins gave up way too many outs, and perhaps his first chance at a non-losing season with the Mets, by relying too much on the bunt.

And that'll do it for the non-Festivus related airing of grievances.  We hope you enjoyed all the statistical silliness Studious Metsimus has provided for you in the year 2014.  And as always, we can't let the year come to its conclusion without mentioning those sites that inspire us and give us something fresh to read when we need a Bartolo Colon-sized serving of Mets news and information.

Our fav'rit reads come from A Gal For All Seasons, Faith and Fear in Flushing, Mets Merized Online, Metstradamus, Remembering Shea, The Daily Stache, Mets360, MetsBlog, Rising Apple, Kranepool Society, Mets Police and MetSilverman.  You will not be wasting your time with those sites.

So from the staff of Studious Metsimus, which includes Ed Leyro (hey, that's me!), culinary expert/roving reporter Joey Beartran, Cole Hamels informant Iggy Beartran, and hot chick with a sailor's tongue Taryn Cooper, we'd like to wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.  May all your wishes come true in 2015.

And remember, Mets fans, if you're ever in line at Dunkin Donuts and the guy in front of you asks for a double shot of Espresso with a double-dipped chocolate doughnut, you may just be standing behind Daniel Murphy, Doubles Machine.  And there's certainly nothing crappy about that.  See you next year!

Why wasn't I invited to this party?  So jealous...

Zack Wheeler Joins A Special Strikeout Club

We already knew Zack Wheeler was special.  Betcha didn't know how special.  (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

On Friday night, Zack Wheeler struck out seven Atlanta Braves in six innings en route to his 11th victory of the season.  In doing so, he upped his career strikeout total to 264, passing Matt Harvey by three.  It is worth noting that Wheeler has not yet made 50 starts in the big leagues, as Friday's seven-strikeout effort came in his 48th start at the major league level.

While it is true that several Mets pitchers have struck out more than 264 batters in their first 50 starts with the team, for many of them, those weren't their first 50 starts in the big leagues.  For example, Sid Fernandez had 297 Ks in his first 50 starts as a Met, but his first start in the big show came in 1983 as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Similarly, Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana both had over 300 strikeouts in their first 50 starts with the Mets (332 and 310, respectively), but of course, neither pitcher began their career in New York.

By posting 264 strikeouts before his 50th career start (with all starts coming as a New York Met), Wheeler has joined some exclusive company.  Here is the list of all pitchers in Mets history who recorded 250 or more strikeouts in their first 50 starts (or fewer, in some cases).  We are only considering those pitchers who made each of their first 50 starts as a member of the New York Mets, so a pitcher like David Cone - who made his major league debut with the Kansas City Royals in 1986 pitching exclusively in relief - can be included on the list, since each of his first 50 big league starts came in a Mets uniform.  Also, we are only looking at strikeouts recorded in starts.  Strikeout totals compiled in relief appearances (as well as innings pitched in relief) are not included in the chart below.

Pitcher	No. of Starts	Innings Pitched	Strikeouts
Dwight Gooden	50	364.2	418
David Cone	50	356.0	297
Jerry Koosman	50	372.0	270
Zack Wheeler	48	280.1	264
Matt Harvey	36	237.2	261
Tom Seaver	50	382.1	251

Zack Wheeler has become just the sixth pitcher in Mets history to fan 250 or more batters within his first 50 big league starts.  And look at the other names on the list.  You have the three winningest pitchers in franchise history in Tom Seaver, Dwight Gooden and Jerry Koosman.  You have David Cone, who was traded away before his 30th birthday, but still managed to become the team's all-time leader in strikeouts per nine innings and is also one of just four pitchers to make at least 100 starts for the team and finish his career with a .600+ winning percentage.  (The others are Gooden, Seaver and Rick Reed.)  And of course, you have Matt Harvey.  Barring any setbacks from Tommy John surgery, the 2013 All-Star Game starting pitcher should become just the second pitcher in team history to record 300 or more strikeouts within his first 50 starts in the majors.  He needs just 39 strikeouts in his next 14 starts to become Doctor K's understudy in that department.

