Groundhog Day
How a condensed Spring Training could hurt the Mets
Good Morning,
We are officially in the dog days of the MLB lockout. There’s no progress and relatively little urgency to get a deal done with several weeks remaining before the risk of missing regular season games is at stake. Yesterday, MLB requested federal mediation, which is more of a PR stunt than an earnest bargaining move. The union is unlikely to agree to it. Can we skip ahead to when this is over?
Meanwhile, we have plenty of actual baseball stuff to talk about. A few new prospect lists are out, and so are early projections for 2022. We will also discuss the impact of a shortened Spring Training on an injury-prone roster.
But first, we must talk about Robinson Canó.
🇩🇴 CARIBBEAN SERIES
Robinson Canó was named to the Caribbean Series All-Star team after hitting a jaw-dropping .450/.593/.600 in the six games leading up to the Dominican Republic’s championship showdown against Columbia last night.
🔹 RUNNER UP: Columbia clinched its first Caribbean Series title with a 4–1 win. Canó’s two-out, RBI hit drove in the only run of the game for DR.
🔹 OPTIMISM: Howard Megdal of Baseball Prospectus compares Canó to A-Rod in making the case for why he could provide value for the Mets in 2022.
🔝 PROSPECTS
The Mets rank 16th in Baseball America’s annual MLB Organization Talent Rankings, released earlier this week. Middle of the pack, but one of the five farm systems they think could rise in 2022.
The Mets have a strong group of position prospects at the top of their system with Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio and Mark Vientos. The Mets don’t have as much pitching that could help this year at the major league level, but they have a number of lower-level arms that intrigue, mostly acquired internationally or in the 2021 draft.
🔹 TOP 75: SNY’s Jacob Resnick dropped his Top 75 prospect list this week. The same four names noted above are at the top of his list, with Matt Allan, J.T. Ginn, and Dominic Hamel comprising the next tier. Hamel is high on Resnick’s list relative to other rankings, but you can see why here.
📈 EARLY PROJECTIONS
While there are still ~200 free agents with major-league experience who will be looking for open roster spots when the lockout ends, early projections (ZiPS) have the Mets winning 88 games, finishing second behind the Atlanta Braves (sound familiar?) in the National League East.
🔹 CONTEXT: The Braves are projected to win 90 games even with the assumption that Freddie Freeman departs in free agency, which is still hard to imagine.
Dan Szymborski (creator of ZiPS) adds, “The Mets have holes, but they probably underperformed their abilities as a group in 2021 and are close enough that with a bit of luck — I know, not a typical Mets phenomena — they can catch the Braves, especially in the Freeman-less scenario.”
🥶 GROUNDHOG DAY
MLB and the Players Association saw their proverbial shadows while negotiating this week, meaning there will likely be several more weeks before baseball returns. Until they face a “real” deadline of missing regular season games — which doesn’t come until the beginning of March — we probably won’t see much movement.
🔹 WHAT THIS MEANS: It sucks. That’s what it means. Putting aside any rooting interest in the outcome of the negotiations from an economics standpoint, as baseball fans, we want to see baseball.
That said, by failing to make progress towards a deal this week, it’s increasingly likely we will have a shortened Spring Training, which could have a negative impact on the Mets (as we hinted last week).
🔹 SHUTDOWN: While players are obviously free to workout on their own, team facilities have been closed to 40-man roster players since the owners shut the game down in early December. So before we even get into Spring Training, players have been put at a disadvantage preparing for the season, somewhat similar to the pandemic shortened season in 2020.
Speaking of 2020, it provides insight into the consequences of trying to ramp things up too quickly before playing for keeps. While 2020 was a bit different — with players starting up on a regular schedule, stopping due to the pandemic, and starting back up again in July — the amount of runway from the beginning of the rescheduled Spring Training to Opening Day was only three weeks, a timeline we could see again this season.
