Rainouts: 2023 Baseball Journal, Part 1

QUEENS, NY---Late September, in the final week of their disappointing season, the 2023 New York Mets were involved in some extremely unusual rainstorm-related shenanigans at Citi Field. First, after their grounds crew neglected to cover up the field during a tropical storm, the waterlogged playing surface didn't dry off in time for their next game and the grounds crew couldn't manage to get the field ready to play, thus forcing them to postpone their Sept 26th series opener against the Miami Marlins on a day when it didn't even rain. Two days later, in the final game of that series, with the Mets clinging to a 1-0 lead in the 9th inning, the Marlins knocked in 2 runs to take a 2-1 lead, but the umpires suddenly stopped the game in the top of the 9th because of heavy rainfall. The two teams waited out the storm deep into the night before giving up any chance of resuming play. Miami, fighting for a playoff spot, had to go play their final series in Pittsburgh unsure of whether or not they'd be required to go back to New York after the final day of the regular season to play out the final inning of their last game against the Mets. The Marlins ended up clinching a playoff spot (thanks to a collapse by the Cubs) and the suspended game against the Mets was deemed unnecessary to finish on the field. And so, by a weird quirk in the rulebook, the events of the top of the 9th inning were erased from the record books, and the score reverted back to 1-0 Mets where it stood at the end of the 8th inning. A truly bizarre way to wrap up the Mets season with their 75th win. 

***

QUEENS, NY--- Late in July, I am driving thru Brooklyn into Queens to pick up my brother at JFK airport on a rainy night. The sky is thunderous and heavy winds and flash flooding are making the drive on the Belt Parkway more hectic and chaotic than usual. The 2023 Mets' hopes for playoff contention have dwindled, they're once again playing from behind, battling back in a game against the Washington Nationals at nearby Citi Field. Trailing 1-0 in the 8th inning, the Mets scratch together a run to tie the game before storm clouds move in, flashes of lightning, strong winds, and torrential rain force the game to go into a delay. I'm maneuvering thru the overcrowded insanity of an under-construction JFK airport on a rainy night. The Mets game is on the radio, in the middle of an extended delay from the storm. And then, just up the road, at the ballpark over in Flushing, while the game was still in a rain delay, the Mets officially waved the white flag on their season. News came over the radio that the Mets had agreed to trade their top relief pitcher, David Robertson, to the Marlins for prospects. When the storm eventually lets up around midnight, the game resumes, the Mets grab the lead, closing out a 2-1 win without their closer who just got traded, and my brother made it thru the crowded JFK arrivals into the car. In the following few days leading up to the trade deadline, the Mets would gut their roster, selling off all their most in-demand pieces in trades in attempt to bulk up their farm system.

***

TOKYO, Japan---Back in April, it's the middle of the night and I'm in and out of sleep in a tiny bed in a hotel in east Tokyo, keeping an eye on the TV which is broadcasting a game at rain-soaked Fenway Park in Boston, the Red Sox facing Shohei Ohtani's Angels of Anaheim. Shohei is the starting pitcher on the mound for the Angels against the Red Sox who've got their new addition from Japan, outfielder Masataka Yoshida, in the lineup facing Ohtani for the first time in an MLB game. The game was set to start at 11 AM eastern time (midnight Tokyo time) but it's pouring rain in Boston so the game is delayed. The Japanese pregame show I'm watching is not in English, but based on the charts, graphics, and stats they're displaying, I can tell these commentators know ball. They are analyzing the much-anticipated Ohtani vs Yoshida matchup. One month prior, Ohtani and Yoshida were teammates on Team Japan, leading to a thrilling WBC championship victory against Team USA. Now, Yoshida would be in the batter's box facing off against Ohtani on the mound at cold, wet Fenway Park. The analysts break down Ohtani's arsenal of pitches and Yoshida's strengths and weaknesses as a hitter.

The rain hardly let up but they started the game anyway. Top of the 1st, Ohtani comes to the plate and crushes a base hit on the first pitch he sees from Brayan Bello. Standing on first base, Ohtani puts on a jacket, but the zipper breaks on him so he immediately takes it off. In the bottom of the 1st, it's raining again and I'm nervous for Shohei who was slipping off the mound in his delivery before the grounds crew desperately tried to dry off the mound mud. Ohtani strikes out Yoshida with a 98-mph fastball in their only matchup. He pitched 2 innings before another heavy downpour caused the game to stop for a long rain delay and Ohtani's day on the mound was over. He did stay in the game as a designated hitter and I drifted into deep sleep while the Angels held on for a 5-4 win, avoiding a sweep. 

During my stay in Tokyo, I notice there's a TV channel that specifically shows the daily highlights of Japanese MLB players, from Shohei Ohtani and Masataka Yoshida to Yusei Kikuchi and Shintaro Fujinami. I'm also struck by how much anime is on TV, it's on almost every channel. One night I've got anime on TV and there's a whole bizarre sequence featuring a baseball game in a rain storm where the field gets completely flooded. 

***

OSAKA, Japan---Late April, I've been in Japan for a couple weeks, the Nippon Professional Baseball season is well underway but I haven't been able to attend any games yet because of logistics. Games are either sold out or too far away. Now that I'm in Osaka, the Hanshin Tigers play in a historic ballpark a short train ride out of town. So my plan is to head out to Koshien Stadium to see the Hanshin Tigers host the rival Yomiuri Giants. Only problem is there's been a steady rain all day. I've been wearing a Hanshin Tigers hat around town, eliciting comments from the locals; a bunch of Tigers fans high-five me at an okonomiyaki restaurant, a tour guide yells out "nice hat!" while guiding people thru the streets. I take the train out west near the scenic hills of Kobe. The train is filled with Tigers fans, folks just getting out of work, a kid in a Tigers hat with his grandmother. Everyone is anxious to get to the ballpark and hoping the rain lets up. It's not until we all arrive at the park, walk underneath the highway overpass and pass all the merch vendors in ponchos, that we learn the game has been canceled due to inclement weather. 

My one opportunity to see a ballgame in Japan, a rivalry matchup no less (and the Tigers would go on to win the pennant for the first time in 18 years), and the game was rained out just as I arrived at the stadium. My only consolation was that at least I got to see the stadium. Koshien Stadium will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year. It's the oldest and most revered ballpark in Japan. One of the few stadiums in the country without a roof, it's also quirky because it features an all-dirt infield. I figured it was unlikely they'd be able to play the game with that infield all muddy. Rainouts are part of baseball, though, part of the experience of a baseball season. 

The outer facade of the outfield was covered in ivy which was a nice look:

Outside of Koshien Stadium, Nishinomiya, Japan.

Koshien Stadium was built in homage to the Polo Grounds in New York. The mythic status the Polo Grounds holds in the consciousness of an American baseball fan is partly due to the fact that the old ballpark no longer exists, there's no way to experience it except in grainy footage (or playing MLB: The Show). And yet in Japan there is a 100-year-old baseball mecca conceived in the same bowl-shape as the Polo Grounds. I'm committed to get back there one day to actually see a game. 

The bowl-shaped Koshien Stadium, built in 1924, inspired by the Polo Grounds.

***

QUEENS, NY---In the middle of May, I spent a few days in NYC hanging with family and I went to a Mets game. My first in-person baseball game of the season. Thankfully opted for the Friday game instead of the Saturday game because the latter got rained out. The Friday game ended up being the most exciting win of the Mets season and one of the best Mets games I've ever witnessed up close. Before getting to my seat, the Mets had fallen behind 3-0 to the Cleveland Guardians on a 3-run homer from Josh Naylor in the top of the 1st. Soon the Mets were down 7-0, but they chipped away. In the bottom of the 7th, Pete Alonso came to the plate with the bases loaded and the Mets trailing 7-3. He blasted a game-tying grand slam that sent the packed crowd into frenzied mayhem and Pete was so pumped he did a full celebratory twirl between the bases. The Mets fell behind again, down 9-7 going into the bottom of the 10th but once again fought back, battled through every at-bat, and won the game 10-9. Francisco Alvarez hit a homer and a game-tying RBI single. Brett Baty went deep in this game. Francisco Lindor had the walkoff hit in a huge game against his former team. It was the highest high point in a down year for the Mets. After the next day's rainout, the Mets swept a Sunday doubleheader to finish off their best week of the season. 

