As
this blog is still in its earliest stages of life, it is probably unclear what
to expect from it as far as content is concerned, so I thought it would be
appropriate to express what I plan to offer.
First, I do not plan to offer
recaps on every Mets game – there are a lot of articles recapping every game,
there doesn’t need to be another one from me.
What I would like to recap are Mets
minor league games available on MiLB.tv – these will usually be limited to Las Vegas 51s games, but will occasionally include B-Mets, St. Lucie Mets or
Savannah Sand Gnats series, as available. Some days I’ll have the time to recap
multiple games available on MiLB.tv, but often I may have to choose just one,
which will be done based on timing or who is scheduled to play. Other sites
usually just offer reports on what these teams are doing, but I plan to offer
more in depth coverage of each game, including images or gifs when appropriate
(I will usually have to wait until the game is archived to make these, so they
may be added later), as well as play-by-play notes from the game, and highlighting
the night’s top performers, with the Astromets touch you won’t find anywhere
else.
I will be commenting on topical
statistical trends as the Mets season unfolds, as well as keeping track of
their progress towards Sandy’s 90-win challenge. There are also a number of
questions that keep Mets fans like me up at night (like how much offense Wilmer Flores would need to provide to make up for poor defense if he plays SS), and I
will try to answer these questions, hopefully in a fun and interesting way.
I am a fan of advanced statistics,
so you will see them quoted all over this site. I will also quote some of the more
traditional statistics where I feel appropriate, but my go to stats will
generally be BB%/K%/wOBA (or wRC+)/ERA-/FIP-/BABIP/fWAR. Statistics are what they are, I see no reason to ignore most of the new or the old ones, they all tell you something.
For pitchers, the /9 IP stats
doesn’t actually allow one to compare pitchers on equal footing, as lesser
pitchers are going to face more batters per inning and so they have more
opportunities to strike out or walk batters per innings. The ERA- and FIP-
statistics take the normal ERA and FIP, park adjust them, and scale them
against a league average of 100, with lower numbers representing better than
average numbers – for example, a 90 ERA- means a player is 10% better than
league average. Note that ERA+ does not say the same thing – for example, a 110
ERA+ says the league average is 10% worse than a player, meaning the player is
9% better than league average. Small difference, but everyone should be talking
on the same page. I do not really like using either WAR measure for pitchers,
especially not relief pitchers, though I may quote the numbers sometimes
anyway.
For offense, wOBA (or wRC+, which
is the adjusted and scaled version) is the best available statistic for
comparing two players overall offensive contributions. It does what people want
OPS to do, just in a logical and more accurate way. Despite the simplicity and
allure of the OPS formula (OBP+SLG), it’s kind of weird to me that it exists -
it’s adding a /PA rate to a /AB rate without any adjustments. I understand that
it is as commonplace to hear as batting average these days, but why settle for
something inferior when wOBA is what you’re looking for with OPS anyway. It
gives a weight to each at-bat outcome (single, double…), as determined by the
run expectancy of the league, and scales the number to the familiar OBP scale.
That’s all for now. I will update
as needed on any planned changes. Hope you enjoy this site and look out for me
on Twitter @Astromets31 for site updates and new posts!
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