For The Mets, Defense Should Be The Focus
Before addressing the Mets’ defensive capabilities, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room. Much ink has been spilled about it, but Fransisco Lindow is a Met now! For Mets fans (like myself), it feels as if Christmas was pushed back a few weeks.
In an instant, a superstar was transported from the doldrums of Cleveland to the heart of Queens to play shortstop. Frankly this move alone would constitute as a good offseason for most teams.
But the Mets aren’t done according to Sandy Alderson (which is a good person to talk, since the Mets already, and rightfully, fired the GM they hired earlier this winter).
Music to the ears of the World’s Borough, though a tune we’ve heard before.
However, the players traded away to acquire Lindor also played in the position he now fills, so the Mets haven’t done anything to relive the position player logjam they’ve been dealing with the last few seasons. As a result, the Mets have put a lot of square pegs in round holes – Dominic Smith in Left Field, J.D. Davis anywhere, Michael Conforto/ Brandon Nimmo in CF (albeit to a lesser degree). Effectively, sacrificing the defensive integrity and sanity of the pitching staff for offense.
So the question is, do the Mets need to use the rest of this winter to address the defensive side of the ball further, and how?
We’re going to pretend that the DH is not back for the 2021 season, as ridiculous as that may be, because there is too much uncertainty around it.
“Most-Likely” Starters
James McCann – C
Pete Alonso – 1B
Jeff McNeil – 2B/3B/LF
FRANCISCO LINDOR – SS (still can’t believe it!)
J.D. Davis – 3B/1B/COF
Dom Smith – LF/1B
Brandon Nimmo – OF
Michael Conforto – OF
The Mets mid-2010s identity used to be a pitching dominant team that hit enough when it mattered. However, this is no longer the case.
The Mets finished last year tied for 1st in WRC+. Who did they tie with you may ask? The World Series Champion Dodgers. And they hit that well without adding Mookie Betts.
Now the Mets have Lindor (career 118 WRC+), taking the at-bats of Amed Rosario (career 89 WRC+) and Andres Gimenez (49 game sample size in MLB, projected for 86 WRC+). Safe to say they will be comfortably in the top 5 of hitting again.
So we know the Mets can hit, and more than likely there is not another major addition coming to the lineup, regardless of Sandy Alderson’s boasts . Not because they can’t afford it, (the poors known as the Wilpons are gone) but because it’s really not necessary. They were arguably the best hitting team in baseball last year. And then they added Francisco Lindor. The Mets can hit, and I’m sure the front office recognizes this, as well as the fact that the bullpen and defense have been the team’s Achilles heel the last few years.
Focusing on the defense. When Jacob DeGrom starts, this is less of an issue because the ball is never really put in play against him anyway. However, he is sadly just 1 of 5 men needed to fill the rotation. And the other members of the Mets staff are, like the rest of humanity, not as good as DeGrom, The goal is to help the rest of the rotation.
Referencing the makeshift alignment I cobbled together. I am going to use OAA and DRS to grade each player to give a better picture of the Mets defense as currently constructed.
Why don’t I use Errors/Fielding Percentage? In my opinion, errors only paint a picture of plays that players can get to. Theoretically, if a player lets a ball get through the hole go 10 out of 10 times, he has not made an error and thus does not count against his Fielding %, even if that ball was well within his range. This is why there is so much discourse on Derek Jeter’s defense. He was sure handed, but his range was severely lacking. He didn’t make many errors because he simply did not get to as many balls as other players. (Editor’s note: I don’t know why you’ve got to bring The Captain into this. That’s a real sucker punch, man.)
Quick refresher on OAA and DRS:
A range-based metric of skill that shows how many outs a player has saved over his peers.
Defensive Runs Saved (DRS)
A baseball statistic that measures the number of runs a player saved or cost his team on defense relative to an average player. Any positive number is above average, and the best fielders typically fall into a range of 15–20 for a season.
