The Metropolitan: A stormy day in more ways than one
A breaking report raises new allegations about the Mets staff’s conduct
Good Morning,
Today we will preview the Mets’ upcoming snowy series in Colorado, and talk about Brandon Nimmo’s incredibly hot start.
But we begin with the latest news and notes, including another story that just posted about the Mets’ off-field culture.
🚨BREAKING THIS MORNING: In a detailed report published this morning, The Athletic alleges inappropriate behavior by numerous former and current employees in the Mets’ human resource department.
According to the report, Joe DeVito, the team’s executive producer for content and marketing, abruptly left the team in March after two women described incidents of sexual harassment to team lawyers.
It also alleges that David Newman, who worked for the team from 2005-2018, was brought back to the organization in November 2020 as the chief communications officer, “despite two women warning Sandy Alderson about Newman’s inappropriate behavior.”
And Holly Lindvall, a top official in the HR department, was described by more than a dozen people as someone who would rather please ownership than respond to employee complaints.
There will likely be more fall-out from the report as the day goes on.
But in the meantime, we start with the rest of the day’s news…
🌧 WASH OUT: For the third time in five days (and sixth this season) the Mets game was postponed yesterday, as rain washed out the scheduled matinee with the Phillies. And now the Mets travel to Denver where the forecast looks like this (yes, that’s right: snow):
🧹SWEEP: On the bright side, the Amazins ended up sweeping Philadelphia in what turned into a 3-game series. Despite their start-and-stop schedule, the Mets have found their groove this week, pushing them to first place in the NL East. Thursday’s postponed game will be made up as part of an ol’ fashioned single-admission doubleheader on June 25.
🏄♂️ Meanwhile, the wet weather didn’t stop Tomás Nido from having some fun…
🍎 deGROM DAY: Once again, the Mets will have to monitor the weather tonight as they send their ace, Jacob deGrom, to the mound in the mile high air and with snow in the forecast. Despite an immaculate 0.64 ERA, New York is inexcusably 0-2 in deGrom’s starts this season. Perhaps the thin air will help bring some run support. That is, if the forecasted 20-degree temperatures don’t put everyone in a deep freeze. Here’s what the team landed to:
🚕 TAXI SQUAD: As part of the new COVID protocols, teams are allowed to carry three extra players (including a catcher) on road trips. Syracuse manager Chad Kreuter told season ticket holders on Thursday that promising young lefty Thomas Szapucki will be one of the taxi squad players traveling to Denver with the Mets, as relayed by Jacob Resnick.
⚾️ PROGRESS: Right-hander Carlos Carrasco continues to work his way back to the rotation after throwing 65 pitches in Florida on Wednesday. Manager Luis Rojas told reporters, “He looked good, throwing the ball good, he did his up/downs. So he's building up correctly.”
RANDOM: Anyone else wondering how nobody had heard of the phrase “up/downs” and suddenly it comes up everyday?
⏭ NEXT UP: After deGrom possibly takes the ball tonight (weather permitting), left-hander Joey Lucchesi is scheduled to make his first start as a Met on Saturday. Lucchesi hasn’t pitched since April 7th when he looked impressive coming out of the bullpen against Philadelphia. Marcus Stroman is slated to start on Sunday, looking to build on his impressive 2-0 record and 0.75 ERA.
The aggressively patient Brandon Nimmo
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
It’s a bit ironic to say Brandon Nimmo is swinging a hot bat, considering his success is partially due to the fact he is swinging the bat less. The affable left-hander has always been a patient hitter relative to league average, but this season, he is taking it to a new level.
However, looking at Nimmo’s raw swing rate only scratches the surface of why he has been getting on base seemingly every time he steps to the plate. While it’s true his bat has remained planted above his shoulder more often, particularly on the first pitch, it turns out he is focused more on pitch location than patiently working deep counts. In fact, when he does get a pitch he likes, he has actually been very aggressive with his swings, which explains why he is seeing fewer pitches per plate appearance this season (3.81) than at any other point in his career.
