The Marlins went into the All-Star break 14 games over .500. Only the Braves had a better record in the National League.
Miami made the playoffs in the 60-game 2020 pandemic season. But the Marlins have not made it in a full campaign since they won the World Series in 2003. There was, rightfully, talk of the Marlins as trade-deadline buyers.
But the Marlins lost eight straight games after the All-Star break before gaining their first second-half win Sunday. They had fallen from leading the wild card to half a game out of the third and final spot.
That’s too close to surrender. But say the losing continues this week leading up to next Tuesday’s trade deadline? These Marlins will then have to look in the mirror and ask about their true abilities, especially if 2022 NL Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara is going to be a 4.70 ERA pitcher all season.
Would they be better off adding more pieces to make a better run next year by dealing walk-year players such as Jorge Soler, Garrett Cooper, Joey Wendle and Dylan Floro? Would they go deeper and try to maximize A.J. Puk or Tanner Scott in a market hungry for lefty relief? Would they try to exchange a young starter such as Eduardo Cabrera for offense for their 2024 team and beyond?
The Marlins’ thrive-to-dive period accentuates: 1) how fluid the NL wild-card situation is, 2) how quickly buyers and sellers can flip-flop at this time of year and 3) why the Mets and Padres don’t want to concede and become sellers — at least not just yet.
In this week’s “Got my attention,” consider what is going on above the Mets and Padres in the wild-card race:
• The Reds lead the wild-card pack by a half-game after rebounding from a six-game losing streak with a five-game winning streak (which was snapped Monday night in Milwaukee).
• The Diamondbacks were swept in a three-game set over the weekend by the Reds. The Diamondbacks have lost 13 of 17 games. They led the NL West by three games at the beginning of the stretch and now trail by four.
• The Giants are tied with the Diamondbacks and Marlins for the last two wild-card spots and are in the midst of a six-game losing streak.
• The Phillies are a half-game out of a wild card. They have lost five of their past six games.
• The Cubs come next at 48-51. They are the lone team in the NL Central with a positive run differential, but are seven games out in the division and five in the wild-card race. Their intention seems to be to sell, notably Cody Bellinger and Marcus Stroman. So they could be far worse by this time next week.
After that are the 48-53 Padres at six games out despite the third-largest payroll in the majors and the Mets at 46-53 and seven games out.
The Padres seem poised not to sell. I recently asked an executive from a team which had just played the Padres what he thought they might add if they went that way, and the official said, “I’m not really sure. They pretty much have, on paper, a high-end player at every position.”
That is part of why the Padres do not want to give up. Plus, they have built such goodwill and large attendance in San Diego by going for it that it probably would play like breaking faith with the fan base not to try to win as much as possible to make a late surge into the postseason.
The star trio of Manny Machado, Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. has hit great recently, but then on Sunday, the Padres managed just one run in a 3-1 loss to Detroit. Tigers starter Alex Faedo, who began the game with a 6.98 ERA, held San Diego to one hit and no runs in six innings. It felt like what has been the endless loop of this season for the Padres — any momentary sense they are about to surge collapsing quickly in bad play and bad mojo.
Or pretty much the story of the Mets, too. One step forward, 1 ½ back.
The club these Mets are most often compared to is the 1992 “Worst Team Money Could Buy” Mets. That club was actually better after 99 games (48-51) than this one (46-53) en route to finishing 72-90.
But there is this, too: The 1973 Mets were worse after 99 games. Actually, those Mets played a doubleheader for their 99th and 100th games of that season, and were 44-56 afterward. They were in last place, 9 ½ games back, at a time when a club had to finish first in its division to make the playoffs. They were behind five teams. But the five teams were so soft and volatile that they reached Game 119 a season-low 13 games under .500 and actually had gained two games in the standings and ultimately won the division and reached Game 7 of the World Series.
Fifty years later, the Mets are looking at a bunch of soft, volatile teams in front of them as well. So what they have to decide in the next few days is whether this is 1992 or 1973.
Are they just never going to have a sustained period of strong play, making it not matter that clubs such as the Marlins, Giants and Diamondbacks are going to stay this up and down and always on the verge of a plummet? Or do they think there is the kind of 29-13 run in them that the ’73 Mets had to finish 82-79 and get into the tournament?