***

ARLINGTON, TX--- Mid-June, I was at the ballpark in Arlington watching Corey Seager crush line drives all over the park for the Texas Rangers in their fancy retractable roof warehouse stadium. The Rangers have a brand-new ballpark with a retractable roof yet it never rains there. The roof is to block the sun. The "old" ballpark for the Rangers remains standing right across the street, completely functional but lacking a roof to shield the field from the brutal solar rays blasting down each day for half the year.

***

HOUSTON, TX---Middle of June, I zip on down to Houston to watch the Mets play the Astros. Mets season falling apart. They stole a badly needed win against the Astros in the first game of the series. I was there to see Justin Verlander returning to Houston to pitch for the Mets against lefty Framber Valdez who carved his way thru the Mets lineup. Verlander was off to a shaky start on the season for Mets, lacking command, falling behind in the count nearly every at-bat. He battled but gave up a bomb to Alex Bregman and got beat by his old squad. Next afternoon, I was there at the ballpark again. The roof was once again closed, to keep it nice and cool indoors. The Mets looked sluggish as they dropped a winnable game to lose the series. After the game, perched across the street from the ballpark in a hotel room on an upper floor in a tall building, I watch as a massive storm system arrives over the city of Houston. The skies put on a cinematic lightning-and-thunder orchestra. As the torrential rains gush down, I notice Minute Maid Park has the roof open and the lights on. 

A Post-Mortem for the 2022 New York Mets

Jacob deGrom looking off into an uncertain future.

With baseball engaged in its final series before the 2022 season ends, I feel compelled to collect my thoughts on the Mets season now with this being the third consecutive full MLB season in which the NL pennant went to a Mets rival from the NL East. In other words, since 2019 every NL East team has won the pennant except the Mets and the Marlins. 

Incredibly, by most measures the Mets in 2022 had their second-best season ever. Yet those results represented the lower end of this team's range of outcomes. These Mets won 101 games, eclipsed by only the legendary 1986 Mets (one of the best teams ever) who won 108 games. Buck Showalter's Mets squad finished 40 games over .500 in his first year as manager. Buck seemed to help shift the franchise toward a more respectable vibe than recent vintage. This was a polished all-around ballclub led by a deep lineup full of hitters with different styles from the power of Pete Alonso to patient bats like Brandon Nimmo and Mark Canha to the throwback contact skills of 2022 NL batting champion Jeff McNeil. Francisco Lindor had the best season of any Mets shortstop ever, Starling Marte added a jolt to the lineup with his power-speed combo. The starting rotation consistently shoved, the bullpen had fewer meltdowns than any Mets team I can remember thanks mostly to a Cy Young-level historically dominant year from Edwin Diaz closing games. 

The 2022 Mets held onto first place for the vast majority of the season, they always seemed to fight back after a loss, and they kept pace with the scorching hot Braves as summer turned to fall. Yet by the end the story of these Mets soured with the Braves barely edging them out in the final week much like they did in 2021 when the Mets led the division for almost five months until collapsing. This year the Mets' collapse was milder, more gradual, more complicated. Hardly a collapse, more of an increasingly uninspired, perhaps exhausted tread that tripped and tumbled til the Mets were fighting for their lives in a do-or-die game against the Padres and complaining about Joe Musgrove's shiny ears (reminiscent of the '86 Mets flipping out over Mike Scott scuffing the ball when he dominated in the 1986 NLCS). Thus an otherwise great Mets season ends up fitting into a narrative pattern alongside their last few years of agonizing almosts and embarrassing ineptitude.

In 2021 the Mets were in first place with six weeks left in the season and then imploded so badly they ended up in 3rd place, 11.5 games behind the division-winning Braves. Even in the 2020 Covid-shortened season the Mets just barely missed out on the postseason despite a larger than normal playoff pool. The 2019 Mets season was memorable for several superstars putting up big numbers and lots of dramatic wins only to fall just barely short of the playoffs due to several egregious meltdowns from the bullpen. 

The 2022 Mets were paradoxical in that they hardly suffered any meltdowns. They were a winning team every month, they played well both at home and on the road. Their "collapse" happened in September when they had a .577 winning percentage. Problem was they were being chased by a red-hot Atlanta team and needed to be perfect in the final weeks playing against the weakest schedule in baseball. They had so many opportunities to clinch a division title and first round bye in the postseason but couldn't seal the deal. Even after missing that chance, they still had repeated opportunities to end on a high note, instead they went 1-5 across six season-defining games to end their season (3 vs the Braves in Atlanta, 3 vs the Padres in NY) with all their top guys healthy. 

Now that the Phillies have snatched the 2022 NL pennant, what's weird in retrospect is that the Mets won 14 of 19 against the Phils this year. They no-hit the Phillies, dominated them, had an epic 7-run comeback in the 9th inning in a game in Philly. And that dominance of the NL pennant winner does not matter. Why? Because the Mets only won 9 of their 19 games against the Braves and that divisional matchup is essentially what determined the final outcome of their whole season. The Mets vs the Braves meant everything in 2022. This was because MLB for the first time in modern history did not have the game 163 tiebreaker to decide division winners, so the head-to-head results meant everything. To have the NL East come down to a tie atop the division in the first season with no game 163 was horrible optics for MLB. Fans were robbed of that opportunity. And yet the Braves' winning the NL east by the smallest of margins was a Pyrrhic victory anyway, since they immediately got knocked out in the first round by the Phillies. 

The postseason chaos on the NL side caused a lot of philosophical contemplation among baseball fans about what playoff baseball is supposed to be exactly. The system in the era of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred's unpopular rule changes seems to have rattled the coherence and meaning of baseball games and outcomes, impacting fans' ability to take the regular season results all that seriously despite baseball having the longest regular season in pro sports. So many teams engage in tanking and a handful of others so steadily stand among the elite that the playoff contenders are practically set in stone before the season begins. It's just a matter of whether they can keep their best players healthy over a six-month slog playing against many teams that have no playoff hopes. In the final weeks when the Mets had a playoff spot clinched but were playing against the Cubs, A's, Nationals, Pirates, I just kept hoping they'd make it thru those games without any major injuries. 

The Mets were fine. Besides the final two weeks, this was the least stressful season for Mets fans to follow that I can ever remember. The 2015 and 2016 Mets made the playoffs and were super exciting teams but both relied on late season surges to make up for a rough start, and both teams had weaknesses that often kept their games at nail-bitingly close margins. The 2006 Mets were a dominant team but they were mostly reliant on a powerful lineup and deep bullpen whereas the rotation was always a little bit shaky. The 2022 Mets hardly had any major weaknesses. 

They got to choose between Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom to start game 1 of the playoffs and chose Scherzer (probably should've kept with deGrom as their #1 but I won't go into that). Their world-class closer Diaz was healthy, the bullpen was actually pretty solid overall, it felt like there were far fewer late inning meltdowns than ever. The hitters were relatively healthy although all were probably dinged up like Starling Marte who played the final series with a broken finger. The Mets set the MLB record for being hit by pitches and had several close calls with guys getting hit in the face including their two biggest offensive stars Alonso and Lindor who both took heaters to the face during the season, yet both stayed in the lineup all year and into the playoffs. They didn't suffer any of their typical back-of-the-rotation erosions or Jerad Eickhoff-ian sinkholes, instead they regularly ran out a deep pitching staff. 

The one frustrating thing about the 2022 Mets is they stacked up the team in every area except the catching position which has been their biggest weakness and a source of frustration for years now. This weakness has been evident for a while, we all knew it was a problem going into the season, they failed to address it in the offseason or at the trade deadline and it arguably ended up costing them. The fate of the most recent Mets team could conceivably be rooted in their failures to sign an elite catcher back before the 2019 season. At that point, the Mets needed to sign free agent All Star catcher Yasmani Grandal but he signed with Milwaukee instead and had a huge year with them. The following winter the Mets were expected to make a big run at trying to sign All Star catcher J.T. Realmuto but they botched it and he signed with the rival Phillies instead. Losing out on Realmuto was devastating because there was a pretty steep dropoff after Grandal and Realmuto to the rest of the available catchers not only in 2019 but looking ahead. The Mets instead signed James McCann, typically a backup catcher, to a four-year deal worth $40 million.

