The Bags are Juiced, The Mets Obviously Aren't

I don’t mean to ignore the severe mismanagement of the Mets which has led to their downward spiral from the precipice of the World Series in 2006 to the disastrous outfit we see before us today. The Mets have an incredibly flawed organizational philosophy which focuses on acquiring expensive overrated veterans while failing to develop cheap, young talent.

All of that is true, but another major factor is causing the Mets to be terrible. It’s impossible to explain so I think many advanced sabremetricians would call it luck. I don’t know what to call it but I think the main reason the Mets are so bad is because of a lack of timely hitting.

Let’s just look at the bases loaded. This year the Mets are 20 for 101 (.198) with the bases loaded. That’s worst in the majors. They have zero grand slams (worst in the majors). And they’ve allowed 9 grand slams (most in the majors), but that’s another issue.

If the Mets were only marginally better, say 2 grand slams hit, 2 fewer allowed they could be 4 games better in the standings and right in the wild card race.

But they’re not – and why?

Maybe they’re trying too hard, in those situations, or not hard enough. Maybe it is just luck. Maybe the Mets aren’t clutch, whatever that means. But the numbers are indisputable.



Here are the Mets OPS numbers with the bases loaded for the last 5 years and the major league rank:



2010: .483 (30th)

2009: .598 (28th)

2008: .637 (27th)

2007: .676 (25th)

2006: .976 (4th)