Good Morning,
It was a night of mixed emotions for Mets fans: more bad news in the injury department (including a frightening pitch to Kevin Pillar’s face), but an impressive road-win against division rival Atlanta to extend their lead in the NL East.
We’ll discuss all that, plus preview tonight’s action and talk about what the Mets have in catcher James McCann. But first, let’s recap last night’s action.
⚾️ IN SHORT: The Mets endured two more potential injuries, to RHP Taijuan Walker (who left after 3 innings with side tightness) and Pillar (whose hit-by-pitch forced him to leave the game), to win 3-1 on the strength of three shutout innings of relief by Sean Reid-Foley and late RBI hits from James McCann and new call-up Johneshwy Fargas. [Box Score]
🔑 KEY MOMENT: Catcher James McCann delivered his biggest hit of the season so far, with a pinch-hit double in the 7th with no outs to plate the first run of the game (scored by fellow backstop Tomas Nido, who had doubled, himself). The Mets would never relinquish the lead after that.
🔑 🔑 OTHER KEY MOMENT: With a slim 3-1 lead in the 9th, Edwin Díaz came in to face the triple threat of the Atlanta lineup: Ronald Acuña, Jr., Freddie Freeman and Marcel Ozuna. Critically, Díaz was able to start the inning by inducing a soft grounder from Acuna to avoid a leadoff runner, and stay away from a big, game-losing inning. He would close the game out after allowing a walk.
3 TAKEAWAYS
❶ PRAY FOR PILLAR: Anyone unfortunate enough to watch Kevin Pillar get hit by a pitch straight to his face in the 7th inning is unlikely to forget it. He fell straight to the ground, with his face gushing with blood, and was taken to the hospital for CT scans and other tests. Play on the field paused, Braves pitcher Jacob Webb was shaken up and removed from the game, and Braves players kneeled on the field as Pillar was taken away. It’s not the most important part of this story, but it seems possible that Pillar could miss time, meaning the Mets would have even more holes to fill in their outfield.
Late last night, Pillar posted the following tweet, offering some relief to all those worried about him:
❷ TATTOO YOU: RHP Sean Reid-Foley is quickly carving a name for himself—between his Kimbrel-like pre-pitch squat, his tatted sleeves, and now his impressive long relief. Last night the righty — one of the returns in the Steven Matz deal — went three scoreless when the team really needed it after Walker left due to an injury (more on that in a second). Reid-Foley is now 1-0 with an 0.96 ERA after fanning five over the three spotless innings.
❸ SIDE TAI-GHTNESS: Mets starter Taijuan Walker continued to look sharp, putting up zeros for three innings, before leaving the game due to side tightness. The depth of the Mets starting pitching is already being tested with their top three starters — Jacob deGrom, Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard — still on the shelf; losing another starter could be even harder to sustain.
🧑🏫 SOUND SMART: Before getting his first major league hit and RBI last night, newest Met Johneshwy Fargas was the MVP of the Puerto Rican Winter League last year, and has two 50-steal seasons in his minor league career.
⏭ NEXT UP: It will be an interesting matchup tonight, as the Braves will throw a starter with fewer than two career innings pitched; and the Mets will throw…. who knows? Lefty Tucker Davidson will be brought up to give Atlanta’s current rotation extra rest; he’s looked good at AAA Gwinnett, and has a chance to claim a spot in Atlanta's rotation now that Huascar Ynoa is hurt. The Mets may try to patch together another bullpen game with Luis Rojas mentioning names like Lucchesi, Gsellman and Drew Smith during his post-game press conference last night.
😄 FIRST PLACE: The 19-16 Mets grew their lead in the division to a full game, as the second-place Phillies (21-20) were off yesterday.
🚶WALKER: After leaving last night’s game with left side tightness, Taijuan Walker will have an MRI today to "just want to get it checked out just to make sure we know what we're dealing with." He didn’t sound too concerned after the game.
🚑 INJURED LIST: Both Jeff McNeil and Michael Conforto were placed on the 10-Day IL after each suffered a hamstring injury during Sunday’s game in Tampa.
CALL-UPS: The Mets called up outfield prospect Khalil Lee and Johneshwy Fargas before last night’s game to replace McNeil and Conforto on the active roster.
🌴 PLAYING SURFACE: Conforto isn’t a fan of the Sports Turf in Tampa, “The ground there is a lot harder than it would be on a grass field. I don't know exactly what it was that caused the injury, but I'm sure that didn't help.”
🛒 SHOPPING: As injuries continue to mount, the Mets are “in the market” for outfielders, according to Jon Heyman.