Ironically, the 2022 Mets' best catcher Tomás Nido actually had one of the top defensive seasons of any catcher in MLB this year. He might win a Gold Glove. Only problem was his bat was so bad it hurt the team's chances---as a hitter Nido actually had the Mets' lowest Win Probability Added, a metric that reflects game situation, meaning he was at the plate in pivotal moments and failed to get the job done. And the less said about their other catcher James McCann, the better. Overall in 2022, encompassing offensive and defensive value (including pitch-framing stats), the Mets' performance from all of their catchers amounted to 1.2 wins above replacement according to Fangraphs. J.T. Realmuto playing for the Phillies had the best season of his career with 6.5 wins above replacement. The vast difference between Realmuto and the Mets' catching corps is evident in every season since the Mets lost out on signing him. Perhaps more painfully, the Mets did have a catcher of some promise named Travis d'Arnaud who helped lead them to the 2015 NL pennant, but the previous ownership regime rage cut d'Arnaud early in 2019 after he got off to a rough start returning from injury, and d'Arnaud regained his form, went on to win a World Series for the Braves and has regularly tormented his old team since. The Mets ranked 26th in MLB in OPS from the catching position in 2022, the Braves ranked 1st, the Phillies ranked 3rd.

The Mets developed the top catching prospect in MLB this year, the 20-year-old Francisco Álvarez, but kept holding back from calling him up to the big league team until a moment of desperation before their final series in Atlanta. Álvarez looked overmatched in that series. After that he only got a few at-bats playing in front of the home crowd, but he impressed in limited time, blasting a home run and a double. It shouldn't be overlooked that the Mets had such a potent bat sitting in the minors while the big league club had a gaping offensive hole at the catching and DH positions. Had the Mets given some of Nido, Darin Ruf, or James McCann's September at-bats to Francisco Álvarez instead, maybe this season would've had a different result. 

And so the Mets add another gut-wrenching disappointment to their deep history of such collapses, especially in the 21st century. Observe the results since then:

2000: won NL pennant, lost winnable WS game 1 and lost Subway Series 4-1
2001-2005: missed playoffs for five straight years
2006: won NL East title, season ends with gut-wrenching loss in NLCS game 7
2007-08: two historically bad end-of-season collapses to miss playoffs
2009-2014: missed playoffs for six straight years
2015: magical run to win NL pennant, lost winnable WS game 1 and lost Series 4-1
2016: won Wild Card spot, lost winnable wild card 1-game playoff at home
2017-2021: missed playoffs for five straight years
2022: won 101 games, made playoffs, Wild Card loss in first round at home

Although it did feel like the Mets could've done better in the first round against the Padres had they been more willing to take their starters out of the game at the first sign of trouble (a clearly gassed Scherzer was left in the game too long in game 1, same with Chris Bassitt in game 3), by then the offense had gone into a slump and their fate was sealed. They had succumbed to the usual Mets shit.

Now that fans have had time to process the disappointing end to an incredible season, I think what we are all hoping for now is that the Mets don't follow up their successes with another extended drought. They've had a pattern. After their 2000 NL pennant, they sucked for a good while. Their 2006 division title seemed the first of many, but was followed by eight seasons of ineptitude and embarrassment. The aftermath of the 2015-16 contending teams was similar. The core of the 2022 Mets has so much promise, but will inevitably look different next year.

Adding to the disappointment of their late season failure is that much of the team will now disperse because so many guys will become free agents this offseason. It's completely up in the air whether the Mets will re-sign franchise stalwarts like Jacob deGrom, Edwin Diaz, or Brandon Nimmo, let alone solid contributors like Taijuan Walker, Seth Lugo, Trevor May, Chris Bassitt, or Carlos Carrasco. The Mets might look very different next year. They'll have to completely rebuild their relief pitching since almost all of those guys will be on their way out, which will be tough to do after a season when, for once, they had a very good bullpen. It will be an interesting offseason to watch what mega-billionaire owner Steve Cohen decides to do. Not only are lots of key players becoming free agents, but crappy players like McCann and Ruf have guaranteed contracts next year that the Mets really need to figure out how to buy their way out of. Having watched an NL East rival go all the way to the World Series yet again, it's possible Steve Cohen gets mad and just dumps piles of money into the team for a turbo-boost. Regardless, the 2022 season has taught us that regular season success offers no guarantees for the short series playoffs. This was the best Mets team I've ever watched in my life and their season ended in a snap. 

Baseball 2021 Predictions

The whole world changed in 2020, and baseball changed more than it has in more than a century. 2020 was the shortest MLB season ever, the shortest season of major league baseball in America since the 1800s. Watching the short 60-game season last year, I felt grateful just to have any baseball on TV and the playoff rounds were often thrilling to watch, but it's hard to take the results of the 60-game regular season all that seriously. Now as the schedule goes back to 162 games in 2021, the big question across baseball is how much the load of this innings increase will wear down pitchers. MLB has implemented some new rules, some of which are unfortunate like adding a runner on second base in extra innings and 7-inning double-headers but at least these changes might actually mitigate the innings load on pitchers and lead to fewer injuries. I'll be watching the games regardless, but baseball needs to figure out how to tweak some aspects of its gameplay to make the basic flow of things slightly less boring without further disturbing the sport's core equilibriums. Most agree the problems boil down to one thing: the ball needs to be put into play more, give fielders more chances. That's always the most potently contingent instant of a game when a ball is hit into play and there's a mad scramble around the bases while fielders rush to react. 

Going from a 60-game season to a 162-game season for the first time ever ensures 2021 baseball will be full of surprises. Then you factor in the expected changes made to the baseball in attempt to make it less bouncy and the league potentially cracking down on Trevor Bauer types who covertly use substances to increase spin rate on pitches, plus the impact that could come from the new rule changes. There's so much we don't know about what's gonna happen in major league baseball this year. On the other hand, there are some things we can be sure of---the Dodgers will be really good, the Yankees will be really good, the Pirates will suck, the Orioles will suck. The league has become noticeably stratified with very obvious bottom-feeders, an upperclass of likely power-houses and a group of higher variance teams in the middle. But injuries and your typical baseball weirdness can throw everything askew, this is why we watch. I'll be rooting for the weird and unexpected stuff to happen because that makes it watchable, but some results to consider for six months from now do seem predictable. 

In this post I will share the Baseball Prospectus PECOTA projection for each team and pick an over/under for each. (Note that the PECOTA projections include decimals in the win numbers, but I'm rounding those up.) More than ever I think nobody has any idea how this MLB season will turn out because of variance and all the new contributing factors but baseball fans always enjoy making their picks before the long season and the same goes for me, so here are my picks for how each division will stack up with my thoughts about the chances for each team in 2021. 

Evaluating the 2019 Mets at the Halfway Point

The last time I posted on this blog was back on March 30th, three months ago, where I offered my predictions for how the National League would shape out in the 2019 baseball season including an exceedingly optimistic take on the New York Mets. Since we're now just about at the halfway mark of the season (the Mets played their 78th game today) here's how this frustrating, underperforming team stacks up. (Edit: I wrote this right before all the drama of the Mets' excruciating loss to the Cubs that Sunday at Wrigley Field and the subsequent Mickey Callaway blowup against a reporter that has seemingly sent the Mets deeper into a tailspin ever since.)

2019 Mets
37-41 (4th in NL East, 9.0 games back)

Overall their standing looks pretty bleak for a team that had boasted about contending this year. New GM Brodie Van Wagenen made a bunch of moves in the offseason and spent a chunk of money, but his moves haven't amounted to much. Everyone he added to the roster has been either injured or disappointing with the sole exception of J.D. Davis, a minor leaguer acquired from the Astros who has been a solid corner bat for the Mets but who is also the worst defensive player on the team. That's been a theme for this squad. Even though their season has been a massive disappointment thus far compared to expectations, the Mets have actually been a pretty solid ballclub in most facets of the game, except their bullpen has been shaky at times and bad defense is killing them.

