It is apparent that the months of May and June have been quite different for the Mets. After last night's loss to the Dodgers where John Maine gave up back to back to back jacks (including one to the pitcher) on three straight pitches, I am a little concerned.  I am by no means throwing in the towel as there are a lot of games yet to be played, but their play of late is a bit alarming.

The Mets still have 17 games left in June but lets take a look at the statistical differences between May and June. Just for argument's sake, I also included what I project the Mets to finish with this month based on their performance thus far.

MAY
                                                       
Batting:

In 28 games, the Mets scored 127 runs on 253 hits. They had 28 HR, 119 RBI and walked 100 times. Mets in May struck out 176 times and stole 34 bases.  Their team batting average was .269, they had an on base percentage (OBP) of .341, a slugging percentage of .411 which means an OPS of .752.

Pitching:

Mets pitchers went 19-9 in May and had 9 saves over 251 innings. They allowed 202 hits, 104 earned runs and 112 runs overall.  They walked 90 batters and had a collective ERA of 3.73, striking out 182 batters. Opposing batters hit only .220 off of them and had an OBP of .298.

JUNE

Batting:

In 11 games, the Mets have scored 37 runs on 93 hits. They have 11 HR, 36 RBI and walked 26 times. So far this month, they have struck out 71 times and stolen 14 bases.  Their team batting average is .243, they have an OBP of .294, and a slugging percentage of .373 which means an OPS of .667.

Pitching:

Mets pitchers have gone 2-9 in June and have just one save over 98 innings. They allowed 108 hits, and 55 of their 56 runs allowed have been earned.  They walked 34 batters and have a collective ERA of 5.05, striking out 71. Opposing batters are hitting .278 off of them and have an OBP of .340.

JUNE PROJECTED

Batting:

These numbers are projected for the 28 total games in the month of June based on their recent performance (which I hope changes). The Mets will score 95 runs (-32) on 237 hits (-16). They will have 28 HR (same), 92 RBI (-27) and walk 66 times (-34). This month, they are on pace to strike out 181 times and steal 35 bases (both roughly the same). Their batting avg. and OBP should remain about the same as the first 11 games.

Pitching:

At this pace, Mets pitchers will go 5-23 (-14) in June and have 3 saves (-6) over 250 innings. They will allow 276 hits (+74), and 140 (+36) of their 142 runs allowed will be earned.  They will walk 87 batters, have a collective ERA of 5.05 (+1.32), and strike out 181.

Obviously, the percentage of earned runs to allowed runs will change, but let's assume that all else remains the same. Although I find it very hard to believe that will happen, this should be able to give some perspective on their main issues lately.  The are hitting less, scoring less, and walking less.  This results in a decreased batting average and OBP in comparison to May.

Mets pitchers are basically giving up more hits and giving up more runs.  The bullpen has been a big part of this.

The bottom line is, less hitting and worse pitching will obviously hurt your team which is what we have seen so far in June.  They haven't been getting runners home. When two players are hot the rest are cold and those players keep changing. I'm done comparing them to last year's team, but their difficult schedule this month won't make it any easier either unless they play like they did last month. Simple as that.

SaberMETrics has come up with batting and pitching projections for the 2007 Mets. With this data I was also able to forcast the Mets 2007 record. We project the Mets will finish the season with a 98-64 record. I have linked all the metrics we used to Wiki pages for the explanations of the formulas. I have also attached our master spreadsheet at the end of this article. CLICK HERE FOR   more »

Every year Baseball America rates each team's top 10 prospects based on "projections of a player's long term worth after discussions with scouting and player-development personnel." How do these professionals project a player's long term worth? Probably some combo of qualitative and quantitative observations, but no one knows the exact science (assuming there is one).    more »

SaberMETrics took the Met’s top prospect position players and compared them to three of the best players to recently come through the Met’s farm system.

We looked at prospects Fernando Martinez, Carlos Gomez, and Mike Carp and compared them to the minor league stats of David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Lastings Milledge. click here for   more »

How good were the Mets pitchers in 2006?  We are going to use some standard baseball statistics and some Sabermetrics in order to analyze just how good the Mets pitchers were last season.  Before we jump into the analysis we need to understand how the players are grouped and what stats we will be using.

 

1) The Groupings:  The pitchers are split into three groups base on their roles and how much they pitched during the regular season (no playoff data).  The first group contains the starters that threw more the 90 innings (Glavine, Trachsel, Pedro, El Duque, and Maine).  The second group consists of the relievers who threw more then 50 innings (Heilman, Oliver, Wagner, Bradford, Feliciano, and Sanchez).  The third group consist of every other pitcher who took the mound for the Mets in 2006.

