OT: 2019 Mets Season Thread
- Thread starter cicero grimes
- Start date
- Status
No Nationals? But outside of Mil, pretty even and I bet we have the most home games.
Note to MC- no starting player except for Ramos or injury, gets more then 2 days off the rest of the way.
He is swinging at hittible pitches out of the strike zone but not swinging at pitches in his eyes or in the dirt.
Added WAS. Almost stopped when I saw they play the next 4 against PIT, but I continued.
Scherzer due back this week. Really don’t expect them to blow it, but if they free up a spot for us, so be it.
He's batting .384 with a .408 obp in august, if this is not being selective, then I'm down with Rosario throwing selectiveness out the window.
You are setting the bar way too high. I mean 16-8 is a .667 win %, there is not a team in baseball with that high of a %. 20-5 is just an absolutely blistering pace.
I think we all agree that Rosario is never going to walk 80-100 times and won’t continue hitting in the high .300’s
But you are making the statement that a good eye or selective= walks
Maybe the best eye on the club and selective, is McNeil...in 400 ABs, he has 28 walks. Just saying
If there is one thing that Jeff McNeil is not its selective. He swings at the first pitch just as often as not. He also seems to have a knock for hitting or fouling away "pitcher's pitches that a lot of guys flail at helplessly.
Not many players will have those high walk totals anymore. Its all about launch angles and BaBiff (or whatever thats called). McNeil proved that he wasnt a fluke from last year. Heres hoping Rosario does this for the next 5-10 years.
I think I hear the Met announcers say that he has something like the highest % of making contact on pitches in the strike zone or something like that.
What it really is, is seeing the ball and knowing what you can drive, what you can hit with some degree of control and what you feel you can at least make contact with to keep an AB alive. And staying away from the pitch that you have no chance for. Discipline
And yes, all of this will usually lead to more walks, so I am not going to say it isn't. And maybe it does lead to more walks for Rosario. Or maybe it just continues to mean he makes better contact on pitches in or near the strike zone and stays away from swinging at pitches he has no chance of making contact with.
In bot McNeil and Rosario's case, having Alonso/Conforto/Davis and Ramos hot, also helps both get better pitches to hit and less walks. If you have 2 or 3 balls on either guy, regardless of the number of strikes, you are more likely going to try to get your pitch in as a strike rather than trying to get them to swing at a pitch in the dirt.
BaBiff? Do you mean BABIP? (Batting Average on Balls In Play?)
If only everyone in the Mets lineup takes this approach instead of swining at that slider away in the dirt with 2 strikes.
Bravos appear to be all in on this year. Meanwhile in Gotham we get the Tribe with their new look lineup. Lagares playing like a young Willie Mays. :cool2: Ya Gotta Believe!
YA GOTTA BELIEVE if they win 2/3 vs the Indians, the Mets are legit playoff contenders!!!!!!
#LFGM
2 of 3 against the Indians would be huge. 5/4 or 6/3 is almost a must in this next brutal 9 games. Bless the fact we play at home!
Then away Phils/Nats- need a 4-2 . and no way in hell can we lose any series against a team not in the hunt. We have to be 67% or higher against those teams.
I saw a postgame stat that, I believe, showed that recently he is swinging and missing less , particularly on curveballs and maybe on fastballs. Whatever it was precisely, I read it to suggest that he's, you know, swinging and missing less. He's hitting more pitches, missing less. He's hot. A breakdown on whether he's swinging at pitches out of the strike zone less, however, would be much more indicative of actual selectivity. Now, if you'd like, you can make the inferential leap that he's missing less because he's swinging at better pitches to hit. But not necessarily. There are stats that can show that, and I haven't seen them yet. I have seen, however, 2 walks in August.
My gut tells me that if he were hitting 7th, he would walk more or be making more outs. Now that he is been moved up, he is protected and pitchers are more afraid to throw in the dirt or out of the strike zone as they do not want to walk him with Alonso, Conforto, Davis coming up behind him. Early in the year, it seemed they always went into the dirt and way out of the strike zone in an effort to get him to swing at them. If they would have lost him to a walk, not as dangerous.
I'm not quite saying that good eye=walks. I'm saying selectivity correlates to walks. I've noticed that McNeil does not accumulate a lot of walks. Some guys, not many, hit for a high BA that way, but it's not the norm. Take McNeil. He is tied for least walks among hitters in the NL's BA top 10. Least. Some in the top 10 have 30, 40 more walks. That's why he's 2 points off the BA lead but 26 points off the OBP lead.