Offense
According to Fangraphs' wRC+ metric (which takes all offensive production into account and adjusts for league and ballpark), the Mets offense has been 13th best in baseball, solidly average. Their 101 wRC+ also ranks 5th in the National League, behind only the Cubs, Brewers, Dodgers, and Braves---that is, three first place teams and the Brewers who are 41-36. Led by a quartet of reliably effective homegrown hitters in Pete Alonso, Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil, and Dominic Smith along with the aforementioned J.D. Davis and a resurgent Todd Frazier (who is batting .302/.417/.512 with same number of walks and strikeouts since May 25th), the Mets offense has been surprisingly good. Their only glaring problem on the offensive side is that they run into outs on the bases way too often; many a Mets rally has been stifled by over-aggressive base-running. Also, they've gotten very little from Robinson Cano, Amed Rosario, and Juan Lagares at the plate, all of them with OBPs below .300. If any of them start getting on base more consistently, the depth of this offense could carry the team through rough stretches.

Starting Pitching
While the overall production of the Mets' starting rotation has seemed very disappointing with a collective ERA of 4.37 that ranks 17th in MLB (just a bit better than both the Braves and Phillies), their fielding-independent numbers are actually pretty strong. Their FIP (fielding-independent pitching) of 4.02 ranks 9th in baseball and 6th in the NL. So, despite the rotation failing to meet expectations thus far this year, they've still basically pitched better than all but five teams in the National League. The pitchers have been hurt by a shaky defense. Noah Syndergaard and Zach Wheeler especially appear to have suffered from defensive ineptitude. Another big factor affecting this rotation has been the long ball. Home runs have skyrocketed league-wide because of a juiced ball, but the Mets have been especially hurt by this environment---their presumed top four starters (Jacob deGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler, and Steven Matz) all have sky-high rates of home runs per fly balls allowed that are above their career norms. Somehow, soft-tossing lefty Jason Vargas, who Mets fans all wanted cut from the roster not too long ago, has given up the lowest HR/FB rate on the staff and helped stabilize a free-falling team recently (this before blowing up at a reporter like an asshole and not apologizing, helping throw the team into its worst stretch so far).

Bullpen
Here lies the source of Mets fans' greatest fury and disgust this season. The bullpen has been ghastly, with a collective 5.28 ERA that ranks 28th among in MLB. More advanced metrics show the Mets bullpen among the worst in the league. They have had some excruciating, heartbreaking losses where they've blown leads late. Stuck in my memory are the Edwin Diaz meltdowns against the Dodgers and Cardinals, in the latter game the Mets had a 2-run lead with 2 outs in the 9th and still ended up losing. Bad fielding has hurt the relievers a bit, but mainly they've just pitched poorly. Free agent signings Jeurys Familia and Justin Wilson were supposed to shore up the late innings, but Familia has been an abomination (7.81 ERA with almost 7 walks per 9 innings) and Wilson appeared in just 10 games before getting injured. This bullpen has also given up a ton of home runs, superstar closer Edwin Diaz is currently surrendering 1.52 homers per 9 innings, more than double what he allowed last season. The only reliable arm out of the bullpen has been Seth Lugo who has a 2.23 ERA and has mostly kept the ball in the yard, but is a somewhat limited relief weapon because he can't pitch on consecutive days. I should point out that scrap-heap pickup Wilmer Font somehow has a 0.69 ERA, though he's pitched only 13 innings of mostly mop-up work. Right-hander Robert Gsellman has been ridden hard, throwing the most innings out of the bullpen so far, even though he's pitched terribly with runners on base: with the bases empty he's allowed a .244 batting average and a 4.33 strikeout-to-walk ratio, with runners on he gets hit for a .297 average and the K/BB ratio drops to 1.75.

The Mets have shifted some things around in attempt to help the bullpen (including putting $60 million relief arm Jeurys Familia on the injured list twice to basically get his head straight) and recently fired both their pitching coach and bullpen coach. With talented arms like Diaz, Lugo and Gsellman at the back end, they can't possibly be this bad for the entire season. As I mentioned in my team preview, they need to be open to using Diaz more often. Gsellman is no fireman. Lugo has limited availability. Diaz has fallen apart at times, but his stuff remains elite and one way to get him back on track will be to bring him in to pitch more often. Among all NL relievers, Diaz is 43rd in innings pitched (for comparison, Gsellman and Lugo are in the top 10). He's been the 20th most valuable relief pitcher in the National League by WAR but has pitched fewer innings than anyone in the top 20. The Mets aren't lacking for high leverage innings late in games. It's time to start using Diaz more flexibly, and approach every game like it matters down the stretch.

Defense
This has been the great weakness of this Mets team. Even when the offense performs well and the pitching holds it together, they have often been undone by a bad defense. It's going to be very hard for this team to compete when they've got one of the worst fielding shortstops in the league in Amed Rosario (who's been horrible in the field by any metric and by the eyeball test) and, according to Baseball Prospectus' catcher stats, one of the game's worst defensive catchers behind the plate in Wilson Ramos. You just can't succeed with abysmal defense at vital up-the-middle positions. The Mets rank second-to-last in MLB in defensive runs saved. Even with an improved bullpen, this kind of inability to turn balls in play into outs will sabotage a season. Is there anything they can do to address this issue? News that the Mets are considering moving Rosario to center field is promising---he can be replaced at shortstop by Adeiny Hechavarria who's a solid fielder and has even hit a little bit. They will need to stop using J.D. Davis at third base because he's completely incapable of handling the hot corner. Otherwise, they're kinda stuck with this bunch. Ramos was just signed long-term and he's been a bad defensive catcher for a while now. I guess they can spell him for backup Tomas Nido more often but Nido is a zero with the bat. The overall verdict is that this is an extremely flawed roster that needs a highly creative, adaptable manager pushing the buttons in order to succeed and they do not have that. Something's going to change sooner than later. Either they bring in a more creative decision maker or they keep playing badly and the team gets dismantled. Unfortunately, the latter is more likely.

(Video) 1986 World Series, Game 6

Been having baseball fever the last few weeks, sprung about by attending a Spring Training ballgame in Bradenton, Florida a few weeks ago and reading some baseball books this past winter. By the magnificence of YouTube, we are able to view full game broadcasts of many classic baseball games from as far back as the early 1950s. So I've been watching lots of classic baseball footage lately.

In this video you can watch, at the 7m 30s mark, a parachuter suddenly land in the middle of the field in Shea Stadium during Game 6 of the World Series. The crowd goes nuts, the players are amped up, and Ron Darling gives the parachuter a handshake as he's being escorted off the field by police. You can watch a young Roger Clemens mowing down the Mets. Prime 'stache Keith Hernandez taking his cuts. Wade Boggs roping line drives. Gary Carter leading the best Mets ballclub ever. Or skip ahead to the 3hr 15m mark to begin watching the bottom of the 10th inning, one of the most thrilling conclusions to a World Series game of all time. The Mets, trailing in the series 3-2, trailing in the game 5-3, down to their very last out, suddenly embark on an epic, back-from-the-dead rally, a level of high drama that only baseball can offer.

Book Review: How Thomas Pynchon's Novel Bleeding Edge Hit Close to Home

When the miasmic shitstorm of authoritarianism and real-life Idiocracy gained full force earlier this year, I felt compelled to dive into Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland in search of informed, anti-authoritarian entertainment and guidance. The novel mostly takes place in the year 1984 (a recent edition of Orwell's 1984 has an introduction from Pynchon) depicting Californians fleeing the militarized police state carrying out Reagan's war on drugs, with frequent flashbacks to the impact of COINTELPRO's insidious dismantling of resistance movements in the 60s. It sounds dark and bleak, but Vineland is a hilarious and uplifting adventure.

Nobody does it like Pynchon. His works feel like an essential road map for navigating our contemporary political madness. It seems every damn dumb, absurd or gross thing that unfolds in the Trumpocalyptic age begs the question of whether this is actually Thomas Pynchon's world and we're all just living in it. Even the fucking names! When I saw that the source behind a recent NSA leak was a 20-something blonde girl from Texas named Reality Leigh Winner, I thought: go home Thomas Pynchon, you're drunk!

I've been seeing tweets like this every day:

tony "the mooch" scaramucci cucks reince priebus? the new pynchon sounds 🔥

— nick laureano (@nick_laureano14) July 27, 2017

fitting that all trump associates look like they could be a pynchon character named wolf smilestein or something pic.twitter.com/HCtZRfsjw2

— john (@john__wallace) July 15, 2017

After zipping through Vineland, I was craving more Pynchon but had my own anti-authoritarian writing to do, an essay on the treatment of warfare and invasion in Finnegans Wake for the Diasporic Joyce Conference in Toronto (an experience chronicled here). Once that was completed, I took a much-needed break from Joyce to crack open Pynchon's latest novel, Bleeding Edge, and holy shit what a treat it turned out to be.