These Mets seem ever more resigned that this is just not their year. It does feel like the only thing holding them back from a sale is not themselves, but what is in front of them. They are not trying to track down the 1998 Yankees — or even the 2023 Braves. It is why each game this week carries further instruction and importance.
It is sensitive enough to feel as if the Mets might have to sweep the two-game Subway Series to not spend the weekend before Tuesday’s deadline in full sell mode.
Or do they just continue to think they are better and the teams in front of them are worse and over 162 games that will play out, no matter how bleak things look now? And that every 50 years, like clockwork:
Ya Gotta Believe.
From 1956-1969, the ballot for the Cy Young Award allowed the writers who voted to fill in just one name. From 1970-2009, the rules changed so that the writers could vote for a first-, second- and third-place finisher. Beginning in 2010, the ballot expanded to five.
It felt right, noting mainly how expansion through the years had provided so many more candidates. And that a larger ballot would enable the ability to recognize more pitchers who had outstanding years.
I think it is time to expand the Rookie of the Year vote in the same way — from allowing three players to be named on a ballot to five.
The award began in 1947 with Jackie Robinson being recognized as the major league Rookie of the Year. The award went to separate NL and AL winners in 1949. It did not go from a one-player to three-player ballot until 1980.
Enlarging the ballot would recognize that the game has skewed younger with clubs promoting and trusting rookies in a greater way than ever before. In 2003, 182 players made their MLB debuts. In 2023, it already was 175 through Sunday.
And, of course, there are plenty of players who had previous service time who still carry their rookie eligibility. The player almost certain to win the NL Rookie of the Year in 2023, Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, had 104 at-bats last year (130 at-bats is the qualification threshold). And let’s not forget that veteran overseas players such as Boston’s Masataka Yoshida, second in the AL in batting average, and the Mets’ Kodai Senga, an All-Star, come to MLB more regularly now, and both are in play to be considered for Rookie of the Year.
Just look at the NL this season: Behind Carroll there are going to be four Reds who force voters to consider how to navigate the other two spots: Andrew Abbott, Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain and Spencer Steer. Senga and Francisco Alvarez from the Mets will merit consideration. The Rockies’ Ezequiel Tovar, the Marlins’ Eury Perez, the Dodgers’ Bobby Miller and James Outman and the Giants’ Patrick Bailey also will have admirers.
It is enough that the ballot should be expanded to recognize the greater use and contribution of rookies.
Adam Ottavino attacked the pitch clock issue in the diligent, thoughtful way that he pursues everything in his career.
He bought a timer online, added it to the pitch lab he built in Harlem for himself (and pretty much anyone else who has shown a desire to work in the offseason) and went about trying to quicken what had been his career-long slow pace.
He also wanted to concentrate on trying to be quicker to the plate to combat rule changes designed to increase stolen-base attempts and success. But ultimately what he could never change is that he is 6-foot-5 and long-limbed. He has a long delivery and throws from a three-quarter slot. Ottavino would have to give up too much in his pitch effectiveness to be more succinct. He simply is vulnerable to the stolen base — both before and after the rule change.
This season, thieves have been successful 12 out of 13 times against Ottavino. For his career, Ottavino has allowed 146 steals in 165 attempts. That is an 88.5 percent success rate. Among active pitchers with at least 500 innings, only Framber Valdez (92.3), Kenley Jansen (92.2) and Noah Syndergaard (89.6) are worse (thank you to Nate Purinton of MLB Network research for compiling the list).
Does trying to combat the running game explain why Ottavino has taken such a substantial step backward from one of his best seasons in 2022? Or is this just the explanation for the 2023 Mets in general that a bunch of key players — such as Ottavino, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil, Starling Marte, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander — all have regressed from 2022 (and, of course, they never played with Edwin Diaz, who was the best reliever in the sport last year)?
