Yes, the fourth of July weekend really did happen. The New York Mets won the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers and scored eight runs in one of the games. This is the only way you can react to that:
For the last month and a half, the Mets couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat. So what do you do next? Keep up with two of the best pitchers in all of baseball and get more hits in a series than you got in any recent one. While they didn’t end up beating Zack Greinke, they did win the game against Clayton Kershaw. Wilmer Flores finally started hitting and went 10-for-13 in the series, registering two doubles and five RBIs. Phenomenal batting. It makes no sense whatsoever that Flores can be so terrible against average pitchers, and then he absolutely lights up the former NL MVP and the current NL ERA leader (second in NL for WHIP), but you can’t question these things. Logic doesn’t apply to this baseball team, if you didn’t figure that out in the last thirty years. On the flip side, there’s no way Matt Reynolds likes what he’s seeing here. If he can’t get any playing time in the Big Leagues when Flores is hitting like trash, there’s no way he’ll get the call when Flores is tearing it up.
On another note, the Mets called up Kirk Nieuwenhuis who they designated for assignment earlier in the season, and then brought back to the team for some reason. They optioned Darrell Ceciliani back to Vegas in order to do this. Nieuwenhuis was batting pretty well in Vegas during the last month, so it’s only fair that he be given a chance, even though we’ve already got a pretty clear understanding as to just how well Kirk can play here. Finally, a move that makes some sense. Even though Kirk is a pretty average hitter, we’ve seen that Ceciliani hasn’t been very great offensively either, so with this move, it at least shows that the Mets’ management are taking some initiative and trying to shakE things up. Shake, however, is somewhat of a strong word, as this is the only move they made, but it’s something, so it’s whatever. Besides, in his first game back, against the Giants, Kirk has already made an impact. He’s got a hit and a run in two at bats to go along with two walks. Yay for on-base percentage! On a side note, enough with this nonsense about calling up Michael Conforto. Let the kid develop in the minors. Him coming up now is not going to make a huge immediate impact that will propel us into first place. Just let him work his way up and he’ll get here soon enough.
Now, back to the story. Jon Niese got the call for the series opener against the Giants, and boy is he putting up a strong fight for his job. Over his last six starts, he’s been stellar on the mound and is making an excellent case to remain in the rotation. Most of the Mets’ starting pitchers seem to have an issue with Terry Collins’ six-man rotation, as it throws them all out of their rhythm and only gives them an opportunity to go out on the bump once a week. When your team can’t hit and you lose another game in spite of a glorious performance, it’s frustrating to have to go a week without getting another chance to perform. You can ask the Gatorade cooler in the Mets dugout about this frustration, it can vouch.
Interestingly enough, the one pitcher who silently embraces the six-man rotation is Niese himself, who has been pretty solid since it’s been implemented. However, at this point, whether he pitches well or not, he has to go. The Mets already have their rotation of the future. It’s not that Niese did anything wrong as of late — he’s simply not needed and can bring us something we really do need if we let go of him. His tremendous pitching has increased his trade value exponentially, and being sent to a team like the Dodgers or the Cubs would definitely be worth it to them. He’d be excellent at plugging in the hole they have in the back end of their rotations, even though over the last month he’s shown that he’s capable of being more than just a depth starter (depending on the team he’d play for, of course). Jon Niese just pitched eight innings of shutout baseball against the defending champion San Francisco Giants, giving up only three hits and two walks. Maybe the beard gives him his secret powers, who knows. We love your recent contributions to this ballclub, Jon, but they’ve only made us want you to leave more and more. It’s time to sell high already.