Bleeding Edge completely stunned me. Not only is it a funny and engrossing web of stories carried by characters engaged in sharp, witty dialogue, but also the setting of turn-of-the-millennium New York City spoke directly to me and my background in a way Pynchon's work never has before. More than anything else, the prime display of the master author's precisely researched rendering of setting just blew me away. Pynchon was born in 1937, a year after my dad. He's a pretty old dude. Yet the cultural milieu he recreates out of the minutia of video games, TV shows, internet culture, rap music, pro sports, etc from that 9/11 time period in Bleeding Edge (published in 2013) suggests an old man who's as with-the-times as anybody alive. He references Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon, for instance, and describes nuances of the Metal Gear Solid video games in such shocking detail that one internet reader suggested the only explanation is he must've had input from his then-teenage son. The book is littered with nuggets of culture like a character holding "a mug that reads I BELIEVE YOU HAVE MY STAPLER." (p. 77)

That mug appears in a scene with weed smoke hovering in a hacker's lair, as our protagonist Maxine Tarnow explores the dimensions of her techy friends' creation called DeepArcher, a sort of cross between virtual reality and online multiplayer games. Maxine (who Pynchon helpfully describes as a Rachel Weisz doppelgänger early in the novel) is a fraud investigator in Manhattan in the years following the dot-com bubble, hot on the trail of a shady Internet security firm called "hashslingerz," itself a sort of pun encompassing Pynchon's penchant for pot references and the term hash used for computer coding. This is a novel full of tech geeks, subversive bloggers, radical filmmakers, hackers, stoners, Mossad agents, Russian mobsters, shadow government assassins, and every other variety of spooks and weirdos. A typically Pynchonian web of colorful characters expanding so far out that I finally had to jot down a who's-who primer in the back of the book.

A book jacket blurb mentioned that, "We are all characters in Pynchon's mad world" and that starts to feel true. He creates such a broad network of characters, male and female, with all range of backgrounds and quirks, that I begin to see myself and my friends appearing in there. That's part of what is so special about Pynchon---his fiction hems fairly close to realism while always keeping things zany, off-beat, and funky with every person, place, and thing having some deliberately weird or funny name (I burst out laughing on a flight when I read of a strip club called "Joie de Beavre") so that you eventually start to view this world a little differently, noticing its inherent weirdness.

*   *   * 

The Long, Occasionally Unendurable, Ultimately Redeeming Epic Novel That Was the 2016 Mets Season

Bartolo Colon aka Big Sexy sizes up his first ever big fly. (Getty images)

What stung most about the New York Mets' defeat in the World Series against the Kansas City Royals in 2015 was knowing how hard it was to get that far in the first place. That year the Mets hung around the fringes of contention for four months before the acquisition of Yoenis Cespedes (and some injured players returning) catapulted them into the playoffs where they successfully battled their way through a gauntlet of the game's most formidable pitchers, finding themselves in a very winnable World Series which they would eventually cough up. Despite a roster loaded with burgeoning young talent, it is reasonable to fear this team may never again make it all the way through to the end of the postseason obstacle course.

Despite losing the World Series, I'll always maintain that just making it that far and winning the National League pennant was plenty enough. It was as successful a campaign as I could've reasonably hoped for considering where expectations were for most of the year.

2016 was a little different. Expectations were sky high when the season began. The Mets had a fully stocked roster in every respect. They'd addressed their weaknesses in the middle infield and most importantly had an embarrassment of riches in their starting rotation. The collection of starting pitchers, 1-through-5, looked like the best staff in the league, easily. On top of that, the hard-throwing righty Zack Wheeler would be returning from injury, joining the team sometime in the summer, likely pushing 43-year-old Bartolo Colon into the bullpen.

On the Tragic Loss of Baseball's Beloved and Joyful Young Star Jose Fernandez

A week ago I awoke on Sunday morning and, like everyone else in the baseball universe, discovered the horrifying news that Jose Fernandez, one of the most talented and universally beloved players in the sport, had died tragically in a boating accident. He was barely 24 years old.

The next two days were filled with a feeling of grief so heavy that I struggled to figure out why I was so deeply affected by this. I did not know this person. He wasn't even a player on my favorite team. He was just a kid I watched on TV once in a while who was really damn good at baseball. Whether you're even a baseball fan or not, though, this is just a terribly heartbreaking event. After trying to rationalize to myself the deep pain I felt, I simply concluded that, like everyone else who'd experienced the unfettered joy that was Jose Fernandez, my heart was broken.

A week later, I'm still having trouble comprehending that we must now refer to Jose Fernandez in the past tense, that we'll never see him again. He'd just turned 24 years old. Limitless potential. A baby on the way. A young, powerful, boisterously spirited athletic superstar coming into his own as an adult, ascending to the upper echelon of his profession and primed to stay there, suddenly stopped. His life summarized and finished, concluded, the book of his life suddenly run out of words.

"...the late Jose Fernandez sent a tweet back in 2015... 'If you were given a book of the story of your life, would you read the end?'"

— Vin Scully (@VinScullyTweet) September 25, 2016

Even though he pitched for the Miami Marlins, one of the main rivals of my beloved New York Mets, there isn't a pitcher in baseball I enjoyed watching more than Jose Fernandez. A stout 6-2 and 240, he was a beast on the mound, with a smooth delivery chucking 97 mph fastballs or veering curveballs with as much movement as anyone I've ever seen. There really was nobody better. Since shocking the baseball world in 2013 by jumping into the major leagues straight from single-A ball at the tender age of 19, Fernandez was as dominant a pitcher as anyone in the game, right up there with perennial Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw. In 2016, Fernandez struck out 253 batters in his 29 starts. In his league only Max Scherzer had more and he threw 4 more starts than Jose.

An Ode to Everything Great About the Pennant-Winning 2015 Mets

The Mets won the pennant. The Mets won the pennant!!!

The Mets are going to the World Series.

I keep telling myself that in utter disbelief. In the days since my beloved New York Mets clinched the National League championship last Wednesday, handily dispatching the Chicago Cubs in a relatively anti-climactic four-game sweep, I keep finding myself reviewing all the events of this unbelievable postseason, trying to remind myself that it's real. Ya gotta believe. It's almost Halloween and the Mets are still playing baseball.

I've long felt a deep connection to this team and now they're in the midst of one of the most exciting stretches of baseball in the franchise's history. They've won three pennants in my lifetime, the first when I was 1, second when I was 15, and now a third during the year I turned 30. This has been a year of Mets fanhood I will never forget.

With a few days before the World Series starts, right now we can simply savor the Mets' incredible run to the National League pennant, and so I'd like to compose an Ode to the 2015 Mets.

The Unprecedented Excitement of the 2015 New York Mets

In a few moments, my beloved New York Metropolitans will begin a series with the Chicago Cubs to decide the National League's representative in the World Series. In the aftermath of the Mets' improbable, incredible, unforgettable defeat of the Dodgers in the NLDS, I've been reflecting on what this team means to me.

My move to Austin in 2011 coincided with the Mets organization bringing in a new general manager to steer the organization back toward success after years of embarrassment and futility. This was the first time in my history as a Mets fan that I had trust and confidence in their decision-makers. New Mets GM Sandy Alderson was the original mentor to Billy Beane in Oakland and after joining the Mets he immediately brought in former Beane confidant and Moneyball co-star Paul DePodesta to help reshape the organization.

Now that I was living in a city with no major league team, in a state whose only MLB teams I had zero rooting interest in, I found my Mets fanhood deepened and intensified. My first summer here in 2011 was one of the hottest in the city's history and I didn't have many friends in town at that point, so I spent my days and nights following the Mets. They became a close companion. Of course they lost and lost some more as they would for the next four years, but I fell in love with this team unlike I ever had before.

My rooting interest in the Mets dates back to the mid-90s when I was captivated by switch-hitting catcher Todd Hundley chasing home run records (he hit 41 in 1996, breaking the record for most by a catcher and set a new franchise record for the Mets, although he never hit more than 30 in any other season). My dad had been a devoted Mets fan since their inception in '62 and the team's announcers have always been far more tolerable than those obnoxious hacks calling Yankees games. So I became a Mets fan. Throughout the 2000s I went to many dozens of games at Shea Stadium, including attending Game 2 of the NLCS in 2006 (described in detail here for a guest piece at Jay Jaffe's blog).

