The Final Countdown
Morning Dose: Friday, September 27
☀️ Good Morning:
Things didn’t exactly go the Mets’ way on Thursday, but that’s ok.
After 48 hours of breaking down storm paths, make-up dates, future pitching match-ups and clinching scenarios, the Amazins finally play an actual baseball game on Friday.
The task ahead of them is defined by two magic numbers:
FOUR: Any combination of four Mets wins and/or Diamondback losses clinches a playoff spot.
FIVE/FOUR: Any combination of five Mets wins and/or Braves losses clinches a playoff spot by Sunday, and perhaps only four if it comes to it on Monday.
Reaching those totals might be a bit more difficult after the results on Thursday. The teams opposing the Diamondbacks and Braves will likely have nothing to play for over the final few games.
◾️ San Diego’s dream of catching the Dodgers atop the NL West is over. After losing last night in Los Angeles, they are guaranteed a wild-card seed. That obviously takes away motivation for them to go all out against the Padres this weekend. However, they do need to win at least one game to guarantee a higher seed than Arizona (and they need any combination of two wins and/or Mets losses to secure home field in the first round).
◾️ Kansas City beat the Nationals and watched Minnesota lose again on Thursday. They now hold a three-game lead, alongside Detroit, over both Minnesota and Seattle for the final wild-card spot in the American League. They can clinch as soon as tonight, potentially turning the final two games against Atlanta into meaningless contests for them.
Luckily, for the Mets, they play an opponent with absolutely nothing to play for, as the Brewers are locked in as the third seed in the National League.
Carlos Mendoza’s group can make the path for Atlanta and Arizona difficult by focusing on winning their own games. That’s the advantage of playing with a tiebreaker over the Diamondbacks and a one-game lead over Atlanta.
🎧 Mets Fix Podcast
To get you ready for the last few days of the season, Blake and Peter have you covered on the latest episode of the Mets Fix Podcast. They discuss the implications of having the Atlanta games moved to Monday, the Braves’ pitching strategy moving forward, what to expect from Francisco Lindor, J.D. Martinez’s remaining role, and much more!
Make sure you’re subscribed to the Mets Fix Podcast on your favorite platform (Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud).
🆚 Match-ups
Set as the third seed in the National League, the Brewers can use this weekend to set their pitching rotation for a potential rematch with the Mets in the Wild Card Series beginning on Tuesday.
While the Mets find themselves in a situation that could force them to use each of their five starters over the next four days, leaving them without a fully rested starter to pitch in a potential Wild Card Series Game 1, Milwaukee has the luxury to line things up for Freddy Peralta to start that first postseason game.
The Mets will also likely have to fly back to Atlanta on Monday, only to get back on a plane to face a postseason opponent the next day. As hard as that is on the teams involved, color the Brewers as less than thrilled over the idea that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred could cancel those games if they are only needed for seeding.
“It would not be fair,” one Brewers person told The Athletic. “We should forfeit the last game and not use pitchers in game.”
The Mets will try to put themselves in the best position to clinch before Monday by most likely setting their rotation as follows:
Friday: Sean Manaea
Saturday: David Peterson
Sunday: Luis Severino
Manaea is the only confirmed starter. The front office will surely adapt the plan over the following days as events dictate, but it would make sense for the Mets to stick with their plan to pitch Peterson after Manaea, and Andy Martino expects them to pitch Severino on Sunday.
That would leave Jose Quintana and his scoreless innings streak to take the mound on Monday, along with Tylor Megill and all hands on deck.
⚾️ The Great Sale Debate
As the Mets prepare to send their best starter to the mound on Friday, the Braves are taking a different approach. Instead of pitching Chris Sale and Max Fried on Friday and Saturday, they are going to start Fried on Friday (he likes to follow a normal routine) and hold back Sale until they face an elimination game, according to multiple reports.
This sets up a nightmare scenario where the Mets could face both Spencer Schwellenbach and Sale on Monday, perhaps having Quintana or Severino for one of those match-ups, but then Megill and the bullpen for the other.
That’s scary for the Mets, but is a bit confusing for the Braves.
We can guess Sale is dealing with some kind of unreported injury (his velocity was down in his last start), but he was healthy enough to pitch on Wednesday had that game been played, so we will assume, for now, this is a strategic choice.
Remember, the Braves already punted on the idea of pitching Sale twice down the stretch when they set their rotation for the Mets series before the storm wrecked havoc on the schedule. Sale last pitched on September 19. He could have pitched again on Tuesday, allowing him to return on regular rest on Sunday.
Now it is possible he will only pitch one time over a two-week stretch when the Braves need to secure a playoff spot and potentially play a short playoff series.
If Atlanta is truly holding Sale back until they face an elimination game, the earliest that could happen is on Sunday. If Sale pitches on Sunday or Monday, he would be unable to pitch on regular rest if they reach the Wild Card Series.
An odd set of circumstances to create when you consider they are already in this position with Spencer Schwellenbach since he pitched on Tuesday, making Sunday the earliest he could return on regular rest, and making it a matter of preference whether you pitch him against the Royals or the Mets, knowing he would be unavailable on regular rest in a potential Wild Card Series no matter which day he starts.
