Jason Bay's career numbers are outstanding - .280 AVG, .376 OBP, .896 OPS, and .384 wOBA.  Yet his 2007 season looks lousy, to the tune of a .247 AVG, .327 OBP, .746 OPS, and .326 wOBA.  Although Bay rebounded over the last two years, should we be concerned that his 2010 might look like his 2007?  In a word - no.  Bay's line drive rate and BABIP indicate that his awful 2007 season was the product of horrible luck more than anything else.

In 2007, Bay's BABIP was .298, a big drop from his career BABIP of .332.  His line drive rate, however, was 16.5% - close to his career rate of 18.3% and actually an increase from his rate of 15.6% in 2006.  Since his line drive rate remained consistent, it's reasonable to conclude that Bay hit a lot of balls directly at fielders in 2007, which resulted in his poor numbers.  (His walk rate dropped a little too - 9.9% as compared with his career mark of 12.9%, but a normal BABIP would have made his season look a lot better even with the lower walk rate.)

Then when Bay's numbers returned to normal in 2008 and 2009, his line drive rates remained consistent, at 16.5% and 17.7%.  We can attribute his increased production then, to the end of his lousy luck, as his BABIPs (BAsBIP?) shot up to .328 and .318, respectively.

So bottom line, there's no reason to be concerned that Jason Bay's 2010 season will look anything like his 2007.  Those numbers occurred because of awful luck and are unlikely to re-appear again any time soon.

(promoted from fanposts. --eric)

I'm thrilled that Delgado is having such a great second half for the Mets, but he has a lower VORP lower than Reyes, Wright, and Beltran. Even just looking at conventional stats, it's clear that those three are having superior seasons to Delgado. Check it out:

Reyes offers phenomenal baserunning and has fantastic offensive production for a shortstop. Other than homers and a slight discrepancy in slugging percentage, Wright has been superior to Delgado in all offensive categories and has a significant advantage in OBP, the most important offensive stat. And although I wouldn't classify third base as a premium defensive position, it is certainly more difficult to find a good hitting third baseman than first baseman, so Wright offers more value for his position than Delgado. Beltran's numbers are comparable to Wright's, and Beltran plays fantastic defense at a difficult position to play.

The bottom line is that Wright, Beltran, and Reyes offer the Mets great production while playing positions that the Mets would have difficulty finding suitable replacements if any of those three players were injured. Imagine the offensive dropoff if the Mets had to replace Reyes with Damion Easley in their lineup on a daily basis. Delgado, on the other hand, offers poor defense at a position that pretty much anyone besides Mike Piazza can play, so his stats would not be as difficult to replace if the Mets lost him.

There's no denying it - Carlos Delgado has had a nice year, and I would not be at all upset if the Mets picked up his option for next year. But the guy has been nowhere near as valuable as the holy trinity of Reyes, Wright, and Beltran. It would be a shame if the sportswriters missed that when they cast their MVP ballots.

I'm stuck at work today (tomorrow too!), and I figured the best way to get back at my boss would be to write a fanpost.

Johan Santana did his best Livan Hernandez impression last night, throwing 121 pitches.  My roommates and I yelled at Jerry Manuel to take Santana out after the 6th inning, but I guess he didn't hear us.  Santana's high pitch count last night made me wonder though.  Manuel got a lot of heat after he took Santana out after 8 innings and 105 pitches in a July 22 game against the Phils that I swear to God did not have a 9th inning, and if you tell me otherwise I will punch you in the ovary.  The next time out Santana went 9, and it seemed to me that Manuel has been reluctant to take out his starters since the July 22 debacle.  Did this criticism cause Manuel to leave his starters in longer?  Before I looked up the stats I thought so, but it turns out that Jerry Manuel did not magically transformed into Dusty Baker after all!  Check it out:

Santana's pitch counts and total innings pitched after 7/22:

118 in 9 IP, 103 in 6.1 IP, 104 in 7 IP, 94 in 7 IP, 113 in 9 IP, and 121 in 9 IP.

AVG = 108.83, MEDIAN = 108.5

Pitch counts and total innings from the start of the season through 7/22:

100 in 7 IP, 91 in 7 IP, 113 in 6.2 IP, 105 in 7 IP, 97 in 7 IP, 114 in 5.2 IP, 116 in 6 IP, 116 in 6 IP, 100 in 7.2 IP, 90 in 7 IP, 110 in 7 IP, 107 in 7.2 IP, 100 in 6 IP, 116 in 7 IP, 95 in 6 IP, 106 in 7 IP, 113 in 6 IP, 95 in 8 IP, 78 in 5 IP, 92 in 4 IP, 105 in 8 IP

AVG = 102.81, MEDIAN = 105, MODE = 100

So on average, Santana is only throwing about 6 pitches more per game than he was before the disaster against Philly.  And the median difference is only about 3 and a half pitches.

If I weren't at work right now I'd break down the numbers to see how if Santana is throwing a slightly greater amount of pitches because he has been more effective or if there's no real reason for the tiny increase.  And I'd love to see if the Mets' other pitchers have been throwing more pitches per game since July 22.  In any case, we can rest assured that - last night aside - Jerry Manuel does not seem to be letting Santana throw an absurd amount of pitches during his starts.  Hopefully the Mets'  current and future managers will keep this up for the rest of the season and throughout Santana's contract.

In an effort to figure out whether or not Jerry Manuel is the buntingest bunt who ever bunted, I looked up the number of sacrifice hits for the Chicago White Sox from 1998-2003, which were the years that Manuel managed the team.  In those years, the White Sox had the following number of sacrifice hits:

1998 - 38

1999 - 40

2000 - 55

2001 - 63

2002 - 48

2003 - 43

Average - 47.8

Baseball-reference doesn't list where these totals rank in the majors or the American League, so let's compare them to the number of sacrifice hits the Mets had each year under Willie Randolph.