The one element in Ottavino’s game that has continued to be excellent is his ability to post innings. His 43 appearances lead the Mets. This is likely to be the sixth time in a row (not counting the shortened 2020 season) that Ottavino has appeared in at least 60 games. That is good for him financially because he receives an additional $250,000 performance bonus for each of 30, 40, 50 and 60 innings, and he already was at 40 ⅓ innings.
He already has eight seasons of at least 50 appearances. I was looking for someone who also has eight and is a big right-hander who throws from a side arm slot with a wipeout slider, and just sitting there was Jeff Nelson.
The 6-foot-8 Nelson pitched through his age-39 season, and finished with 798 games and 14.7 Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference). Ottavino, in his age-37 season, has 641 games and 14.3 WAR. Nelson had trouble with the running game as well, but not to Ottavino’s level — opposing base stealers had an 81 percent success rate (91 out of 113).
Nelson had an opponents’ slashline of .224/.336/.331 to Ottavino’s .230/.320/.358, but because Nelson performed in a more hitter-friendly era, his OPS-plus against of 76 is better than Ottavino’s 81. And you do have to consider eras: Ottavino averages 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings and Nelson averaged 9.5, but for Nelson’s time, that was 55 percent above league average, compared to 25 percent for Ottavino in what has been a strikeout-heavy environment.
The big differentiator, though, is the postseason. Nelson appeared in 55 playoff games with a 2.65 ERA, and was a key complementary element in the Yankees’ four championships in five years from 1996-2000. Baseball Reference has a stat called Championship Win Probability Added, which basically computes how much a specific performance boosts or detracts from a team’s title chances. And for his postseason career, Nelson was at a cumulative 14.2 percent.
Ottavino has appeared in 18 playoff games covering just 12 ⅔ innings because he often had to be pulled due to ineffectiveness. He has a 5.68 ERA, and his Championship Win Probability Added is minus-7.2 percent.
This is an esoteric category. I get it. But I know you just woke up this morning wondering: What is the most common surname in the majors?
I will keep the secret for one more paragraph if you want to guess which last names are the most voluminous in the sport. Here are some clues: It is not Perez, though there are eight players who have that surname, nor is it Diaz or Miller, which each account for seven players.
The answer is a three-way tie among Garcia, Rodriguez and Smith. Garcia was the champion last year with 14, followed by Diaz with 11 and Hernandez and Smith with 10.
You could understand how Garcia gets a boost because there are three players who appeared in the majors this season whose name is Luis Garcia, plus Adolis, Avisail, Deivi, Maikel, Rico, Robert and Yimi.
There have been two Jose Rodriguezes in the majors this year, plus Dereck, Eduardo, Elvin. Endy, Grayson, Joely, Julio and Yerry.
There have been two Will Smiths, and we will have to get the judges to decide how to handle hyphenated names because Smith gets to 10 with the help of Canaan Smith-Njigba and AJ Smith-Shaver. There also is Chad, Dominic, Drew, Josh, Kevin and Pavin.
The Yankees will hope that at some point Clayton Beeter helps them by either being promoted to their pitching staff or being used in a trade. They then might have something to show for the Joey Gallo trade beyond regret (the Yankees received Beeter from the Dodgers for Gallo in a deadline trade last season).
Because the Rangers certainly are benefitting from the July 2021 deal of Gallo to the Yankees — it is one reason they are in first place. Corey Seager was out from April 12-May 17 due to a left hamstring sprain. They did not crater during that period without their shortstop and No. 2 hitter. They went 19-13 and stayed in first place, actually gaining a game in the AL West standings.
The two players who manned the position while Seager was out were Ezequiel Duran and Josh Smith. That would be two of the four prospects the Yankees traded to Texas for Gallo. In that 32-game period, the duo combined from the shortstop position to produce the seventh-best OPS (.787) in the majors.
It is pertinent because the Rangers lost Seager again over the weekend, this time to a sprained right thumb. Once more it will be mainly Duran and also Smith who will fill in for Seager. Duran got the first three starts since the latest injury, and has gone 4-for-11 with two walks. He is hitting .297 with 13 homers and an .848 OPS for the season.
When Seager went out this time, the Rangers were in first place by three games. It’s holding at a two-game lead after Duran’s initial three fill-in starts.