Mets injuries hurt the offense, but maybe not as bad as we thought

Are injuries to blame for the poor New York Mets season or do advanced analytics tell a different story?

Every New York Mets fan thinks that injuries to top offensive players ruined the 2018 season, but when you break it down, there are some major surprises.

One of the least discussed injuries had more impact than anyone realized, and the more obvious ones had way less impact than expected. And all in all, the offense basically performed exactly as predicted by ZIPS.

In order to reevaluate the impact of various injuries, I compared ZIPS preseason projections for the top five outfielders, top six infielders, and top two catchers, and compared them to the actual results (up until 9/20 for OFs/Cs and 9/21 for IFs) of those players plus their primary replacements.

Not the outfield of our dreams

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Let’s start with the outfielders. The actual outfielders who played somewhat regularly produced a wRC of 286 in 2108 PAs. That equals .136 weighted runs created per PA.

According to ZIPS projections, the Mets key outfielders should have produced about 311 wRC, which equals .128 wRC per PA.

To determine the impact of these percentages, let’s multiply the wRC/PA a rough number of expected PA for the three OF positions, 1950. 600 per position.

We get 244 wRC for the actual key OFs and 230 for ZIPS projections.

In other words, the Mets real-life outfielders outproduced their ZIPS projections by about 14 runs, primarily due to the remarkable emergence of Brandon Nimmo, who was expected to be the 4^th outfielder.

Mets Can’t Catch a Break: Lost d’Arnaud/Plawecki to injuries

ZIPs projected 84 wRC for Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki combined in 771 PA. Obviously, the plate appearances are too high, but if we divide the wRC by PA, we get .109.

The actual catchers who played significant roles, Plawecki, Devin Mesoraco, Jose Lobaton, and d’Arnaud produced 55 wRC in 542 PAs (up until 9/20). This equals .101.

Let’s equal the PAs for a better comparison, say 600.

ZIPS=65

Actual=61

The Mets revolving catching corps underproduced the projections for the original duo by about 4 runs.

Mets infield injuries corner the market

ZIPS projected .118 wRC/PA for Todd Frazier, Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera, Dominic Smith, and Amed Rosario. The actual production by Frazier, Reyes, Cabrera (Mets only), Smith, and Rosario, plus Adrian Gonzalez and Jeff McNeil is .114 through 9/21.

Multiplying by 600 PAs times four positions, we get:

ZIPS=284

Actual=273

A loss of 11 runs, mostly due to Smith’s projected 80 wRC in 652 PAs. Gonzalez and Smith actually combined for 29 wRC in 314 PAs.

I’m not including Jay Bruce’s 1B stats for the infield numbers, and I’m not including Smith’s OF stats for the OF. I am pretending there was never a game with Smith in the OF and Bruce at 1B at the same time.

Here’s something else to note: if the Mets were more competitive, Cabrera probably would have stayed and Jeff McNeil probably would have only gotten a September cup of coffee.

Total impact of Mets position player injuries

When we look at the total impact of injuries on the offense, there is a difference of about 1 run between ZIPS and actual production by the players who played most of the time!

And if Dom Smith alone had not been late to his first Spring Training game, and then gotten hurt, and somehow lived up to his ZIPS projection, the Mets would have won 5-6 more games.

My major takeaway from the stats and projections is that it’s not so much Wins Above Replacements as who is the replacement.

When the unexpected regular is Brandon Nimmo or Jeff McNeil, things are looking up. When it’s Adrian Gonzalez, Devin Mesoraco, Jose Reyes, or Jose Lobaton, they sky feels like it’s falling, even when it isn’t.

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Next up on the agenda: the pitchers.