But, of course, there’s no way the front office would do that. Why would they make such a good decision? It’s almost like they have a quota of weekly mistakes that they need to fill. With each start that Niese gets, his trade value can potentially drop immensely, provided he goes back to his early-season woes. But the Mets are practically going all in on #49 red every single week. It’s like they’re trying to wait for him to get so good that they can use it as an excuse to keep him and get rid of someone else, which is, of course, not what they should be doing. Just because you have a good player doesn’t mean the best decision is to keep him. The Mets are aware that there is a trade deadline, right? Sure, it’s a little over three weeks from now, but it hasn’t sounded like the Mets have had any interest in doing any sort of business whatsoever. The only decisions they’ve made over the last month were figuring out the designs of the Free Shirt Fridays, specifically the ridiculous emoji t-shirt that they’re giving away for free to EVERY Mets fan that attends the upcoming game on Friday against the Diamondbacks. On top of the free shirt, all fans are getting “a gift card courtesy of Dunkin’ Donuts”. Literally every fan. How much money could possibly be on a gift card that they have to be ready to give to 42,000 people, provided they all show up? One cent? These marketing schemes are sickening. It’s only a matter of time before the Mets’ uniforms are sponsored by the local barbershop down the street, just like in little league. This is a professional baseball team, and it’s so humiliating.
The Wilpons won’t open their wallets to bring over a legitimate bat but they’ll spend their money on a hideous shirt that you can stuff your face in as you watch this team struggle to get a guy on base. Once they do finally get that guy on base, then literally nothing happens. They actually have to complete a miracle feat and get hit in the inning, otherwise that guy on first isn’t going anywhere. It seems like forever since the Mets stole a base. They’re bottom ten in stolen bases this year with 32, but they’re sixth in all of the MLB for percentage of stolen base attempts that are successful (76%). How is that even possible? How are you sixth-best at stealing bases, but you try to steal so few times that you’re in the bottom ten in the league? The best catchers in the league catch a runner stealing roughly 40-45% of the time, meaning that you’re more than likely going to be able to steal a base if you actually give it an attempt. With the Mets at a 76% success rate, then they absolutely have to start trying to steal more bases. Why not? What’s the thought process in not doing this? They know the team can’t hit anything, so they have to get a blue collar kind of run in. Steal a base, and then when the team pops out as usual, it will just be rephrased as a sacrifice to get the runner to third, and then either do it again or actually get a hit and bring in the run.
Part of the problem that the Mets are having is that all the players that actually get on base for them are most certainly not going to steal. Lucas Duda (.350 OBP, leads the team)? Yeah, not stealing. Travis d’Arnaud (.338 OBP)? Nope. Daniel Murphy (.333 OBP)? Maybe, but not likely. The only Mets with more than two stolen bases on the season are Curtis Granderson, Juan Lagares, Eric Campbell, and Darrell Ceciliani, the last two are both not good enough at the other parts of their job in order to stay up here. How do you solve this problem? Well, a legitimate leadoff hitter would be nice, one that’s not 34-years-old. The first name that comes to mind is Brock Holt, who would be nice to have on the Mets, although they’d certainly have to give up a lot for him, probably one of their potential young starters. The guy is batting .295 with a .383 OBP, and he plays every position better than most of the current Mets. Definitely not an easy trade to make, but it would be a significantly positive decision going forward.
When it comes to utility players, however, the Mets are not only interested in Ben Zobrist, but are apparently willing to “overpay” for him, which is a word you wouldn’t think is in the Mets’ dictionary. Sure, he’s having a good season, but he’s 34-years-old and it’s impossible to trust the judgement of this front office when it comes to investing in veterans (see Curtis Granderson, Michael Cuddyer). He’d definitely crash and burn in Citi Field as a result of the Mets Curse, and if you’re going to overpay for a utility player, do it for a much younger player with a higher ceiling who can grow with the rest of the team. You just know that the Mets are going to screw this up somehow. They’ll make one decision before the trade deadline (maybe), and they’ll completely overpay for absolute junk like they always do. At this point, it’s impossible to have any confidence in their managerial skills going forward, and justifiably so. If Jon Niese is still on this team after July 31, then that would be yet another wasted opportunity flushed down the toilet.
This article New York Mets: No, that was not a dream appeared first on isportsweb by Cameron Fine
