Comparing the Nats and Mets a Quarter of the Way Through The Season
A quarter of the way through the season the Nationals are alone in 1st place and though the Phillies have been pretty fortuitous in the early goings, they shouldn’t factor into the race when it matters. The NL East race was a two team race in March and it should be a two team race in September between the Nationals and the Mets. Last night, the Nats rocked Matt Harvey for 9 runs (6 earned) in their 9-1 win at Citi Field.
The Nationals rolled over the Mets in the final two games of this series after being shut out in the first game. The Mets have a very good team, there isn’t any doubt about that, but the Nats are just better. Lets go position by position and see how the teams compare:
Catcher: Wilson Ramos has been absolutely phenomenal – all-star caliber- this year and while his BABIP of .372 might dip a bit more, the fact that he’s been hitting .336 for the first quarter of the season, especially when we consider the awful offensive state that catching is in right now, has been phenomenal. For the Mets, Travis D’Arnaud is their guy but he’s injured right now, is almost always injured, and wasn’t too good when he was healthy this year. Ramos has had his history of injury problems but he looks like Tony Stark in comparison to D’Arnaud. Kevin Plawecki, the backup, is young and had been a top prospect but he hasn’t produced yet. Advantage: Nationals
1st Base: Ryan Zimmerman still has juice somewhere in his bat, it just hasn’t manifested itself at all this year and I’m starting to wonder whether it ever will again. Zim is still only 31 and he hit 7 homers and knocked 28 RBI in one month as recently as last August but he seems lost this year. The Mets’ Lucas Duda, shockingly only a year younger than Zimmerman, can only play against right-handed pitchers and even with that restriction, he still isn’t all that good. Duda’s .228 average and 18 RBI look pretty similar to Zim’s .235 and 17 but Duda’s got the edge in power and I’m a lot more confident in Lucas Duda picking up his production than I am in Zimmerman turning it at this point. Advantage: Mets
2nd Base: Former Met 2b Daniel Murphy has been the offseason acquisition of 2016 so far – he’s pushing .400, has incorporated his 2015 NLCS success into his game, and is hitting for more power. Mets fans always point to Murphy making key errors in important situations but guess what! I’ve dealt with Matt Williams and his boneheadedness so at least when Murphy screws up there will be great offensive production to fall back on. The Mets’ new acquisition, Neil Walker, has pretty nice counting stats (.261 with 10 homers) but if you throw away the six games in mid-April when he was on fire, his output drops to .234 with 5 homers. This one was pretty easy. Advantage: Nationals
3rd Base: At third, one team’s got a former star … and, well, the other team has a former star. Neither David Wright nor Anthony Rendon have done much of anything this year (though Rendon did have 3 hits and 2 RBI last night). It seems like the main culprit for Rendon’s struggles have been pitches on the far side of the plate (be on the lookout for a blog about his struggles). Ultimately, I’ve got to give the edge to the Nats here because I am a hell of a lot more confident in Rendon’s ability to produce in 2016 than I am in a David Wright resurgence. Advantage: Nationals
Shortstop: Danny Espinosa is ass and Asdrubal Cabrera is booty. Espinosa has better defense and better power but Cabrera’s .340 OBP is much better than Espy’s .309. Ultimately, the Mets take this one but that all changes once Trea Turner gets the call to the bigs. Advantage: Mets, for now
Left Field: Michael Conforto isn’t as good as a lot of Mets fans like to think he is but just about anyone with a pulse and a .300 OBP is better than Jayson Werth right now. I still think that Werth puts it together and finishes the year with solid season but his negative WAR since the end of 2014 is telling me that I’m delusional. Regardless of whether Werth improves or not, Conforto is the better player here. Advantage: Mets
Center Field: If you’re looking for speed or slap-hit singles, Ben Revere is your guy (while maybe not so far this year, considering he’s hitting .123 and is 0-2 in steal attempts) but for chain-smoking, homer-hitting, or just about anything else then Yoenis Cespedes is your guy. Cespedes is the best bat on the Mets and Revere has played like one of the worst for the Nationals and while he should have his .300 average and 30+ steals, he just isn’t the player that Cespedes is. Advantage: Mets
Right Field: C’mon, this is easy – Granderson vs Harper. Despite a low average- Harper is hitting .210 over the past 31 days- his OBP is over .450 and I think I take him over Granderson even if he’s hitting .000. As long as the walks keep on coming, Haprer will keep on making a difference regardless of if they take the bat out of his hands or not. Harper is just too good. Advantage: Nationals
In total, the lineup splits are 4-4 which is a lot closer than what I would’ve guessed earlier. At the beginning of the year you would have thought the rotation would go to the Mets, but that might be worth revisiting a bit later on if Matt Harvey continues to struggle and the Nationals rotation continues to dominate. The Nationals bullpen has been very good as well. It’s also pretty important to note that the Nats’ positional wins are a lot bigger than the Mets’. Harper and Murphy are significantly more talented than their Mets counterparts and Trea Turner will be the better shortstop among the two teams once he gets the call. These two teams should be battling it out all season, should be a ton of fun to watch.