There’s a Power Outage in Queens
Less than 6 miles from Home Plate at Citifield is the Con Edison plant for Queens. At the beginning of the summer when the first heat wave of summer hit Queens, the plant issued a plea to conserve electricity due to the strain put on the plant by air conditioners and fans. The plant warned that a power outage could ensue if their warning was not heeded. Whether citizens listened, I cannot confirm, but the heat wave only lasted a few days and there were thankfully no power outages. However the Mets offense cannot say the same.
The Mets have the 19th Best Offense in MLB this season (so far), with a Weighted Runs Created (WRC+) of 93, which is not only below average (league average is 100), but also behind rebuilding/last place teams such as the Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers. For a Mets team that was considered by themselves and many blogs as a playoff contender and projected as the NL East Winner, this is suboptimal to say the least. This dearth of offense is a big reason why the Mets have gone from being in 1st Place in May to 3rd place in Mid-August. The good news? Atlanta is ranked 15th and Philadelphia is ranked 16th, so the division is still within reach.
But regardless of if they win the division, the lack of offense from the Mets has been very concerning. This is a team that was a top 5 offense in the COVID shortened 2020, with a WRC+ of 121, 1 behind the best offense in baseball in 2020, the Dodgers.
60 games to small a sample size for your taste?
In 2019, the Mets had a 104 WRC+, tied for 7th best in the league, and tied with division rival and the eventual World Series Champion Washington Nationals. Past performance and the projections saw the Mets as a top 10 Offense coming into 2021, and then they added Francisco Lindor, who’s never had a season with a WRC+ under 100 and James McCann who had just had back to back years of 100+ WRC+s.
So what happened in Flushing?
Well let’s start with the headlining offseason infusions to the everyday lineup.
Francisco Lindor was traded by Cleveland, signed to a $341 Million contract and has proceeded to have the worst offensive season of his career. This continues a worrying trend of declining offense from Lindor that started in 2018. However, he is walking as much as ever in his career, his defense is still spectacular, and was riding a hot streak that looked much like the Lindor we’ve grown accustomed to seeing before ending on the IL with an oblique strain. Mike Petriello wrote up an interesting analysis of Lindor’s resurgence prior to his IL stint and why Mets fans shouldn’t be too alarmed. But regardless, Lindor’s overall body of work has been far below his standards and below league average with a 97 WRC+ for the season. This is still better than what Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez have hit this year, whom he was traded for.
Now on to the next addition, James McCann signed a $40 million contract coming off the best 2 offensive seasons of his career, and has rewarded the Mets with a 89 WRC+ and good defense. I wrote about the adjustments that McCann made in the previous years, and he’s seemingly lost all of those gains overnight. He’s hitting the ball slower, and on the ground. These developments coupled with the pitcher’s park that is Citifield has McCann having his worst offensive season since 2018 and looking like the backup catcher that he was that year. Not a great sign for a 31 year old catcher. But is the exact same offensive production the Mets had gotten in 2020 from incumbent Wilson Ramos, albeit McCann’s defense has been much better than Ramos’.
For those keeping score at home, the Mets two “high-profile” additions are drastically underperforming and Lindor is not only underperforming but also injured.
Speaking of the IL, the Mets as a whole are very familiar with it. They currently have 15 players on the IL currently, which Spotrac, estimates is about $21 Million. Which is unbelievably an IMPROVEMENT from earlier in the year. The Mets have had 31 players on the IL this year, which is 3rd in MLB and amounts to approximately $40 Million in lost value (about 20% of the Mets total payroll) and 1,480 days missed. This isn’t an excuse as much as it is a reality, the Mets injury luck has remained terrible under the Cohen regime. And it’s been the lifeblood of the lineup:
2021 Mets with 100+ PAs
| Player | Time Missed | Currently on IL | WRC+ |
| Francisco Lindor | 26 Days | Yes | 97 |
| Jose Peraza | 23 Days | Yes | 83 |
| Tomas Nido | 11 Days | No | 75 |
| Jonathan Villar | 13 Days | No | 100 |
| Pete Alonso | 13 Days | Yes | 121 |
| Kevin Pillar | 14 Days | Yes | 69 |
| Jeff McNeil | 36 Days | No | 108 |
| Michael Conforto | 38 Days | No | 94 |
| Brandon Nimmo | 59 Days | No | 131 |
| J.D. Davis | 84 Days | No | 140 |
| Luis Guillorme | 55 Days | No | 116 |
*Information Courtesy of Spotrac*
Total Days on IL = 372 Days
Average WRC+ = 103
Each player listed has spent an average of 34 days, or 1 month on the IL this season. This is.. not what you want. Add in the fact that their average WRC+ is 103 and this is a big reason the Mets offense has been sputtering for 5+ months. But it’s too easy to say that “everyone has been hurt, so they’re bad”. The Padres and Rays, the only 2 teams with more cumulative IL days, have respective WRC+s of 103 and 105 respectively. The issue brings us back to the beginning of the article.
