85% of the season we’ve had a AAA starting roster. It’s certainly different to score on MLB pitching when that’s the case. The fact that they manage to have a 4 game lead with like 20 double headers in like a month shows the type of perseverance you want in a team, and like I said, with them being all injured. Now with Cookie and Baez, they can help until Lindor and deGrom get healthy. Pulling together 20 wins is certainly clutch otherwise if they just had 10 come back wins we’d be fourth in the division. That’s pretty clutch to me. And despite the last few games since the ASB the offense has improved with the Mets getting healthy.
If the Mets are healthy there certainly a contender…
Nimmo
Lindor
Alonso
Baez
McNeil/Davis
Smith/Davis
Conforto
McCann
Davis/Villar/Pillar/Drury/Luis/Nido
deGrom
Stroman
Walker
Carascco
Megill
Hill/Noah?
May
Familia
Lugo
Smith
Castro
Loup
Y. Diaz
E. Diaz
No one in the pen has an era over 3.50 asides from Diaz who is 3.80 because he’s brutal in non-save situations.
Elite defense, elite pen, elite bench,
can be elite rotation when healthy, and can be elite offense as well when healthy. And the clubhouse chemistry is top tier. With Lindor and Baez itll he electric. This team is World Series bound if they can get deGrom together.
That's a whole lot of "ifs" there. Particularly given there's no reason to believe that anyone will continue to stay healthy, that guys like Dom Smith, Conforto, and McCann will suddenly start hitting, etc. That Lindor will come back 100% and be a difference-maker.
As far as the clutch thing, again, good on them for coming back late, but it's a direct function of a pitching staff that miraculously keeps them in games and luck. They're 23-16 in one run games which of course is the difference in them being .500 and seven games over where they are. They have the third-highest Pythagorean luck score as a result. They've had some good luck. If you played multiple seasons like this you wouldn't end up with 20 comebacks, you'd end up with a .500 team. If you can't hit in the first several innings, you generally can't hit in the last few innings. You can only live off of that for so long. Eventually you regress--either you do better throughout the game and continue doing well late or the dramatic stuff at the end dries up. The Bench Mob thing was fun but not sustainable. Those guys are bench and AAAA players for a reason.
Look, they've been CRUSHED by injuries this year. I get it. That they are where they are is amazing, but it's really due to pitching and some good fortune offsetting the terrible situational hitting. On paper they look really good, but as we've seen that counts for nothing. And with the NL West teams as strong as they are, a team like Milwaukee, and even the teams within our own division that added, I think it's quite a jump to say we're WS-bound, even if healthy. But, I do appreciate your optimism.
