March 28, 2015

Team Offense, New York Mets

The 2015 series on team offense continues with the New York Mets. The Mets finished tied for twenty first in the majors and eighth in the the National League in 2014 with 3.88 runs scored per game. They scored the same number of runs as the Houston Astros.

I could not find updated lineups at CBSSports.com, so I am going to use a combination of RotoChamp and USA Today. I like the RotoChamp lineup better, but USA Today strikes me as a more likely one for opening day, so I’m going with the latter. That Terry Collins lineup is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For pitchers, I used the Mets actual averages from 2014. That information produces the following results:

Best lineup: 4.20 runs per game
Probable lineup: 3.97
Worst lineup: 3.62
Regressed lineup: 3.78

There is a great deal of uncertainty in the Mets lineup. One of the weaknesses of the Marcels is that they don’t account for ballparks. Michael Cuddyer moving from Coors Field to Citi Field should knock those numbers down quite a bit. There are also some young players on the Mets that give them the chance of some upside. Of the youngsters, however, only Wilmer Flores is really young, so don’t expect too much upside.

The veterans offer uncertainty, too. Will David Wright stay healthy? Will Kevin Long help Curtis Granderson get his power swing working again. Don’t expect a big improvement in the offense this season, but maybe there will be enough to win with a stingy pitching staff.

As for the lineups, we’ll see if Terry Collins goes to a pitcher batting eighth order. If so, the eighth best one isn’t too far from what Terry might be thinking.

You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.

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Previous posts in this series:

1 thought on “Team Offense, New York Mets

  1. Steve H

    The biggest impact might be bringing in the right-centerfield fence, which should help both Granderson and Wright.

    ReplyReply

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