Mets’ Offensive Approach Continues Lagging Behind The Competition
When Steve Cohen took over as owner of the New York Mets, one of the most interesting statements he made included a desire to be the East Coast version of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I mean, just by looking at what LA has done over the last decade, it’d be foolish to not try and emulate that kind of success.
In addition to taking notes on how to run a successful organization, New York can also take more notes from the final four clubs currently vying for a spot in the World Series.
Los Angeles’ success speaks for itself, but the other three clubs still participating in postseason baseball have also been a model of consistency in recent years. The Atlanta Braves have won the NL East four years in a row and are playing in their second straight NLCS. The Houston Astros are playing in their fifth straight ALCS with hopes of reaching the Fall Classic for the third time since 2017. The Boston Red Sox are in the playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons, with one of those trips culminating in a 2018 title.
What else do these four clubs have in common? Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal did the hard work for us with this terrific article on the similarities of each team’s offensive approach. (Rich Sparago touched on this piece, too.) To put it simply, they all try and avoid ground balls as much as possible, and they’ve been successful in doing so:
Here are the offenses that had the lowest ground ball rate in baseball this season:
30. Giants
29. BRAVES
28. DODGERS
27. RED SOX
26. Blue Jays
25. Cardinals
24. ASTROSNoticing a trend? Teams that win in 2021 are best at getting the ball in the air.https://t.co/Id5rl20Ijc
— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) October 18, 2021
After reading this, I knew I had to find out exactly how badly the Mets looked in these specific areas. As expected, it wasn’t great, but then my curiosity was sparked. I needed to also see how they’ve ranked amongst the rest of the league in ground-ball rate and fly-ball rate in the past few years — along with comparing that to their overall production. Here’s what I found.
This certainly made my eyebrow raise a little bit. Between 2017 and 2018, the Mets were among the bottom third of baseball in ground-ball rate and among the highest in fly-ball rate, yet their overall production was either average or below-average. But between 2019 and 2020, it was the complete opposite and their overall production at the plate had them among the best offenses in baseball. And this past year? Well, it remained within the mold of the prior two seasons, but with much worse results.
The one that sticks out here is 2020 since the Mets had the highest team wRC+ in baseball (the Dodgers were second with 121). They obviously couldn’t translate that into runs scored, ranking 13th in that category. Of the arbitrary sample above, we have to take 2020 with a grain of salt because baseball isn’t meant to be a 60-game sprint.
How could these numbers take such a drastic turn? Coincidentally enough, Chili Davis was named the Mets’ hitting coach prior to the 2019 season. This is not to pin any blame on him, though — New York has deeper issues on offense than simply getting a new hitting coach, as we saw this past year. At the time of his firing, the Mets had produced a 45.3% ground-ball rate, a 32.1% fly-ball rate, and a team wRC+ of 97. From that point through the end of the season, those numbers settled in at 43.7%, 35.5%, and 96, respectively.
However, this is a clear philosophical shift that happened within the organization. Players have their own approaches and can do what they want, but after something has been pounded into their heads for a number of years, it takes longer than the drop of a hat to change it. That’s likely part of the reason why New York is planning on significantly shaking up the coaching staff prior to 2022. Whomever the new hitting coach is will have plenty of work to do, both at the major league level and setting the expectation of an offensive approach throughout the minor leagues.
When looking at the 2021 Mets, 10 different hitters accumulated at least 200 plate appearances. Here’s how parts of their respective batted-ball profiles ended up, compared to the league average from this past regular season.
Among this group, the only players who finished better the league average in the above four categories were Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor, although Michael Conforto was pretty close and Dominic Smith‘s wRC+ was the only area that kept him out, as well.
Is this all that matters when it comes to offensive production? Well, no, of course it doesn’t. As we’ve seen with the Mets, any approach needs to also translate to getting runs across the plate, which has constantly been a problem for them in recent years. Not only have they been around the middle of the pack in the runs scored category, but it’s also obviously come to a head in 2021, as New York’s 636 runs scored were fourth-worst in baseball.
With seeing the Mets’ own offensive struggles and how this shift in approach has worked so well for the majority of 2021 playoff teams, it’s hard to not look at it and wonder what kind of impact it could have if implemented properly. As the league continues shifting more often, the effectiveness of ground balls is continually going down. In 2021, the Mets as a team posted a 326 wRC+ on line drives, a 138 wRC+ on fly balls, and just a 35 wRC+ on grounders.
Change has to happen, and this winter could be the perfect storm for the Mets to bring in a fresh coaching perspective from outside the organization, along with players who can better execute the plan laid out in front of them. Building a consistently successful organization takes time, and more than just the offense needs to be addressed. However, based on what we’ve seen play out this October, it could be a great starting point.
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