🔹 INJURIES: Comparing 2020 to the previous season, research by MLB trainers found the number of IL stints had increased 31 percent in the first few months of the pandemic-shortened campaign.
Overall, the Mets had 24 IL stints in 2020, that is, again, during a 60-game season, which we remind you because they only sent players to the IL 28 times in 2019 and 27 times in 2018, both full seasons. Of course, all bets were off last season with 45 trips.
🔹 HAMSTRUNG: Most concerning, hamstring injuries have been steadily increasing throughout baseball (and other sports). The Mets have been particularly snake-bitten, with the third most hamstring-related IL stints since 2018.
Not only that, but these injuries are most likely to occur early in the season, when the temperature is colder, and perhaps when players are less conditioned.
Other factors: A recent article by Rob Mains of Baseball Prospectus looked into whether aggressive baserunning correlated to hamstring injuries. A reasonable hypothesis considering strains are most likely to occur on the basepaths. If you watched the Mets last season, you can guess at the result. Ironically enough, the Mets were the second least aggressive team by Mains’ calculations, and yet, sent players to the IL with a hamstring-related injury six times (tied for fourth most in baseball).
🔹 THE PAYOFF PITCH: It’s unclear whether the Mets need to drink more water, find more durable players, revamp their training program, or hope the CBA gets signed as quickly as possible to maximize preseason conditioning… or perhaps all of the above. But once again, health is a concern as teams will be forced to prepare for the season after a winter in the dark.
🔹 Former Mets executive Omar Minaya, who was hired in an ambassadorship role following the Jared Porter mess, will serve as an amateur scouting consultant for Major League Baseball, both domestically and internationally.
🔹 Former Met Matt Harvey is among seven players who have been revealed as witnesses in former Angels employee Eric Kay’s upcoming criminal trial in connection to the death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
🔹 NBC’s regional sports networks plan to launch a direct-to-consumer offering this year, per The Hollywood Reporter. Why does this matter? SNY is one of the regional sports networks. So there could be a direct-to-consumer option for Mets fans coming soon!
🔗 Joel Sherman of the NY Post flew down to Florida to spend time with Billy Eppler and Buck Showalter, resulting in this great two-part series:
▪️ PART I: Inside the meticulous opening days of Buck Showalter’s first Mets spring
▪️ PART II: How the Buck Showalter-Billy Eppler connection is getting the Mets ready for the craziness to come ($)
🔗 What could a contract extension with the Mets look like for Brandon Nimmo? by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “When healthy throughout that stretch, Nimmo has performed. Over the course of the last four seasons, Nimmo has more wins above replacement than current outfield free agents Michael Conforto, Nicholas Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber. He has more WAR than Chris Taylor, who signed for four years and $64 million with the Dodgers. He’s in the same range as Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa and Cody Bellinger. That’s despite all the missed time.”
🔗 Scouts on why Mets' 2022 MLB Draft class will be especially crucial to long-term success, by John Harper, SNY: “With the extra picks, they could create some real depth,” one scout told Harper. “That would give them flexibility in the coming years so they can spend wisely and maybe make trades from strength, rather than spending being their only option.”
🧩 Great job for everyone who guessed “WRIGHT” in our last Wordle. Here is a new Mets-themed Wordle to keep you busy. Tag us on Twitter to let us know how you did. We will reveal the answer in our next issue.
And we leave you with Starling Marte giving fans flashbacks to Yoenis Cespedes…
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No U in Colombia, friends. As a
Columbia grad and
Lucky hubby to a Colombiana…I speak from experience!
- The lockout could not be more painful in light of the Mets offseason. You're right - it sucks.
- Robinson Canó. Well, we know he can hit but has he been tested for PEDs lately?
- Hamstring injuries. Imitate what a team that doesn't have 45 trips to the IL does.
- Let me make sure I have this right: MLB Owners do not have to open their books, right? The MLBPA's books are open? Thanks.