Nimmo is reducing his swings and finding favorable counts to be aggressive by refusing to extend the strike zone and chase bad pitches. Despite batting in front of Francisco Lindor — leading you to believe pitchers wouldn’t want to mess around with Nimmo — he has seen more 2-0 and 3-0 counts than ever before, and at nearly twice the league average rate.
Nimmo looks for his pitch to hit and doesn’t help the pitcher out by swinging at junk. You can see this by looking at Nimmo’s swing rate by location (compared to league average in the graphic below); his approach is simple: if a pitch sails over the middle or lower portion of the strike zone, he swings; otherwise, he doesn’t.
Two things are happening from Nimmo’s aggressively patient approach: first, as one might guess, by swinging at pitches down the middle of the plate (the squares highlighted in red), his batting average has skyrocketed; and second, by ignoring pitches up in the zone, he is hitting more ground balls.
Nimmo’s ground ball rate has jumped from 38.8% two seasons ago to 50% this year. Amazingly, he has only hit a fly ball on 10% of the balls he has put in play in 2021 (compared to a 32.9% career average). This is what happens when you isolate your swings to pitches low in the zone.
It’s reasonable to be concerned that Nimmo’s propensity for hitting the ball on the ground could soon lead to less favorable results than his current .650 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) has produced. Of course, a regression to the mean will happen, but if you look at the quality of his contact, there is reason to feel confident he will continue to do damage.
Besides ground balls, Nimmo is hitting a ton of line drives. He is living in the sweet spot (pun intended) of turning several pitches into flares and hard hit grounders (burners), while avoiding swinging under the ball (leading to pop-ups and harmless fly outs). He is making solid contact at nearly twice the rate he has over his career.
BOTTOM LINE: If you randomly flipped to SNY over the past two weeks, you likely found two things: either alternate programming because the game was postponed, or a highlight of Brandon Nimmo getting on base. He leads the National League in both batting average (.464) and on-base percentage (.583), while ranking 4th in OPS (1.155). He is getting more hits, while swinging less. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
⚾️ Benches cleared in the Indians-White Sox game on Thursday and former Met Andrés Giménez was in the middle of it. After Adam Eaton was ruled out on a tag play at second base, he grew agitated and shoved Giménez, (wrongly) believing the shortstop had pushed him off the bag to steal the out.
⚾️ Major League Baseball suspended Cubs reliever Ryan Tepera (3 games) and manager David Ross (1 game) after Tepera threw behind Brewers’ hitter Brandon Woodruff on Tuesaday.
⚾️ The Padres are “optimistic” superstar Fernando Tatis will return to the lineup on Friday, in time for their weekend showdown with the Dodgers.
🔗 Mets should heed Denver forecast for Jacob deGrom’s sake, by Mike Vaccaro, NY Post: “Keep the ball away from deGrom until Sunday. For his own good. And for the team’s. Look, the Mets were already prepared to play two of their games in Denver with uncertainty. One was already labeled “TBA.” One was going to be the starting debut of Joey Lucchesi, who may or may not require an opener. Two-thirds of the series was going to be an all-hands-on-deck free-for-all anyway. Keep it that way.”
🔗 Analytics shine new light on former Met Glendon Rusch’s pitching career, by Ken Davidoff, NY Post: “It turns out that the amicable left-hander, now living in Kentucky, made another kind of history as a Met. It’s the kind that we paid no attention to back in 2001 but that nowadays, as our appreciation of analytics has exploded, would be a pretty significant story. In ‘01, hitters posted a .355 batting average on balls in play off Rusch, tying three others for the fifth-worst BABiP in the live-ball era (since 1920), as per the terrific book “A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics” by Anthony Castrovince.”
And we leave you with a look at Marcus Stroman’s honorary tattoo of Jackie Robinson…
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I know it’s early, but with the starters pitching the way they are, who heads to the pen when Cookie and Thor come back ?