In all these years of following the Mets, I've never loved a team as much as this one. The division winning 2006 version was fun, but I disliked many key players and frequently disagreed with the manager and general manager's decisions. The 1999-2000 version comes closest as they had plenty of fun players to root for like Mike Piazza, Robin Ventura, Edgardo Alfonzo, Turk Wendell, Al Leiter, etc.  Mostly what separates this Mets team from the pack is that so many of the players are either homegrown or were acquired as prospects and subsequently developed in the Mets farm system. I've been able to follow their whole careers, suffer through their growing pains and celebrate their achievements.

The finest hour for the 2015 Mets so far has to be Daniel Murphy's heroics in the deciding Game 5 on Thursday night, when he was responsible for all three runs (including the game-winner on a solo home run) in a 3-2 victory in Los Angeles. Murphy, or Murph as we call him, is for me the quintessential New York Met. Originally drafted by the Mets in the 13th round in 2006, he climbed the ranks and joined the team as a rookie in 2008 just in time for when they suffered a crushing late season collapse for the second consecutive year. He played solid-to-average baseball at a variety of positions through five seasons of almost entirely meaningless games, gaining a reputation for occasional hot streaks at the plate and a notoriety for awful plays in the field that seemed to embody the team's ineptitude as a whole.

Beyond Murphy's playoff heroics, the season's greatest moment had to be Wilmer Flores' walkoff home run against the Washington Nationals in his first game following a bizarre, typically embarrassing Mets debacle two nights before. Flores had heard he was traded, then could be seen crying on the field in the middle of a game. The trade never went through and the Mets came out of it looking stupid.* The 24-year-old Flores had been signed by the organization out of Venezuela at age 16 and clearly loved playing for them. His display of emotion deeply endeared him to fans and he became a folk hero whose legend was solidified in his next appearance. That night, unofficially dubbed "Wilmer Flores Night" by Mets announcer Gary Cohen right at the start, featured numerous highlight reel plays for Flores, four different standing ovations, and the team's most emotional home run of the season when Flores blasted a game winner against their division rivals and then proudly grabbed the Mets logo on his shirt before being mobbed by teammates at the plate.

*That entire week was a wild one, including the blockbuster 11th hour deadline trade to bring in star outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. Read about it all here.

Nobody, not even myself, envisioned the Mets winning their division this year yet they snatched it away from the heavily favored Nats pretty early on (they took 1st on August 2nd and never looked back). A second place finish would've been seen as a success. I'd have been happy if they'd won 85 games. They won 90. I would've still been content with their performance had they lost to the Dodgers in the NLDS. They won, twice knocking off two of the game's best pitchers in Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke (mostly thanks to dragon slayer Daniel Murphy).

Now they will open a series for the National League crown with the Chicago Cubs. If they cannot manage to overcome the Cubs' imposing collection of young sluggers, I'll be momentarily disappointed but will still look upon this season as a rousing success. After four years of futility, the Mets in 2015 outdid themselves over and over again, surpassing our highest hopes over and over again, providing magical moments over and over again. And the way this team is constructed, with a rotation full of young pitchers and a lineup of maturing hitters, it's not unlikely that they'll be able to do this again.

I can't offer an NLCS prediction here because I'm completely biased. The Cubs have an incredible team, one of the deepest lineups in all of baseball and a historically great pitcher atop their rotation. The Mets are led by flamethrowing starters, a balanced lineup, and a solid bullpen. They can win this series. The Mets can win the pennant. Who the hell saw that coming six months ago?

No matter what happens, I'm just glad we get to continue watching this amazing Mets team for at least another week or so.

Reviewing a Recent Baseball Book Reading Binge

The end of winter each year inevitably brings with it a rekindling of my intense passion for baseball and 2015 was no different. I've been on a steady binge of absorbing baseball books for a few months now so here are some reflections on what I've been reading.

Baseball Prospectus 2015

Now in its 20th year of existence, this annual guide (featuring essays covering all 30 teams plus analysis/commentary on over 2,000 players) has undoubtedly faded a bit from its glory days but the 2015 version is the best one they've produced in many years. With editors Sam Miller and Jason Wojciechowski taking over in 2014 there were significant changes made to the format in an attempt to recapture what made the BP annual so special in the first place. Last year's edition was the first one ever to have by-lines on each of the 30 team essays while they brought in a bunch of recognizable baseball scribes to write each one. This experiment continued with the 2015 edition and works mostly for the better, but the luster of this fresh approach is starting to wear off. Bringing in a bunch of outside writers to cover each team has begun to feel rather gimmicky. I'd prefer to see BP make greater use of their own impressive stable of writers.

That complaint aside, BP 2015 is a terrific read that I'll be going back to throughout the baseball season. They've really revved up the wit, snark, and silliness (witness the emoji in Clay Buccholz' comment, the poetry for Hiroki Kuroda, and the oddity of Didi Gregorious' channeling of Derek Jeter) with an abundance of impressive, extremely creative writing while not sacrificing anything in the way of hardcore statistical analysis. That is what's always made this book so special after all; the extreme amplitude of information and heavy analysis held up by the light-hearted, creative, humorous writing style. I love the BP annual not so much for its acute baseball insights as for its stats-based writing about the game. This edition certainly provides that.

Now Appearing at Amazin' Avenue

Last week I wrote my first piece for the popular Mets blog Amazin' Avenue, covering the team's success with forming a bullpen after years of frustration in that department. It's the first of what I hope will be many articles for me at Amazin' Avenue and I'm honored to be given the opportunity to contribute there as I've been a regular reader of theirs for years.

As fun and exciting as it is to write about baseball, the material tends to be transient as teams are playing every day with new and unforeseen events constantly occurring and changing the outlook on things, and relief pitching especially is notoriously volatile. Since I wrote that piece, Mets closer Jenrry Mejia (who I praised quite highly) has been completely bombed and revealed that he's been playing through multiple injuries, among them sports hernia. The team is letting him pitch through it but he's getting smacked around. So far this month batters have crushed him to the tune of a .981 OPS. It's already been a very frustrating season for Mets fans thus far, there's no use keeping an injured and ineffective pitcher in the closer role. Watching potential wins slip away in the 9th throughout the final two months would be a terribly demoralizing end to the season.

With that said, I still stand by the main point of the piece. The Mets bullpen outlook as a whole looks better than it has in many years.

On another Mets-related note, Jerry Seinfeld did an interview with ESPN.com talking all about baseball and his favorite team, it's a great read. An intensely devoted and passionate fan who says he spends all day thinking about the game, Seinfeld relates:

When I think of retirement, all I would think of is going to a baseball game every day.

I kind of got into the World Cup a little bit and watched some Stanley Cup this year. They're both great, but it's not as good as baseball. Even in replay, the sequence of how the events took place is not as clear to understand. In baseball, you understand as it's happening, you see something that's transpiring in the moment because of the geometry of the game. These other sports don't have that clean geometry. Even in replay, you can't fully diagram in your mind, how did that even transpire?

In baseball, when someone tags up, knowing the excitement of what each guy has to do, and then you watch it. It's unbeatable.

Finding Glimmers of Hope in Another Lost NY Mets Season

All hail Lagares, the biggest bright spot on another losing team.

Another New York Mets season is about to be put in the books and with it a few negative streaks are extended. It's the team's seventh straight season missing the playoffs, their fifth straight season with a losing record, and the third consecutive losing finish under the promising, stats-savvy front office led by general manager Sandy Alderson.
While it's become an overdone cliché to mock the misery of the Mets franchise, this hapless 70-something win season offered glimpses of realistic hope for the near future and was actually quite entertaining to follow throughout the year as a devoted fan. I watched nearly every game of theirs throughout the spring and summer, only losing touch with the team as they fell into a late summer funk which coincided with an injury to the team's best hitter, David Wright.

Eclipsing any other story about this year's team was the ascent of Matt Harvey to superstardom. The 24-year-old starter spent a large chunk of the season pitching as well as anyone in baseball and even got to start the All Star Game in Queens but succumbed to an elbow injury in late August, sending Mets fans into a deep depression.

Beyond Harvey's five-month flirtation with the Cy Young award, there are still reasons to see this Mets season as a step forward for the franchise.