2019 & 2020 Season (Defensive Statistics are inherently finicky and take longer to stabilize)
| Non-Catchers | OAA | DRS |
| Pete Alonso – 1B | -7 | -7 |
| Jeff Mcneil – 2B/3B/LF | 0 | 6 |
| Francisco Lindor – SS | 16 | 13 |
| J.D. Davis – 3B/1B/COF | -10 | -29 |
| Dom Smith – LF/1B | -6 | -4 |
| Brandon Nimmo – OF | -1 | -5 |
| Michael Conforto – OF | +1 | -6 |
That’s a lot of negatives.
This is what happens when almost every player on the field is playing out of position. Especially Davis and Alonso, whose best position is probably DH.
Lindor has yet to step foot onto the infield at CitiField, and he is already the best defender they’ve had in the last few years. He takes over for Rosario/Gimenez at the SS position, which defensively takes the Mets from the bottom third of the league in defense to the top 3rd at the position.
However he only plays one position, albeit arguably the most important one.
Speaking of which, let’s compare new signee James McCann to Wilson Ramos, the Mets starting catcher for the better of the last 2 years.
|   | Caught Stealing % | Strike Rate | Framing Percentile | Passed Balls |
| James McCann (136 Games) | 32% – 21/66 | 48% | 88th | 5 |
| Wilson Ramos (165 Games) | 16% – 23/145 | 46% | 8th | 14 |
Clean sweep for McCann.
So the Mets have already addressed Catcher and SS, which is a very good start.
But what to do about the other 6 positions to be filled?
DH or no DH, McNeil and Lindor at SS and 2B make the most sense as your most dependable defenders.
Alonso, one of the faces of the franchise, is entrenched at 1B. He may never win a Gold Glove but he is lower on the defensive spectrum in terms of importance and has shown a willingness to work on his craft over there. Ideally with the DH he slots in there and the much better glove of Dom Smith holds down 1B. But if no DH, 1B will be his.
3B is really the toughest to pin, as J.D. Davis struggled on both sides of the ball last year. However, that was a small sample size, and he raked in a full schedule of games in 2019 (136 WRC+, same as DJ LeMahieu and better than Kris Bryant).
The caveat is that he hasn’t been good defensively anywhere since his debut.
The Mets have seen fit to have a defensive caddy on the bench and remove Davis late high leverage situations. More than likely, this will continue. Davis has 4 years of control remaining and can hit (Career 115 WRC+). The new front office, whoever the longterm, non-creppy GM is, would be well advised to give Davis a shot to figure out third base. After all, defense can be improved over the years.
Worst case, if the offense craters, the Mets depth this year is much better, as they have signed Jose Peraza and have Guillorme off the bench. Manager Luis Rojas can play the match-ups and not lose much.
That fills out the Infield.
Getting to the outfield.
The numbers are bad here as well, largely as a result of corner-outfielders Nimmo and Conforto stretching to play in centerfield way too much.
If there is no universal DH, Nimmo probably finds himself in CF day to day again with Dom Smith in left. Dom Smith is a capable defender, and although he probably won’t be a positive defender in left field, he’ll probably be better than J.D. Davis would be out there.
With the universal DH, the Mets hit enough that they can have Nimmo and Conforto comfortably in the corners and allow center field to be a defense first postion. That would require signing another free agent and Jackie Bradley Jr. seems to fit the bill.
There are many options, they can double down on a strength, or add on along the fringes and save that money to extend a Conforto/Lindor/ Noah Syndergaard. Marcus Stroman is also a free agent after this season.
But as it stands, the Mets defense will already be substantially better with Lindor and McCann up the middle. So the most likely answer? The Mets grab another bullpen arm and a glove first outfielder to caddy for Dom Smith in case there is not a universal DH.
This isn’t the sexy move, but they already made the sexy move in getting Lindor. Lindor increased their ceiling greatly, now the Mets look to solidify their floor to return to the playoffs, where the Marlins showed last year that anything can happen.
