Right now we are in the middle of our projection series and my thoughts tend to focus on the categories that we forecast. Specifically, those thoughts center on the durability components of our predictions. For pitchers, that’s innings pitched and for position players those are plate appearances.

Last year our official group projection was for two players (Ike Davis and David Wright) to reach 575 PA and two pitchers (Jonathon Niese and Matt Harvey) to supply 175 IP. My predictions were much more optimistic, with four hitters (Daniel Murphy, Wright, Ruben Tejada and Lucas Duda) to reach the 575-PA threshold and four pitchers (Niese, Harvey, Dillon Gee and Johan Santana) to clear the 175-IP mark.

In reality, the Mets had two pitchers (Gee, Harvey) and one hitter (Murphy) reach these benchmarks.

Looking at all of the players in MLB, there were only 70 pitchers last year to reach 175 IP and 93 hitters to equal or surpass 575 PA. That works out to an average of slightly over two pitchers and three hitters per team. I thought it would be interesting to look at the teams that outperformed in these areas. Here they are, the teams that had at least four pitchers or five hitters to surpass these totals, along with their team wins:

Pitchers

CIN – Mat Latos, Homer Bailey, Bronson Arroyo, Mike Leake – 90

DET – Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, Anibal Sanchez, Rick Porcello – 93

Batters

BAL – Manny Machado, Nick Markakis, Adam Jones, Chris Davis, J.J. Hardy, Nate McLouth, Matt Wieters – 85

CIN – Joey Votto, Shin-Soo Choo, Jay Bruce, Brandon Phillips, Zack Cozart, Todd Frazier – 90

CLE – Jason Kipnis, Carlos Santana, Nick Swisher, Michael Brantley, Michael Bourn – 92

DET – Prince Fielder, Victor Martinez, Torii Hunter, Miguel Cabrera, Austin Jackson – 93

TBR – Ben Zobrist, Evan Longoria, Desmond Jennings, James Loney, Yunel Escobar – 92

It’s hard not to notice that there’s not a bad team in the bunch. Sure, a bit of this is circular – bad players are generally not allowed to get 575 PA or 175 IP. But when assembling the list of the top 100 players in MLB – would Leake, Porcello, Markakis, Cozart, Bourn and others be on there?

Ideally, your stars stay healthy but you need your supporting players to do that, too. And this shows how a team like Cleveland, which is not exactly brimming with superstars, can put up such a healthy win total. By contrast, look at the 2008 Mets. That team had four players put up 686 or more PA and the next closest total was 384. There simply was no reliable supporting cast, which ended up making the difference between a playoff team and an also ran. And the following years when the stars were injured, the bottom fell out completely.

Over the past three years, here’s how the Mets’ starting pitchers averaged in IP:

Bartolo Colon – 169

Dillon Gee – 156.1

Jonathon Niese – 163.2

Of course Zack Wheeler and Jenrry Mejia have yet to pitch that long in the majors. But it shows why a 40-year old was worth a two-year deal. Colon has been just as durable as guys 15 years younger than he. But before you say that neither Gee nor Niese have been the pictures of health, realize that Niese ranks 52nd and Gee 60th in the most IP in the majors the past three years.

The Mets’ path to success is Colon, Gee, Niese and Wheeler all topping the 175-IP mark in 2014. Of course, they’ll need some hitters to join them. Unfortunately the club is not awash in similarly durable players. The hope is that Curtis Granderson, who averaged 657 PA over a seven-year stretch prior to 2013, can bounce back to that level and be joined by Murphy, Wright and perhaps one or two others.

The other day, Dan Kolton talked about the NL East standings for the upcoming season and drew criticism for suggesting that if things broke right that the Mets could win 91 games. But it seems to me that if they get four starters and four hitters to reach our durability benchmarks that number is certainly in play. But we should realize that only two teams in the majors did that in 2013.

Share this: Email

Facebook

Print

Reddit

Twitter

More

Pinterest

LinkedIn



Tumblr

