The New York Mets came into 2022 with lofty expectations after a busy offseason. They signed Max Scherzer and traded for Chris Bassitt to shore up the pitching rotation; picked up Starling Marte, Mark Canha, and Eduardo Escobar in free agency; and they added Buck Showalter as their manager heading into the season.
Even with injuries that have kept ace Jacob deGrom off the field entirely and sidelined Max Scherzer until, most likely, early July, the Mets offense has helped them to the second-best win percentage in baseball (tied with the Dodgers and behind the Yankees). They're averaging 5.22 runs per game, second only to the Dodgers, and they've built a 10.5-win lead in the struggling NL East.
How are the Mets putting up their impressive offensive numbers? If you ask shortstop Francisco Lindor, they smartened up and dumbed hitting down. According to Lindor, the Mets have bucked the trend of obsessing with things like launch angles, and instead focus on putting the ball in play.
How the Mets' new approach has helped Francisco Lindor
“Nobody is talking about lifting the baseball. No one,” Lindor said of the Mets' approach, per MLB.com. “Everybody is focusing on their approach and how to hit that pitcher and that’s it. Then after that, [what] we witnessed in the box, we passed it on to my teammates. You see the guys always talking. We always talk about hitting the pitcher and hitting. That helps a lot.”
The Mets poached current hitting coach Eric Chavez from the Yankees mere weeks after he joined Aaron Boone's staff as an assistant hitting coach. They also added Jeremy Barnes as an assistant in a promotion. According to Lindor, Chavez and Barnes have made all the difference.
“Last year, I had one good game and then five bad ones," he said. "Two good games, then a week of bad games ... Last year, the hitting coaches were really good, but the relationship wasn’t there. It was growing. Now ... [The relationship] grew already. I trust them."
Lindor is currently batting .261/.345/.442 with eight home runs and 43 RBI. He's also batting .340 with runners in scoring position. He is coming off an NL Player of the Week win he went a ridiculous .455/.500/1.000. Lindor hit a pair of home runs, two triples, and drove in 14 runs. He has at least one RBI in his last nine games.
At this point last year, he was at .214/.304/.337 with five home runs and 13 RBI. He finished the season at .283 with runners in scoring position. Although Lindor started to turn things around late in the year, he wasn't the player the Mets had traded for.
The Mets as a team this year have touted the simple stats as indicators of success, saying the focus on things such as launch angle are because of how hard it is to be impressive in result-oriented stats.
How other Mets have reacted
“I think when people talk about average isn’t valued so much anymore, it’s kind of just another way of saying it’s hard to hit .300,” Canha told The Athletic last week. “There’s not as many people that do it, so we have to look elsewhere for value."
Jeff McNeil made it even simpler, pulling out a baseball classic to describe his approach: “I’m just trying to hit a line drive up the middle."
It appears the Mets as a team have bought into Chavez and Barnes' approach, and it's surprisingly evident in the results.
The Mets have the league's best batting average at .268 and are just 25th in MLB in barrel percentage. They're 23rd in launch angle and 24th in exit velocity. Their whiff percentage is just 23.2 percent, third-lowest in the league.
This is all to say: This isn't just lip service from the Mets -- they're genuinely ignoring (or at least sidelining) these advanced analytics and going back to trying to put the ball in play. And the stat dump above says it's working. If the team is following McNeil's approach of driving the ball up the middle, that's working too -- the Mets' straight percentage of 38.7 percent is sixth in the Majors.
Eric Chavez's hitting philosophy
When Chavez joined the Mets as the team's hitting coach, he made no bones about why he spurned the Yankees to go across town to Queens.
“I'll make it as simple as possible. I want to break this down into consistency and quality at-bats,” Chavez said on his approach to coaching, via SNY. “I think over the last five to seven years with Instagram and with a philosophy of getting the ball in the air and launch angle and exit velocity -- all of which are great things -- I think, and we can kind of see this collectively across the league, that there's a lack of consistency.
Yeah, there's guys that are hitting home runs, on base [percentages] look good, but the strikeouts and the .190 batting averages kind of seem to be acceptable and the norm, and I just don't think that's how you build winning teams. So, my goal is to simplify things.
Really liked what Eric Chavez had to say tonight:
— Steve Gelbs (@SteveGelbs) February 10, 2022
“Over the last 5-7 years…there’s a lack of consistency…the strikeouts and the .190 batting averages kind of seem to be acceptable and the norm. And I just don’t think that’s how you build winning teams.”pic.twitter.com/4jghk8EiSa
With regards to what Chavez said on the high strikeout rate, the Mets have struck out 383 times -- the eighth-lowest total in baseball.
How Mets' adjustments have helped chemistry
When a team is constructed the way this Mets team have been, it can turn into a baseball Frankenstein of sorts -- A bunch of highly-paid veterans who are set in their ways, have their own approaches, and will never budge.
According to Canha, that's not the case.
"We’re deep and we trust in one another," Canha said back in mid-April, per northjersey.com. "There’s a lot of vibing. We’re understanding our identity and what makes us great and we’re staying true to that and we’re sticking to it and not trying to be anything more or else."
"They have confidence in their approach and what’s going on," Showalter added.
MORE: How Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and others are widening the gap between the good and great hitters
Discussions on the bench are clearly helping their batters. The Mets are slugging at least 50 points better each time through the order against starters, including a 96-point jump from .423 to .519 if a pitcher has the displeasure of seeing them a third time.
The result is a 35-17 record, which is good enough for first place in the NL East and a lot more fun to be had at this point. The key for the Mets now, of course, is to carry it throughout the course of a season. They're doing well going into June. But there's still a long summer ahead. For the time being, however, Chavez's approach seems to be working. There's no doubt the players are buying in.
How a fired hitting coach was right about the Mets
It's hard to imagine Steve Cohen and the Mets were listening to Chili Davis after he was fired just 22 games into 2021. But Davis knew the Mets had to clean house after early returns from 2021 hitting coaches Hugh Quattlebaum and Kevin Howard.
“That organization needs a big turnaround, they need to clean house,” Davis said after last season to the New York Post. “Some of the people that have been there so long during those dismal years, they need to bring some fresh faces and baseball people in there. To be honest I don’t think Zack Scott was a baseball person. He was the head of analytics in Boston. He was an analytical guy. That’s where he belonged, in analytics.”
The Mets obliged, bringing Billy Eppler on alongside Showalter and an entirely new staff. The results have been positive so far, but for the Mets, the expectations are bigger. They came into this season believing themselves to be contenders. So far, they're living up to the billing. It will be interesting if other teams start to ignore Statcast in favor of more classic stats.
If so, the Mets may have set a cycle back in motion by turning back the clock.