2013 MLB Season Preview Part 6: NL East

 

The expected ascent of Harper into the Trout-ian stratosphere at age 20 figures to be one of the game's biggest stories this year. (Getty Images.)

1. Nationals
PECOTA: 87 wins
My pick: Over

This 87-win projection is one of the oddest numbers spit out by PECOTA as the consensus among fans and experts is that this is the best all-around team in baseball this year. I'm inclined to agree with the latter as no other team is so well-stocked with talent in every area of the roster (manager included) as this year's Nationals. They won 98 games last year with a good Pythagorean record to back it up (in other words, they weren't especially lucky) and look to have greatly improved in the offseason.
Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper, back-to-back #1 picks and two of the planet's true phenoms in any sport, are only now just starting to hit their stride. Harper is an early (and seemingly easy) MVP candidate as he enters just his second season at age 20. Those two are surrounded by an infield of power-hitters who are notably great defensive players, the rotation behind Strasburg is stacked, the bullpen's deep enough to withstand inevitable injuries and/or regression, and oh yeah Bryce Harper could go all Mike Trout on us this year. 90 wins easily, possibly somewhere closer to a 100.

Amen to R.A. and the Redeeming Beauty of Baseball

We're almost midway through the 2012 baseball season and ever so slowly some things are starting to become clear. We know the Yankees are once again a dominant force. The Padres are a complete abject disaster. The AL Central is up for grabs. Rookies Bryce Harper and Mike Trout are really good.

And R.A. Dickey is among the best pitchers in baseball.

That last one is the hardest to believe. For one thing, Dickey got knocked around by the Yankees last night. He's also a 37-year-old knuckeballer, which is something of a sideshow in the game of baseball. And yet earlier this year he became the first National League pitcher since 1944 to throw two consecutive one-hitters. His dominance reached the point of 44 and 2/3 straight innings without giving up an earned run until the Yankees finally got to him last night.

But even after surrendering five runs last night, he's still 7th-best in the league at keeping runs off the board. He leads the NL in shutouts, wins, and his tied for the lead in pitcher's WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Most incredibly, he's got the third most strikeouts of any pitcher in the NL and he's by far the oldest guy in the top 10 of that category.

2012 MLB Season Preview Part 6: NL East

Watching this guy all year ought to be fun

Finishing up our look at each division as the season starts (for real this time) in Miami tonight.

NL East
Suddenly this division looks a lot like its American League cousin. It will basically be a toss-up between the three top teams and a fourth, the Nationals, should really surprise people. I remain hopeful and optimistic in the chances of my Mets this year, too. Hard to quibble with that lineup of theirs.


1. Miami Marlins
PECOTA: 88 wins
My take: Over

Lots of bright bombast from this newly minted organization with a psychedelic stadium, loud-mouthed manager, and one of the most exciting players in the game signing a big contract. For years I thought this team's crappy on-field decision-makers have cost them wins but Ozzie Guillen has an equal reputation for being a smart tactician and a smartass. Look for him to have a huge impact.

They'll certainly be fun to root against as they'll be pretty damn good and possibly very annoying.

Searching for Optimism Part 1: New York Mets

Breathe, Mets fans, breathe.

The 2012 baseball season is at least a week away from opening, but my three favorite teams---the Mets, A's, and Padres---have already been written off entirely.

While a bunch of teams (the Reds, Angels, Marlins, Tigers) loaded up for a run at the newly expanded gates into the postseason, my three favorite teams have stayed put for the most part. As a result, they aren't being talked about as anything except cellar-dwelling losers biding their time until prospects are ripe.

The Padres, with the best farm system in baseball, are supposed to be building up for a competitive run in 2013 or 2014. If the A's get to escape their dumpy stadium, they'll start to compete by 2014 or so. The Mets are their usual bumbling selves having lost their best player to a division rival and now suffering a bunch of injuries already this spring.

Frankly, all three teams are supposed to suck this year. That's what the experts (and sane, reasoned, objective baseball fans) say, at least. For the purposes of this series, though, we shall reach for some semblance of optimism for the 2012 season. There must be something we can root for as fans of these crappy teams. After all, each year it is inevitable that one or two teams completely blows away its preseason predictions led by surprise (if flukey) performances from a player or three. Why not the Mets? Why not the Padres? As for the A's, well..... why not the Mets!

So let's take a look at each team through the eyes of an incorrigible optimist doing his best to stay objective. We will use the 2012 projections generated by both Baseball Prospectus and Clay Davenport (as they appeared on March 23rd) and try to find where each of these teams might be able to best the system and squeeze out a few more wins. We need something to hope for after all. I'm far too hyped up for this baseball season to just give up on my team(s) already.

Lots o' Links: Roundball Edition

Following a sudden shift of surroundings when I moved (for the 5th time in 4 years) four weeks ago, I seem to have fallen off the blogging groove. I try now to climb back onto it as the baseball season approaches, the NBA season runs on by, and I absorb books and music much too fast for me to stop and compose reviews about them. So, in the interest of getting the ball rolling, today we'll do what any good blog does and take a look at some other people's work that I've enjoyed around the web.

First, I've got a little treat for you:


Not very long ago, a large conglomerate of talented bloggers and sportswriters gathered together to launch a new website featuring interesting, perhaps "high-brow" pieces on sports and its surrounding culture. Led by Free Darko mastermind Bethlehem Shoals, the site (called The Classical) seemed a perfect rival to Bill Simmons' recently launched Grantland project. As someone who prefers Shoals' writing style to anything Simmons could possibly devise, I had very high hopes for this endeavor but The Classical has, in my eyes, gotten off to a slow start. In the meantime, Grantland has gathered awesome writers (Jonah Keri, Rany Jazayerli, Bill Barnwell, Katie Baker, Jay Caspian King) covering every sport and I can't help but check out their content almost every day.

With the locked-out basketball season finally starting to get its wind and a fresh baseball season showing its first signs of life, The Classical is responding with some excellent pieces. I don't want this post to turn into a collection of nothing but Grantland and Classical pieces but... they've written a bunch of great stuff lately. These works in particular have really grabbed my attention:

First Glimmers of a New Baseball Season

For a couple months now I've been kicking around the idea of writing a piece about my desire to step away from following baseball this season, let my attention go to more important things, and especially not allow my emotions to get invested into the ups and downs of any baseball team.

This piece was going to be a list of reasons for Why I'm Done with Baseball (for now), one of the main reasons being that the sorry state of the New York Mets and the departure of their best player to an arch rival are just too frustrating for me as a Mets fan. Other reasons include the steep price of following the game (for years now I've been an MLB.tv subscriber but in order for that package to carry over to either the iPad or iPhone device, one has to pay extra---as if Major League Baseball needs my money more than I do) at a time when I don't have much disposable income; the long hours spent watching games or reading baseball articles could certainly be better spent (especially at a time when I'm trying to put together two book-length projects); and after the dazzling crescendo of the 2011 baseball season, I figure the excitement has nowhere to go but down this year.

Pennant Picks

Baseball events often serve as a time marker for me. I can look back at past exciting or historic events happening in baseball games and recall where I was at the time, what was going on in my life or in the world at large.

I watched the first game of the Yankees-Mets Subway Series in 2000 on a little portable television in the back of a car while my dad drove me and some friends home from a Saturday evening hockey game in Long Island. When the Yanks and Red Sox started their marathon Game 7 in 2003 (eventually won by Aaron Boone's walkoff homer) I was playing a roller hockey game for my college team at an outdoor rink in Chelsea Piers. I saw the White Sox win the World Series in 2005 at Mickey Mantle's restaurant near Central Park while on a date with a girl from Italy. 

The last two Octobers I watched from the living room of my San Diego apartment and now I've witnessed the excitement of this year's pennant chase here in Austin. The classic deciding game Friday night between the Phillies and Cardinals will forever be etched in my memory as I watched it unfold in amazement while eating baked ziti and sipping beer at an overpriced bar/restaurant down the road. (I attempted to watch the first game of that series at another restaurant last week but once the Texas Longhorns game started, every television in the bar was switched to that crappy meaningless game against Iowa State and I was screwed. Will certainly always remember that, too.)