2005 - 69

2006 - 77

2007 - 77

Average - 74.3

So Manuel should order his players to bunt less than Randolph did.  Great.  Wait, what's that?  This isn't a fair comparison because Randolph often (correctly) had his starting pitchers bunt?  Okay, well then let's take a look at how many sacrifice hits Joe Torre's Yankees had from 1996-2007.  After all, Torre and Randolph have similar managing styles.

1996 - 41

1997 - 34

1998 - 32

1999 - 22

2000 - 16

2001 - 30

2002 - 23

2003 - 25

2004 - 37

2005 - 28

2006 - 34

2007 - 41

Average - 30.25

Uh oh.  Manuel's teams bunted significantly more than Proven Winner Joe Torre's did.  But maybe Manuel isn't so bad.  Let's do one more comparison, this time with everyone's favorite bunter and Manuel's replacement with the White Sox, Ozzie Guillen.

2004 - 58

2005 - 53

2006 - 44

2007 - 41

Average - 49

Crap.  Manuel's teams bunted only slightly less than Ozzie Guillen's do.  And we all know that no one loves bunts more than Ozzie Guillen.  This quick and dirty study is by no means definitive, but it suggests that we can expect lots of small ball from the Mets under Jerry Manuel.  At this point, I can't say I'm happy with the Mets decision to make him their manager.

I attended last night's Mets-Phils game with my roommate and his girlfriend, both of whom are Phillies fans.  Well, the girlfriend didn't care who won so much, but she rooted for the Phillies because she "didn't want to argue with her boyfriend" or "get left behind at the stadium."  Lame.  Anyway, my roommate told me before the game that he couldn't believe how intense the Mets-Phillies rivalry had gotten.  I disagreed.  I felt that while the Phillies were trying to create a rivalry, the Braves still concerned Mets fans way more than the Phillies did.  No one was mad at the Phillies for winning the division last year - we were pissed at the Mets for blowing what should have been an insurmountable lead.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  The atmosphere at Shea was intense, to say the least.  A bunch of my good friends from college are Phillies or Mets fans, so over the last few years we've often gone to Mets-Phillies games at Shea together.  In previous years the Phillies fans heard a comment or two, but for the most part people left them alone.  Not this year.  Our entire section (Loge reserved behind the plate) booed my roommate every time he got up or sat down since he was decked out in Phillies gear, and by the 7th or 8th inning I even found myself leading the chorus.  The section also booed and hollered at any other Phils fan who walked by, and there were numerous "Phillies suck!" chants, especially as everyone filed out of the stadium at the end.  Some people crossed the line too.  One Mets fan dumped beer on top of a Phillies fan, and the usher even tossed a few guys in yarmulkes for causing a scene.

So I guess there's a real rivalry now.  We'll see what happens after this, but I expect tensions between the teams and the fans to escalate as the season progresses.

Brady Clark and Raul Casanova made the team.

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20080330&content_id=2466551&vkey=pr_nym&fext=.jsp&c_id=nym

Here's hoping that Clark actually gets some at bats.  He doesn't have any power, but he can still get on base at a decent clip.  Angel Pagan doesn't even have veteranness.

Maybe Willie Randolph is a better strategist than we give him credit for being.  He doesn't bunt or hit and run too much, and in general he puts the best guys out there.  Sure, it took him about a month to officially give Milledge the job over Green, but Randolph never really had to announce that Milledge was the starter because injuries to Alou, Beltran, etc. afforded Milledge plenty of at bats.  In this way, Milledge got at bats while Randolph reminded him that he had to continue to work hard and fit into the clubhouse if he wanted to stay in the lineup.  Now that the outfield is healthy, and Milledge has shown he can play, Randolph announced that Milledge would be playing right.  Everybody wins.

Randolph also seems to be handling the LoDuca/Castro situation similarly.  Castro has clearly been outperforming LoDuca, so Randolph has been extra cautious with LoDuca.  This allows LoDuca to maintain his status as the starter while Castro still gets tons of at bats.  Both egos remain intact, and the Mets generally get the benefit of the better player being in the lineup.

It drives me nuts when Randolph defers to "proven veterans" with little/no upside over young players who seem to be better.  But we have to remember that Willie Randolph isn't managing a fantasy baseball team - he's working with real people with real egos and personalities.  The baseball season is long, and if Shawn Green ends up with 50 or 60 extra at bats because Randolph wants the Mets' players to feel like they have some job security, over the long haul the Mets may perform better because of that job security than if Randolph yanked Green from the lineup as soon as Milledge came up from the minors.

So overall, I feel like Randolph handled the whole Milledge/Green situation pretty decently despite all my complaints over the last month.  I guess there's a reason he's the Mets' manager, and I'm not.

(I reserve the right to retract this post the next time Randolph uses Scott Schoeneweis to pitch to a right handed batter in a key situation.)

I was glad to see that the Mets' bats perform so well last night.  Beltran and Delgado had big hits, and Castro continued to show why he's our best option at catcher - although we should be careful not to overlook LoDuca's stellar VORG (Value Over Replacement Grittiness) and what that brings to the team.

Still, I can't help but be worried about Glavine.  I didn't watch last night's game, but - at least based on anecdotal evidence - Glavine seems almost totally dependent on an umpire's strike zone.  If the ump gives him borderline calls, Glavine cruises.  If not, he's in trouble.  The result is a pitcher who has been even less consistent than we expected Oliver Perez to be, and I'm not sure how comfortable I am with someone like that in our postseason rotation.  Thoughts?