What Went Wrong With The Mets. Aside From Everything.

The New York Mets have the most expensive 40-man roster in MLB history at $386 million, according to Cot’s Contracts. After Tuesday night’s 11-10 victory over the White Sox the Mets are 44-50 and in fourth place in the National League East. FanGraphs still gives the Mets a 14.3% chance to make the postseason as one of three Wild Card teams. Baseball Reference is much more pessimistic on the Mets’ playoff odds; B-R gives New York just a 4.8% chance.

Nobody thinks the Mets will go on a run and knock the Atlanta Braves out of first place in the NL East. In part, because the Braves are loaded with talent and playing like a super team. And in part, because nearly every player on the Mets roster has underperformed this season. A team can withstand a few underperforming players and still win. But a team cannot win if most players are producing well below their career averages.

Let’s dive into the details.

The bullpen

It may seem odd to start with the bullpen, but Mets relievers—save for David Robertson and Brooks Raley—have pitched quite poorly. As measured by fWAR, only the Oakland Athletics’ bullpen has been worse so far this season. The A’s are on pace to lose 111 games. If you’re trying to contend for a World Series, you do not want your relief corps mentioned in the same sentence as the A’s.

Robertson, at 38, is still performing close to his career numbers. In 37 appearances, the Mets’ closer has notched 19 “shutdowns” against only 5 “meltdowns.” These stats derive from Win Probability Added, which I discussed in this post back in May if you need a refresher. As FanGraphs explains, if a relief pitcher adds at least .06 Win Probability Added in an appearance, that’s a shutdown. If his performance results in a -0.6 WPA in an appearance, that’s a meltdown. Robertson is on pace for 32 shutdowns and 9 meltdowns—a good to very good season, according to FanGraphs.

In 33 innings over 40 appearances, Raley has a 2.14 ERA with 11 shutdowns and 4 meltdowns.

Reliever Jeff Brigham (who was sent down to Triple-A) has 9 meltdowns, Adam Ottavino and Drew Smith each have 8 meltdowns, and Dominic Leone has 6. As FanGraphs says, the worst relievers will rack up 10-15 meltdowns in a season. All of these bullpen guys are on pace for 10-15 meltdowns.

Sometimes, teams score enough runs to overcome a weak bullpen. That’s what the Tampa Bay Rays have done this season, for the most part. And that’s what the Mets did last night in their 11-10 win over the White Sox.

Sometimes, teams have strong enough starting pitching that a few weak links in the bullpen won’t doom a season.

But the Mets have neither.

Indeed, heading into the season, the Mets knew that, barring injuries, they’d be sending two of the oldest starters in the majors to the mound once every five games: Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. As well as Scherzer pitched last season (11-5, 2.29 ERA), he averaged only 5 1/3 innings in his 23 starts. Verlander, who won the AL Cy Young Award last season, averaged 6 1/3 innings.

You simply must have a solid bullpen to back up a rotation led by Scherzer and Verlander. Yes, the Mets unexpectedly lost Edwin Diaz to season-ending injury in the World Baseball Classic. Yes, that pressed David Robertson into the closer role, weakening middle relief. But the bullpen has been awful all season and other than picking up Trevor Gott from the Mariners in the last few weeks, the Mets have not done much to try to improve things. And Gott hasn’t been an improvement.

The bullpen has really hurt the Mets.

The rotation

The Mets are paying Scherzer and Verlander $43 million each this season. Neither has performed anywhere close to that value.

Scherzer’s strikeout rate is down, his walk rate is up and he’s giving up 1.71 home runs per 9 innings, by far the highest of his career. His 3.99 ERA is also a career worst.

Verlander is in much the same boat. His strikeout rate is way down from last season (9.51 K/9 v 7.56 K/9), his walk rate is up, and he’s giving up nearly one home run per 9 innings. His 3.72 ERA is his highest since 2014.

New York banked on both Scherzer and Verlander putting up 2022 numbers this season. It’s easy in hindsight to say that was an unrealistic expectation, given their age. But even last winter, you could see the risk of failure.

Kodai Senga has been the Mets’ best starter. The 30-year-old right-hander signed with the Mets in the offseason after playing 11 seasons in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League. He’s best known for his ghost forkball pitch. Senga calls it a splitter, but the bottom drops out just as the pitch crosses the plate, disappearing like a ghost.

In this tweet, Rob Friedman, known as Pitching Ninja, overlays Senga’s fastball and his forkball. You can see how he keeps hitters off balance.

Still, Senga walks way too many batters and, like Verlander, is giving up one home run every 9 innings. His 3.20 ERA is the best in the rotation.

Carlos Carrasco and Tyler Megill both have ERAs over 5.

Yes, the Mets expected to have a full season of José Quintana, who had a lesion surgically removed from his ribs during Spring Training, and hasn’t pitched yet this season. Quintana will make his season debut Thursday night against the White Sox.

So far, the Mets have given up 430 runs in 94 games. The Dodgers gave 428 runs and the Orioles gave up 421 in 94 games (through Tuesday’s action). So, even with a weaker than expected bullpen and a weaker than expected rotation, the Mets could still be in the postseason conversation if their offense was running at full speed. Instead, it’s been sputtering on and off all season.

The offense

The Mets’ lineup looks much like it did last season. Brandon Nimmo leading off, following by a combination of Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil, Pete Alonso, Mark Canha, and Starling Marte. Every one of those players is producing less at the plate than they did in 2022.

Lindor’s power is up slightly but that is the only metric for these six players that is better than 2022.

The two most productive hitters for the Mets this season have been free agent pick up Tommy Pham and rookie catcher Francisco Alvarez.

At 35, Pham is having his best season at the plate since 2017. He’s hitting .277/.357/.484 with 9 home runs and 15 doubles. Pham’s 132 w RC+ is the highest on the team.

Alvarez was an early season replacement for Omar Narvaez, who suffered a serious calf injury in the first week of the season. The 21-year-old backstop’s hit 19 home runs, which puts him in some pretty good company.

Good for Alvarez. But he can’t carry an offense all by himself.

The defense

As a team, the Mets have accumulated -13 Defensive Runs Saved. Enough said.

Nearly everything that can go wrong has gone wrong for the Mets this season. Throwing millions at veteran players turned out not to be a recipe for success. We’ll likely see a sell-off at the trade deadline. And then the Mets will go back the drawing board for the 2024 season.