I wasn't alive in the late 1960s but from watching Ken Burns' baseball documentary over and over again, I've come to associate the baseball events going at that time with the social upheavals and global events going on at the same time. In that documentary series, each decade gets its own lengthy treatment and the 60s is by far my favorite. The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, the assassination of JFK (and RFK, Malcolm X, and MLK) aren't ignored, in fact they are perfectly weaved in to the baseball events in that decade as Bob Gibson's Cardinals dominated the era, Carl Yastrzemski carried the Sox in '67, the Orioles built a powerhouse and Washington DC nearly burnt to the ground after rioting in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Protesters burned their draft cards and choppers flew over the jungles of Saigon.

As incredible as the crescendo of this baseball season has been, it will always be associated in my mind with the movement springing up in downtown Manhattan (my former stomping grounds) and spreading across the nation, the peaceful uprising and dissent against oppressive oligarchy and austerity measures. I confess to being a severe baseball addict, but as exciting and engaging as it has all been this year, the Occupy Wall Street news has been competing for my attention since it began in mid-September. The baseball games have often absorbed me in transfixion but at the same time my thoughts are constantly with the people out sleeping on the cement in the cold New York autumn.

Now, on to the baseball...

It seemed like nothing could touch the melodrama and excitement of the regular season's conclusion, but then we witnessed a Divison Series that featured four tightly fought matchups, three of which went down to the final game, and two of which saw huge upsets. The Rays series only lasted four games but the last three of those were all nail-biters. Now the smoke has cleared and we're left with just four teams in matchups that look to be just as competitive and entertaining as anything we've seen all year. Here are some thoughts on the two series we will watch over the next week.

National League Championship Series
Cardinals (90-72) vs. Brewers (96-66)

The Brewers were a popular World Series pick but I don't think anybody imagined they would be in this position, facing their sworn enemies for the NL pennant. The Cardinals don't belong here. They lost their best pitcher before the season began, were written off as a contender in Spring Training, and were trailing the final playoff spot by 9 games in early September. When they managed to climb all the way back into it and win on the final day, that only guaranteed them a match against the best team in the major leagues, the 102-win Phillies. Well, they've slayed yet another dragon and here they are.

This looks to be an extremely close and exciting series. These two teams genuinely don't like each other, they had some bean ball incidents this summer, lots of trash talk, and they represent two different poles on the spectrum---the Cards are the gritty, scrappy veterans and the Brewers are young, loud-mouthed and here for the first time. The Cardinals have been doing this for a good 12 years now, this is their 6th appearance in an LCS during that span while the Brewers organization had not won a playoff series since 1982. At that time they were still in the American League, led by manager Harvey Keunn, they were known as "Harvey's Wallbangers" and they went all the way to the World Series where they lost to... the Cardinals! (Dan Okrent's great book 9 Innings covers those Brewers at length.)

On the field, the teams are closely matched in the rotation, bullpen, defense, and lineup. While the Brewers boast a superb top-three starting pitchers in Yovani Gallardo, Zack Grienke, and Shaun Marcum, the Cardinals' top-three are no slouches and perfectly capable of matching up against the much more heralded Milwaukee trio. Chris Carpenter leads the St. Louis bunch with his alliterative appellation and strike zone carving repertoire, young lefty Jaime Garcia put up basically the same numbers as Carpenter in fewer innings, and Edwin Jackson is capable of matching zeroes with anybody the Brewers have. Both teams run deep in the bullpen, too.

Both teams pack high-octane offenses mostly led, again, by superior trios. For Milwaukee it's Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, and Rickie Weeks in the heart of the lineup while St. Louis relies on Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, and Lance Berkman. Combined, those trios match up pretty well although maybe the Cards have a very slight edge. Outside of those, the role players seem to tilt in the Cardinals' favor. Third baseman David Freese would be a household name by now if he could ever stay healthy because the boy can hit. Yadier Molina emerged as one of the better hitting catchers in baseball this year, shortstop Rafael Furcal has looked like his old self in this postseason, and the Cardinals even boast a pretty strong bench (that micromanager Tony LaRussa loves to employ).

In comparison, the Brewers have a few more liabilities on offense. Guys like Casey McGehee, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Jonathan Lucroy can pop out a homerun every now and then but they had poor seasons overall. Neither team is any good defensively, although I think analysts are sometimes a bit too overzealous in dismissing the Brewers in that respect.

Really, the teams are so closely matched that there's no way to pinpoint a particular weakness that will decide the series. It should be one for the ages, perhaps the best LCS since the Red Sox and Yankees in 2004. I prefer to see the Brewers win and they are my pick because they have homefield advantage but I think it will go all 7 games and feature plenty of fireworks.

American League Championship Series
Tigers (95-67) vs. Rangers (96-66)

This matchup, to me, looks closer than it really is. The Rangers are a far superior team, in fact, they were probably the best team in all of baseball this year (Baseball Prospectus has a rather complicated extraction that bears this out). Jon Daniels deserves a lot of credit, he was the youngest general manager in baseball history when he stepped into the role for the Rangers in 2005 at the age of 28, and he has built this team into a well-rounded, deep powerhouse.

Let me get this out of the way: I live in Texas right now and the team Daniels has assembled is an admirable one, but I'm not a fan of this team at all. Eric over at Pitchers & Poets recently wrote a nice piece about why he's pulling for the Rangers despite their shady associations (George W. Bush being the most prominent one) but I'm not falling for it. I'd certainly like to root for this team because of a guy like Jon Daniels and what he's done here, but I've been to the ballpark, I've watched this team for years as an Oakland A's fan and I just don't like them.

As I wrote earlier this year, the Detroit Tigers are a team that I can root for. They represent a decrepit, broken down and demoralized city that has hosted baseball since the beginning of the American League. Detroit is a rich sports town with a great baseball history. Texas? I couldn't watch a Texas Rangers playoff game at a bar because a fucking Texas-Iowa State college football game was on. I can't root for that kind of stupidity. Anywho...

The Rangers are an all-around powerhouse that can beat up any team and their dad. Adrian Beltre blasted three homeruns in one game the other day and he's probably the third-best hitter on this team (behind Mike Napoli and Josh Hamilton). The lineup is absolutely scary. If there's one thing that might be in the Tigers' favor here, it's that there are so many right-handed hitters in the lineup and Detroit has an all-righty pitching staff but the Rangers don't seem to care what hand the pitcher throws with. They'll blast off against anybody. The Detroit offense can put up runs too, most of them will come from Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez. Jhonny Peralta is an interesting player not just because of the misplaced "h" in his name but because he seemingly resurrected his career in the Motor City and renewed his status as an offensive threat. Alex Avila, the rookie catcher, had a spectacular season at the plate but so far in the playoffs he hasn't shown up (just 1 hit in 16 at-bats).

Like every other part of this team, the Texas pitching staff runs deep. If five starters were needed in a playoff series, they could throw out five great ones, but they only need four so Alexi Ogando was put into the bullpen and we all saw what he's capable of last night (97 mph fastballs at the corners). This very interesting rotation boasts three tough lefties and a righty who remade himself after a stint in Japan. The Japanese league guy seems to be the only liability here as Colby Lewis followed up his superb 2010 campaign with an up-and-down season this year (he pitched fine, just gave up way too many homers). Detroit depends on their workhorse Justin Verlander, the easy Cy Young choice this season, but he seems to be losing steam this past month or so. They'll need him to pick it up and possibly pitch 3 times in this series if they hope to win. I predicted Max Scherzer would have a huge year for Detroit before the season, but he didn't. He pitched well with plenty of strikeouts but, like Colby Lewis, he surrendered a bunch of homeruns. I worried about that coming into the playoffs but Scherzer pitched great against the Yankees in two appearances so look for him to be a big part of this series.

Joaquin Benoit basically became a national hero with his heroic relief effort for Detroit against the Yankees to seal their demise in the previous round, and the Tigers do have a nice bullpen. But nothing comes close to this Rangers relief group. As I mentioned, they brought Alexi Ogando out of the pen in Game 1 yesterday and he was nearly untouchable. They also have two of the best relievers in baseball over the last few years, Mike Adams and Koeji Uehara, at their disposal and then flame-throwing Neftali Feliz as the final piece. Even their middle-relief or platoon pitching options are solid. It's gonna be really tough to score against the group late in the game.

I really don't like the Rangers but there's no denying how strong they are as a team. While I will be rooting hard for the underdog Detroit to knock them out, I don't realistically see it happening. My pick: Rangers in six.