It’s Monday morning, about 12 hours after Wade Davis struckout Wilmer Flores looking to end the 2015 World Series and end a 30-year title drought for the Royals – while also extending the Mets’ own drought another year.
I’m tired. I’m cranky. I’m disappointed.
But I’m wearing a Mets t-shirt and hopeful about the future. Harvey, deGrom, Syndegaard, Matz. Conforto. Lagares, d’Arnaud. Even Flores and Robles (along with Zack Wheeler and Dilson Herrera) offer a sense of hope that this is not a fluke.
They weren’t supposed to be here — I had them pegged as, at best, an 85-win team (though I overreacted to their early hot streak and thought they could be better). Thanks to their young arms, they hung around early in the season when they couldn’t score and, thanks to smart deadline moved by Sandy Alderson, built a powerful and deep lineup and took advantage of the Nationals’ collapse to win the East. Then they battled through the playoffs, got hot, and took the pennant.
It was thrilling. It was crazy. But, in the end, the best team won. The Mets, despite the mid-season upgrades, remained a flawed team — too long-ball dependent, shaky middle relief, little speed, and generally weak in the field. They were no match for a Royals team built to take advantage of mistakes and to put pressure on a team’s defense, that had a deep bullpen that mitigated the flaws in its starting rotation, and seemed to know that it was never out of a game until the final out was called.
The Royals were the better team. Anyone who watched the 2015 World Series and wants to comment on it needs to start there. The Royals were just better. They were better than the Astros. They were better than the Blue Jays. And, finally, they were better than the Mets.
The Royals also were more fun to watch — unless you are a Mets fan like me. They play old-school baseball: put the ball in play, move runners, be aggressive on the base paths, catch the baseball, play smart.
And that can – should? — offer some lessons for the Mets as they look to next year.
1. Chicks may dig the long ball , but teams that make consistent contact are less susceptible to streaks. The second-half Mets were built to go deep — both in the post-season and by hitting homers. The team featured three players with 26 or more home runs, a rookie who hit nine in two months and a shortstop who hit 16 in less than full-time status. It was a deep line-up, a powerful line-up, but it also was a streaky line-up.
The Royals, on the other hand, built their line-up to avoid streaks and to put pressure on pitchers and fielders. Kansas City is about putting the ball in play, under the assumption that you can’t get a hit if you don’t hit the ball.
KC struck out less frequently than any other team, by 200-plus Ks, was second in the majors in hits this year and 24th in homers. They were 11th in on-base percentage and slugging, but third in doubles. They put the ball in play consistently. The Mets did not.
The point is not that the Mets need the second coming of Tony Gwynne or Wade Boggs, but striking out nearly as often as you get a hit is not ideal.
2. You have to catch the baseball. Kansas City and the Mets both finished the season with 88 errors and a near-equal fielding percentage, but those figures are misleading. The Mets defense – including pitching – recorded 32 more outs over the course of the season than the Royals, but the key is this: Mets’ pitchers struck out 177 batters more than the Royals, meaning that Mets’ fielders recorded 145 fewer outs than KC, yet they had the same number of errors.
The Mets also were prone to base-running errors and poor decision-making throughout the season – which came to a head in the Series in the form of bad fundamentals (Murphy’s errors), rushed throws (Duda on Sunday), and lack of baseball smarts (Cespedes’ two outfield mistakes and his baserunning blunder). KC took advantage of those miscues and avoided allowing the Mets to do the same with their mistakes.
3. Speed kills. It’s fashionable to say the stolen base is overrated, and that may be true. But I suspect we’ve gone too far in the other direction now. Speed on the base paths can disrupt a pitcher’s flow and puts pressure on fielders. It can result in runners moving into scoring position and reduces the reliance on the long ball to score. How many runs did KC manufacture with a hit, a steal, an out that moved the runner over and a sac fly, or a single, a steal and a single? How often did the Mets manage that?
4. Pitching is key, and the team that can pitch most effectively for nine innings or more is most likely to win. The Mets had the better starting rotation, though that was offset by KC’s approach to a degree. But the Mets were vulnerable in the seventh and eighth innings. KC’s starters were good enough to keep them in games early and get the game to a deep bullpen. KC had nine-plus innings covered, while the Mets could only count on seven or eight innings of top-notch pitching a game.
These lessons should be integrated into whatever plan Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins hatch for the offseason. Six Mets are free agents this winter – Cespedes, Murphy, Clippard, Colon, Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe. That’s two starters and two important bench players. The Mets should make a run at Cespedes – but only sign him if the deal is right, which is unlikely. Murphy, on the other hand, probably is done in Queens, despite the historic playoff run. He just doesn’t do enough (he’s a bad baserunner and a minus-fielder, with nominal power despite his October surge) to justify a big payday or blocking Dilson Hererra’s advancement.
Clippard, Johnson and Uribe were hired guns and will be hired guns next year wherever they end up. (I’m not sure where Addison Reed fits in to this.)
Then there is Colon. With Wheeler on the shelf through mid-season and Niese looking like he might make a good reliever, maybe they could bring Colon back as the fifth starter – but only for the right deal and only on the assumption that Wheeler will return to the rotation at some point.
Beyond that, the Mets need to add some contact hitters and some speed and find a way to improve the infield defense. The first step on both counts is promoting Hererra and starting him fulltime at second. The second step would be to find a defensive-minded shortstop, with Flores and Tejada serving as infield depth.
Finally, there is David Wright, the captain, and a part of the team’s emotional core. Wright has shown glimpses of his old self, both at the plate and in the field. But he also has shown the effects of his spinalstenosis, especially when facing hard-throwing pitchers. He has been one of my favorite players, and the face of the franchise, but it is unclear what he has left.
This has been a fun ride, and we should enjoy it. The team’s rotation is set for the next few years and should be one of the best in baseball. It has some good young players on the rise – d’Arnaud, Conforto and possibly Hererra – and in It’s been a long wait.
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Hank Kalet 