What McNeil has, however, is the ability to strike out less, much less, than your average hitter. All hitters in the NL BA top 10 have more strike outs, most a lot more. While McNeil may not be selective, he hits the ball and hits just about everything. That's an unusual profile for a high BA hitter, but it happens.
If you're inferring that this recent streak makes Reyes that type of unusual hitter, you're placing him in an unusual group based on only a few weeks of evidence. And he doesn't come close to McNeil in avoiding strike outs. He has 72 more. He strikes out a lot. Maybe he'll be that guy. But I wouldn't draw that conclusion off 4 weeks of hot hitting. You'll need a bigger sample size. Now, given his speed, you should want him to be more selective, something close to the norm for players with a high BA. They walk too.
In any event, that's why I said I'd like him to take a pitch now and then. I'd prefer that he become a player who walks and hits, a fast player who does that. That said, time will tell.
Last edited:
Nope. This is wishful thinking. Even your own post says that he has been "moved up" in the lineup--meaning that he DID hit lower in the lineup, sometimes 7th, for much of the first half of the year. So you have your evidence. And, during that time, he still didn't walk much. He's never been selective. I'm hoping that he is developing that or will.
I don't think it's surprising that an aggressive hitter like McNeil would have both low walks and low strikeouts. If you swing early in the count and put the ball in play, that's what happens.
A guy like Nimmo is on the other extreme. Deep counts, high walks, high strikeouts.
A guy like Nimmo is on the other extreme. Deep counts, high walks, high strikeouts.
The Mets are going to have to start winning games against good teams. Almost their entire streak was based on bad teams. It's good that they ripped through those teams. But they won't get a wild card if from here on out they don't win more than lose--as you say, at home--against good teams. And a lot of the games are home, more than any other team battling for the NL wild card. So the schedule is set up for them.
I don't think it's just a matter of approach. It's also a matter of skill sets. McNeil has a great ability to get the bat on the ball. Admittedly, He is smart about cutting down his swing with 2 strikes and looking to punch it anywhere, which is approach. But even that isn't as easy as it looks. I'd bet that Nimmo, selective or not, just doesn't have the talent to put the bat on the ball that McNeil has. Few do. Now, I wish McNeil was also more selective. But maybe that's a skill too, some sort of mental skill that allows you to better recognize the strike zone and not swing even though you're confident that you can make some kind of contact. If I recall correctly, there was a portion of that Moneyball book in which teams--maybe just the As at the time--tried to teach selectivity throughout their system, but that it wasn't highly successful.
As to your statement, there are a lot of players who are aggressive hitters. But more often that results in low walks and high strikeouts, rather than low walks and low strikeouts. It doesn't work for a high average if you aren't exceptional as among MLB players in putting the bat on the ball. Pitchers adjust. If you are swinging at first pitch fastball strike all the time, suddenly you won't get them. While he has his preferred pitches, for the most part McNeil just hits everything.
Rajai Davis up. Lockett down. Gsellman probably done for the year.
Andy Martino
@martinonyc
·
15m
Source: Robert Gsellman has a partial lat tear. Timetable tbd, but given the timing it's hard to see how he pitches again this season. Mets down a reliever.
Andy Martino
@martinonyc
·
15m
Source: Robert Gsellman has a partial lat tear. Timetable tbd, but given the timing it's hard to see how he pitches again this season. Mets down a reliever.
JD Davis in lineup tonight!
Also, to make room for R Davis on the 40 man, Brooks Pounders DFAd.
Also, to make room for R Davis on the 40 man, Brooks Pounders DFAd.
Nimmo, Lowrey, McNeil, Davis all healthy makes this a completely different team...just need to hold our own and hopefully even gain some ground before they all are
Depending on how Nimmo and Lowrie react to their long time off, and if they show themselves to be truly healthy and produce as they have in the past, it makes the Mets better, not completely different. They would be good additions at a crucial time.
Agree but there are also the intangibles they bring too. Nimmo, is just a positive force...Lowrey, is just a "professional" baseball player. Even if their bats are a little slow, they can't be worse then we have but they are the type of players that winning teams usually have on them.
That along with Diaz and Familia straightening themselves out bodes well for us. If not this year, then next year
- Status