With Reynaldo López set to return from the IL, the Braves could send a formidable duo of Schwellenbach (who has befuddled the Mets this season) and López to the mound on Monday. They could even save Schwellenbach for the second potentially most critical season-saving game, and otherwise, have him ready for the Wild Card round. Remember, if all five starters are forced to pitch over the next four days, nobody will be fully rested to start Game 1 in the playoffs.
In the end, the Braves, who still need to gain a game on either Arizona or New York, could end up losing a game on Saturday that they could have theoretically won with Sale, and thus, force them to pitch Sale on Sunday or Monday to try to make up for that game and keep their season alive to make the playoffs, where Sale would now be unavailable to pitch on regular rest.
It’s hard to imagine the Braves making the postseason without Sale winning one game over the next five. There’s nothing gained by holding him back unless you really prefer him matched up against the Mets’ lineup over Kansas City’s, or if you have a grand design to save him for Game 1 of the Wild Card Series.
If the Mets keep the pressure on Atlanta by winning in Milwaukee and Arizona takes care of business against the Padres, there’s a realistic possibility the Braves will have to win four out of five to make the postseason. That makes pretty much every game they play an “elimination” game.
What about Manaea?
This conversation begs the question: Should the Mets follow a similar route and save Manaea for an elimination game?
They are the team ahead in the standings after all, not Atlanta. They can technically afford to give up a game more than Atlanta can. All they need to do is win two in Milwaukee and have Arizona lose two, and they clinch before they even get to Monday. They could then have Manaea ready on regular rest for Game 1 of the Wild Card Series.
The Mets decided they rather win the games directly in front of them. That improves their odds of clinching before Monday, and could set up a situation where they have Quintana or Severino on regular rest for Game 1. Rather than planning for an elimination game, the Mets, rightfully so, are trying to avoid one.
📈 Stat Heaven
It’s an exciting week for baseball nerds, not just because of the wild-card races and lead up to the playoffs, but because Statcast has released a new portfolio of data and charts.
◾️ INDUCED VERTICAL BREAK: This number has long been part of the baseball lexicon as a key reading from TrackMan. It attempts to remove gravity from the equation to isolate movement by a pitcher’s ability to spin the ball in a particular direction. It is a key metric for fastballs since it tracks how much the pitch “rises” or uses spin to resist natural downward movement.
This data has been available for people who really wanted to find it, but now is featured more prominently on the Statcast pages.
◾️ ARM ANGLE: More exciting, we can now better visualize and understand a pitcher’s release point using Statcast’s new arm angle metric.
Arm angle is defined as a horizontal line extending from the location of the pitcher’s throwing shoulder and the location of ball at the time of the pitch.
This data is useful to show how Sean Manaea has adjusted his delivery to find success this season. As we have talked about several times, and detailed by The Athletic, Manaea worked with pitching coach Jeremy Hefner to lower his arm angle, similar to Chris Sale, back in July. We can see that drastic change in the data. He was throwing from a ~26 degree angle to start the year; he has dropped his arm to a close to 12 degrees over his last few starts.
Manaea isn’t the only Mets pitcher who has changed his arm angle recently. Tylor Megill is throwing from a lower slot as well.
This helps us understand why his four-seamer has shown better results down the stretch. He has been able add some arm-side movement without giving him too much rise, boosting his whiff rate to 40% since returning to the rotation in late August.
🗓️ Bullpen Chart
Take a good look at the bullpen chart because it’s the last time it will look this rested this season.
🕷️ Find headlines for all of your favorite teams at SportSpyder, the number one source for sports news links.
◾️ The White Sox avoided infamy at home by sweeping the Angels to keep their loss total at 120 before heading on the road for the final series of the season.
◾️ The A’s played their final game in Oakland on Thursday with a win in front of a sold-out crowd.
◾️ In a season full of injuries, the Dodgers couldn’t even avoid one while clinching the NL West. Freddie Freeman exited the game with an ankle injury. X-rays revealed no structural damage.
◾️ That other baseball team in New York clinched the American League East.
🔗 ‘He’s just a superstar’: Carlos Beltrán on watching Francisco Lindor, by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “Francisco Lindor has entered rarefied air in New Mets history with his 2024 season. There’s a good chance he becomes the first Met to finish in the top two of MVP voting since Darryl Strawberry in 1988, and president of baseball operations David Stearns wondered publicly whether this was the best season a position player has ever had for the Mets. Few people know what a season like this feels like. One of those people, though, has watched much of it up close this year. Carlos Beltrán.”
🔗 Jeremy Hefner doesn’t get ‘credit he deserves’ for transforming Mets’ pitching into sudden strength, by Mark W. Sanchez, NY Post: “Their rotation has been the best in that stretch and posted a sparkling 2.49 ERA. Beyond Manaea, Luis Severino has found health; Jose Quintana has relied more on his sinker and been pinpoint; David Peterson has been at times dominant and looks healthy on the other side of hip surgery; and Tylor Megill has allowed one earned run in his past three starts, coming up from Triple-A Syracuse with a new sinker that especially helps him attack righties.”
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Wishing luck and screams LetsGoMets from here in SC. They did great digging out of that hole and winding up where they are. PRIDE. To be a Met fan
The Mets still hold the tiebreaker over Arizona and are a game up on Atlanta. They control their own destiny, as the saying goes, no matter how much Bob Costas hates it. Just win as many games in Milwaukee and hopefully Monday’ DH won’t be a winner-take-all situation.
Shout out to Blake and Peter for the pod and for JB joining throughout the year. Fantastic job!