PIITBlog by JD

  PIITB By JD- Final Overall Thoughts on the season   Wow, where to even begin? This season has been nothing short of a disaster. The Mets had a few standout performances and then literally everything else went wrong. Let’s dig right in.   The WBC: As we all know Edwin Diaz tore his Patellar Tendon celebrating a win with team Puerto Rico.  Diaz pitched to a 1.31 era last year and had a .90 FIP. Now, I did not expect Diaz to repeat those numbers, but anything even somewhat close to that would have been a major boost both on and off the field. The confidence level the team played with last year knowing after 8 the game is over. The Diaz/Robertson duo would have been lights out. All that said, I do support players having the option to play in the WBC. If I am the Mets or any other team I don’t want my players participating by any means. The WBC spreads baseball worldwide and I want to support that.   Regular season: Everything went wrong. From the start Diaz a...

  PIITB by JD- Positive Takeaways from the season     As the season winds down, I’d like to take a moment to name some of my takeaways (mainly positive ones) from the season. Poor play has hampered this season and turned into a lost year.    Let's start with Francisco Alvarez establishing himself as a franchise cornerstone. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I will here. Think back to as recently as 2017 with Gary Sanchez. He burst onto the scene swatting 33 homers in 120 games and looked every bit like the Yankees catcher of the future. We all know how that turned out. There is no guarantee with these young guys. I have a lot of reason to believe in Alvarez. First off, his fielding has been miles better than we expected. His framing is in the 95 th  percentile and fielding run value is 87 th  percentile. His blocking has some work to be done, but he is 21. He’s walking in the 44 th percentile which is way above what I expected. His xBA and s...

      PIITB By JD- Good to be Back             After doing some traveling this summer, I am back in the States ready to finish the season strong (unlike the Mets). For this week, I thought I would give my general thoughts on where the roster stands right now and some brief thoughts on David Stearns.               The Mets are still a bad baseball team. No other way around it. Guys are underperforming and the holes that have been there all seasons are still here now. The bullpen ranks bottom 10 in baseball with a 4.57 era. As you all know, I have always been a big Drew Smith believer. Not so much so anymore. He has not shown me enough to warrant support. I’d be surprised if he was on the team next year and if he is, he will not be expected to fill a major role.    Onto the rotation. As of Wednesday, Max Scherzer is out for the season with a...