The Mets have had a team wide power outage.
| Mets Offense | Home Runs | SLG % | ISO | WRC+ | MLB Rank |
| 2019 | 242 | .442 | .185 | 104 | 7th |
| 2020 | 86 | .459 | .187 | 121 | 2nd |
| 2021 | 119 | .381 | .148 | 93 | 19th |
This is an alarming development, and frankly very surprising as the Mets core has mostly remained the same.
The perfect microcosm of the Mets season is the fact that of all Mets with 100 Plate Appearances (threshold was lowered due to the aforementioned injuries), the 2nd highest Slugging % on the team belongs to Billy McKinney, who has played for 3 teams this year and currently plays for the Dodgers.
The table below paints a bleak picture.
| 100+ PA – Current Mets | 2021 SLG % | Career SLG % |
| Pete Alonso | .484 | .536 |
| J.D. Davis | .469 | .469 |
| Jonathan Villar | .415 | .402 |
| Jose Peraza | .402 | .374 |
| Jeff McNeil | .392 | .479 |
| Dominic Smith | .390 | .457 |
| Brandon Nimmo | .387 | .439 |
| Francisco Lindor | .376 | .478 |
| James McCann | .368 | .391 |
| Kevin Pillar | .368 | .406 |
| Tomas Nido | .354 | .331 |
| Luis Guillorme | .345 | .342 |
| Michael Conforto | .339 | .470 |
| AVERAGE | .391 | .429 |
The Mets hitters who have appeared most often at the plate this year have almost all underperformed their Career numbers.
Conforto is having his worst season on the eve of free agency.
Lindor got the bag and is having his worst season ever.
Alonso, who is the shining beacon of this offense right now, is underperforming his own career numbers by over .50 points!
J.D. Davis has been great but often injured and a butcher in the field.
It is truly an odd occurrence for an entire lineup to lose its thump simultaneously. Especially one filled with good hitters. It’s easy as it is to blame the firing of ex-hitting coach Chili Davis, they were a top 10 lineup with him as the coach the past 2 years, but the Mets weren’t hitting this year when he WAS the coach.
I like to offer solutions when I analyze a team or player, but I truly don’t have one.
But what I can say is this: History and past performance says this is a good lineup with good hitters, and at some point, the good hitters should start hitting. When? I’m not sure, and if I did I would probably be wearing a quarter zip in a front office somewhere brewing a coffee.
And to their credit, the Mets know this and brought in Javy Baez and his 100 WRC+. Not a perfect solution, but a gold glove fielder with a career 101 WRC+ and a flair for the dramatic is nothing to sneeze at. He is currently on the IL with left hip tightness, a cruel joke at this point.
However, I’d be remiss if I left on a snarky and slightly depressing note.
Below is a month by month breakdown of the Met’s offense.
| Mets Offense | Home Runs | SLG % | WRC+ |
| March/April | 15 | .349 | 89 |
| May | 26 | .368 | 89 |
| June | 33 | .379 | 87 |
| July | 38 | .439 | 117 |
| August (9 Games) | 7 | .316 | 69 |
The Mets have slowly but surely powered up. And they definitely figured something out in July. So although the first week and a half of August has been pretty dreadful – they’ve gone 2-7 there is a glimmer of hope if you can squint. In fact, as I write this the Mets just scored 8 runs and came from behind to beat the Nats.
Maybe this is the start of the correction. Ya Gotta Believe.