🎬 REHAB STARTS: Both Seth Lugo (elbow bone spur) and Noah Syndergaard (Tommy John surgery) are scheduled to make rehab starts this week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Syndergaard is expected to stay with the St. Lucie Mets until at least May 31, according to Mike Puma. Lugo was transferred to the 60-Day IL to make temporary space on the 40-man roster (allowing the Mets to call up Fargas). He is eligible to return on May 31, as is Syndergaard. J.D. Davis (finger bruise) is also expected to make a rehab appearance on Tuesday, for Triple-A Syracuse.
👍 SO FAR, SO GOOD: Jacob deGrom threw a side session on Monday and everything went well. He is expected to throw a bullpen on Tuesday, which will be critical in deciding if he is ready to return to the rotation on Friday, or if he will need a rehab start.
Did the Mets overpay for James McCann?
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone and Blake Zeff
In some ways, last night was emblematic of catcher James McCann’s entire season: the big free-agent acquisition finally got his first key hit of the season — a pinch-hit double in the 7th — but was still overshadowed by his backup Tomas Nido, who went 3-for-4 with two runs.
When the Mets signed McCann, the thinking was simple: why pay J.T. Realmuto $115 million when you can sign the second best catcher on the market for one-third of that price?
But at the time, we questioned whether McCann really was the second best option on the market:
If your life was on the line, would you bet on McCann outperforming Mike Zunino next season? What about even Wilson Ramos? You might make a friendly wager if you trust the upward trajectory of McCann’s underlying numbers, but gun to your head?
Hindsight is 20/20 and things will become even clearer as we gain a larger sample size, but the early results suggest the Mets could have signed… well, almost anyone else available on the market during this off-season and received more production than what McCann has provided so far.
Again, it’s way too early to draw sweeping conclusions on a four-year contract after only 28 games played. Just as we believe that Francisco Lindor will be better than a .190 hitter, we feel confident that McCann — who seems like a great teammate and has been praised by pitchers for his work behind the plate — will improve his offensive numbers over the next several months.
In fact, if there’s one thing the former White Sox catcher has done in recent years, it is find hot and cold streaks. Arguably, it is two hot streaks that netted him the massive contract from the Mets: McCann had a 132 wRC+ during the first half of 2019 (compared to a 82 wRC+ during the second half); and after scorching the ball to start the pandemic-shortened season last year, he settled around league average over the final month.
So the problem is we have more data to tell us McCann isn’t a terrific hitter than we do to suggest he is worth $40 million, which is why many defenders of his signing tried to rely on his underlying Statcast numbers to prove his altered swing made the difference. That, and the fact that he changed his stance behind the plate to drastically improve his league-worst framing numbers—another thing we highlighted previously.
In the Mets’ defense, there was a reasonable case for not signing Realmuto to a long-term deal: the franchise’s (arguably) top prospect is the exciting Fernando Alvarez, a 19-year old catcher who has dazzled scouts and Mets brass with his defensive tools and bat. If the club believes Alvarez will be ready to join the big leagues in, say, 2023, you can argue that their resources were better spent on a truer area of long-term need (of course, having several top prospects who play shortstop didn’t stop them from pursuing and extending Francisco Lindor, but we digress).
But the argument against committing $100+ million and several years to Realmuto still doesn’t justify the four-year, $40 million deal for McCann. With Alvarez on the way, the wisest path to filling the catcher role might have been a one or two-year deal — as every other free agent backstop besides Realmuto and McCann received.
In fairness, the remaining options in the catching market weren’t so hot, or at least they didn’t appear to be compared to McCann. However, as we highlighted earlier, several of those bargain-bin signings are outperforming the Mets’ new catcher, and there’s reason to believe they will continue to do so throughout the season.
Ultimately, a key question is whether the Mets could have inked McCann for just two years. Did they need to commit four years and $40 million? Or could they have paired someone with Nido — whose strong defense and improving offense have been encouraging — to cobble together a capable combination behind the plate?
While McCann’s deal seemed like an overpay to us at the time — who were they competing against for his services? — we’ll never know if they could have signed him for less. That said, we do have some evidence of McCann’s worth, and the wisdom of signing such a lengthy, generous deal. And the early returns are not great.
⚾️ Old friend Juan Lagares put the Angels in front early against Cleveland, with a two-run double that was misplayed by a CF named… Amed Rosario.
⚾️ Yankees ace Gerrit Cole snapped a week-old MLB record by striking out 61 batters in between walks. It didn’t help Cole against the Rangers, though, as he got roughed up and took the loss 5-2.
⚾️ Mike Trout left last night’s game with a strained right calf. The Angles await test results.
🔗 Should the Mets have let Taijuan Walker pitch on Monday?, by Andy Martino, SNY: “In Taijuan Walker’s start last Wednesday against Baltimore, his left side was enough of an issue that he did not swing in three at-bats to protect it. Five days later, Walker ended his outing in Atlanta early because of tightness in his side. Should the Mets have let him pitch at all?”
And… we leave you with these tabloid covers telling the scary story last night in Atlanta:
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