 

2) The Stats: We are going to look at 7 statistics from 2006.  They are IP (innings pitched), K/9 (Strikeouts per 9 innings), W/9 (Walks per 9 innings), WHIP (Walks + Hits per 9 innings), ERC (Component ERA – also known as CERA), DICE (Defense Independent Component ERA), and ERA (Earned Run Average).

 

Finally, we need to know why we care about some of these statistics.  IP, ERA, WHIP, K/9 and W/9 are simple enough and most baseball fans are comfortable with these stats.  Everyone knows what to look for in these statistics.  We all like a pitcher to have an ERA under 4.00, a WHIP under 1.30, and a high K/9 coupled with a low W/9.  But what about ERC and DICE?  How are they calculated and what do they mean?  Let’s take a quick look:

 

ERC: Component ERA (aka CERA) was invented by Bill James.  This statistic attempts to forecast a pitcher’s ERA using only hits and walks allowed.  The ERC formula basically takes pitchers HITS and WALKS given up and multiplies the total by a PTB (Pitcher’s Total Bases estimate).  That number is then divided by the Batters Faced in a season TIMES Innings Pitched.  This gives an estimate of how many runs a pitcher will give up in an inning.  The number is multiplied by 9 to make it a 9 inning average (like ERA).  The -0.56 is to adjust to real ERA.

 

ERC=((H+BB+HBP)*PTB)/(BFP*IP))*9-.56

 

Where PTB = .89*(1.255*(H-HR)+4*HR)+.56*(BB+HBP-IBB)

 

Once criticism about ERC is that HITS are too dependent on your team’s defensive ability (a pitcher’s home ball park can also be a factor).  Critics say that HRs, walks and strikeouts are the only factors that are completely controlled by the pitcher.  That brings us to DICE.

 

DICE: Defense Independent Component ERA was invented by Clay Dreslough in 2001.  DICE takes out the defense factor in ERC.  HRs have a multiple of 13, Walks a multiple of 3, and Strikeouts a multiple of -2.  The formula is basically saying Strikeouts help you ERA, Walks hurt your ERA, and Homeruns absolutely kill you ERA.  Since these are the only real categories pitchers have total control over, they are the only categories factored in.

 

DICE = 3.00 + [(13HR+3(BB+HBP)-2K)/IP]

 

Lets now take a look how the 2006 Mets did on the mound.  The players are sorted by IPs and the criteria mentioned above in the Groupings section.  I hae attached my spreadsheet at the bottom of this post for those who want to work with the data.

 

NAME	IP	K/9	W/9	WHIP	ERC	DICE	ERA
Tom Glavine	198	5.95	2.82	1.33	4.01	4.15	3.82
Steve Trachsel	164	4.33	4.28	1.60	5.57	5.36	4.97
Pedro Martinez	132	9.33	2.66	1.11	3.20	3.91	4.48
Orlando Hernandez	116	8.67	3.18	1.24	3.62	3.90	4.09
John Maine	90	7.10	3.30	1.13	3.22	4.76	3.60
NAME	IP	K/9	W/9	WHIP	ERC	DICE	ERA
Aaron Heilman	87	7.55	2.90	1.16	2.76	3.14	3.62
Darren Oliver	81	6.67	2.33	1.12	3.27	4.49	3.44
Billy Wagner	72.1	11.73	2.62	1.11	2.84	2.69	2.24
Chad Bradford	62	6.53	1.89	1.16	2.48	2.39	2.90
Pedro Feliciano	60.1	8.09	3.00	1.26	3.35	3.22	2.09
Duaner Sanchez	55.1	7.19	3.92	1.22	2.87	3.64	2.60
NAME	IP	K/9	W/9	WHIP	ERC	DICE	ERA
Alay Soler	45	4.60	4.20	1.58	5.30	5.47	6.00
Brian Bannister	38	4.50	5.21	1.47	4.27	5.26	4.26
Heath Bell	37	8.51	2.68	1.68	6.40	4.11	5.11
Oliver Perez	36.2	10.19	4.23	1.60	6.25	4.91	6.38
Dave Williams	29	4.97	1.24	1.48	5.93	4.76	5.59
Jorge Julio	21.1	14.08	4.27	1.47	4.96	3.90