Now, as great as Wheeler has been in getting those whiffs, he has tended to throw a lot of pitches to get said Ks.  Gooden, Cone, Koosman and Seaver all averaged at least seven innings per start in their first 50 big league starts, while Harvey is just under six and two-thirds innings per start.  Even if Wheeler pitches complete games in both his 49th and 50th career starts, he will still be under 300 innings pitched.  That's less than six innings per start.

Tom Seaver, Dwight Gooden, Jerry Koosman and David Cone are among the best pitchers in club history.  Prior to his injury, Matt Harvey appeared to be on his way to joining them.  Zack Wheeler still needs to work on his command before he can be considered one of the best pitchers to ever don a Mets uniform.  But for now, he is becoming one of the best strikeout pitchers the club has ever seen.  And by joining Seaver, Gooden, Koosman, Cone and Harvey, he's certainly in a class that very few Mets starting pitchers have had the privilege to be a part of.
 

Is Matt Harvey's Absence Hurting Zack Wheeler?

Zack Wheeler ponders what life will be like without Matt Harvey by his side.

On June 18, 2013, Zack Wheeler made his highly anticipated major league debut in the second game of a doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves.  Wheeler's opening act, Matt Harvey, took a no-hitter into the seventh inning and struck out a career-high 13 batters in the Mets' 4-3 first game victory.  Wheeler then went out and didn't allow a single run in his start, pitching six shutout innings of four-hit ball in the Mets' 6-1 win in the nightcap.  The evening was billed as Super Tuesday, a night Mets fans had been waiting for since Carlos Beltran was traded to San Francisco for Wheeler in 2011.

Wheeler suffered a few rookie bumps and bruises in his next two starts, but recovered quickly, going 6-2 with a 2.96 ERA in his next 11 starts.  In those starts, covering the months of July and August, Wheeler struck out 59 batters and walked 24.  Control had always been an issue with Wheeler in the minors, but in his strong 11-start stretch, he walked more than three batters in a game just once.  Wheeler also showed durability and an ability to keep his pitch count per inning down, as he pitched six or more innings in eight of the 11 starts, while averaging 16.8 pitches per inning.

Matt Harvey, on the other hand, pitched beautifully throughout the 2013 season.  But when he allowed 13 hits to the Detroit Tigers in 6⅔ innings on August 24, it caused concern that something was wrong with the Mets' All-Star Game starter.  The effort against the Tigers was part of a three-start stretch in which the normally unhittable Harvey allowed 27 hits in 18⅔ innings.  In addition, Harvey wasn't getting strike three as often as he was earlier in the season.  After striking out 178 batters in his first 159⅔ innings, Harvey managed just 13 punchouts in his last three starts, or as many as he had in his Super Tuesday start against the Braves in June.

Soon after his start against the Tigers on August 24, it was revealed that Harvey had a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.  By the time the calendar had turned to September, Harvey's season was done.  And a month later, when Harvey decided to undergo Tommy John surgery, his 2014 campaign was wiped out as well.

Once it was known that Harvey would not be around to pitch for quite some time, Wheeler's fortunes began to turn.  Wheeler was 7-3 with a 3.46 ERA through his last start in August.  But without Harvey to compete with in the rotation, Wheeler had a poor month of September.  Wheeler was 0-2 in three starts and walked as many batters (12) as he struck out.  After posting a 1.25 WHIP in July and August, Wheeler allowed 28 baserunners in his three September starts for a 1.65 WHIP.

Some of the misfortune in September could be attributed to Wheeler's workload.  After all, prior to 2013, Wheeler had never pitched more than 149 innings in any minor league season.  He surpassed that total in his final start in August and finished the year with 168⅔ innings between the minors and majors.  That could help explain Wheeler's subpar finish after Harvey's season was done.  But Wheeler, like every other pitcher, began the 2014 season at zero innings.  To what do we attribute his poor pitching this year?

In ten starts this season, Wheeler has pitched just 56⅓ innings, posting a 4.31 ERA and 1.51 WHIP.  After a 2013 campaign in which Wheeler allowed opponents to bat .243 against him and reach base at a .327 clip, this year's batters are hitting .271 and have a .355 on-base percentage against Wheeler.  Wheeler has also needed to throw 1,003 pitches to get through those 56⅓ innings - an average of nearly 18 pitches per inning.  In four of his ten starts this year, Wheeler has tossed 110 or more pitches.  He has yet to pitch more than 6⅔ innings in any of those starts.  In 2013, Wheeler pitched at least 6⅔ innings six times.  He threw 110 pitches just once in those six starts.

Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler were supposed to be a modern-day version of Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman, leading a young pitching staff to victory and erasing half a decade of frustration in Flushing.  But Harvey is now lost for the 2014 season and Wheeler just looks lost on the mound.  There is another parallel between the Harvey/Wheeler duo and the Seaver/Koosman combo.  When Seaver was traded to Cincinnati on June 15, 1977, Koosman suffered greatly on the mound.

Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman, during happier times with the Mets.  (Photo by D.R. Burke/The Sporting News)

Prior to the Midnight Massacre, Koosman had begun the 1977 season with a 5-6 record and 2.82 ERA, holding opposing hitters to a .208/.285/.299 slash line.  After Seaver's departure, Koosman went 3-14 with a 4.02 ERA, allowing hitters to put up a .250/.313/.371 slash line.  In 1978, Koosman's only full season with the Mets without Seaver, he had arguably his worst full season as a Met, going 3-15 with a 3.75 ERA and 1.30 WHIP.

In one and a half seasons without Seaver by his side, Koosman went 6-29 with a 3.84 ERA and 1.29 WHIP.  With Seaver around from the time both pitchers made their debuts in 1967 until The Franchise's trade a decade later, Koosman posted a 134-108 won-loss record with a 2.97 ERA and 1.21 WHIP.  Clearly, Koosman was far more effective when he had a teammate like Seaver to compete with.  He was a totally different entity when he didn't share a dugout with Seaver.

This analogy doesn't just apply to dynamic duos in baseball.  Take the case of Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan in the NBA.  Just like Koosman was a great pitcher but was always second fiddle to Seaver, Pippen became a Hall of Famer despite rarely being the best player on his own team.  During the Chicago Bulls' first three championships from 1991 to 1993, Pippen connected on 50.0% of his shots and made 71.4% of his free throws.  When Jordan retired for the first time, Pippen was forced to become the go-to guy in Chicago and his averages suffered.  During the '93-'94 season and '94-'95 campaign, Pippen made just 48.5% of his shots and his free throw percentage dropped to a below-average 68.5%.  Once Jordan came back, the Bulls won three more titles and Pippen became more effective, but after the Bulls broke up the band following their sixth championship in eight seasons, Pippen suffered.  After averaging over 20 points per game in his last eight seasons in Chicago, Pippen averaged just 11.5 PPG during his final six campaigns in the NBA.  His shooting also suffered, as he made just 43.6% of his shots from the field after winning his final championship in Chicago.

With Jordan, Pippen won six championships and played most effectively.  Without him, he made it past the second round of the playoffs just once and put too much pressure upon himself to be the same player he was when Jordan was with him on the court.  The same could be said for Jerry Koosman when Seaver was his teammate on the Mets and when he wasn't.  And now it appears Matt Harvey's absence could indirectly be affecting Zack Wheeler's performances on the mound.

Zack Wheeler has always been a very good pitcher since he was first drafted by the San Francisco Giants in 2009.  But he doesn't project the dominant persona of a Matt Harvey on the mound.  Harvey was always meant to be the big man on campus, and Wheeler was supposed to complement him as the No. 2 guy.  As a one-two punch in 2013, Harvey and Wheeler performed very well together, giving Mets fans hopes that the 2014 season would be the year the team finally turned it around.

But then Harvey suffered an injury that ended his 2013 season prematurely and erased his 2014 campaign completely.  That left Wheeler alone on the mound and thrust him into the spotlight once reserved for Harvey.  Wheeler has been less effective without Harvey by his side, just like Koosman and Pippen were less successful once their legendary teammates weren't there to push them to do better things.

Zack Wheeler is still a good pitcher.  But he's much better when he's just "one of the guys" and not "the guy".  The Mets will be better in 2015 when Matt Harvey returns to the mound.  Let's hope we can say the same for Zack Wheeler.