New York Mets look good, but have a glaring defensive weakness

The most glaring weakness for the New York Mets heading into the 2020 season appears to be the overall team defense.

The New York Mets have made improvements during the offseason, most of the players look healthy, and fans are excited for this promising season to begin. Even the rest of the baseball world is expecting the Mets to be a playoff team in 2020.

Things appear to be going great for the Mets. Still, it’s important to recognize their most glaring weakness: the defense.

The Mets haven’t been a decent defensive team in years, and it’s been getting worse. They have had a cumulative DRS of -93 since 2015, which is good for second-worst in all of MLB behind only the Baltimore Orioles’ -105. What makes this even more concerning is that the Orioles are historically bad, and it’s embarrassing for the Mets to be associated with them. Here’s a breakdown of the Mets’ defense by some players:

Catcher Wilson Ramos was never known for being good on the defensive end, but he was especially bad this year, so much so that drama notoriously ensued between him and starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard.

In his first season with the Mets, Ramos posted a career-low -9 rSZ, which stands for Strike Zone Runs Saved. This attributes a run value to a catcher getting strikes called. He was below average in rSB (Stolen Base Runs Saved, which measures a catcher’s ability to throw runners out and prevent stealing attempts to begin with) with -1. He also tied his career-worst in framing with -7.6 as well as passed balls with ten.

Tomas Nido is a much better defensive catcher than Ramos but is an abysmal hitter and cannot realistically play a role in helping the Mets get to the playoffs.

Infield Defense

First baseman Pete Alonso had a reputation as a poor defender but was surprisingly decent in his rookie campaign. He finished the year with a slightly above average UZR of 1.6 but a pretty poor DRS of -6, so there is clearly still work to be done.

He has said that he worked on his defense a lot during the offseason, so fans will hope to see an improvement with his glove in 2020.

The Mets have an elite hitter in Jeff McNeil, but that isn’t the case with his defense, which is honestly still a mystery. McNeil is much better at third base than anywhere else, which is a relief because it looks like he’s going to play there almost every day moving forward. That is the only position where he is above average in both DRS and UZR.

Second baseman Robinson Cano has been one of the best defensive players in the league for years but had it rough both at the plate and with the glove in his first season with the Mets. He posted a bad -6 DRS and a below-average -0.8 UZR.

He’ll look to bounce back on both ends this year, which will be huge for the Mets. They have had a terrible defensive infield so getting the former Gold Glover back would be incredibly beneficial for them.

Unfortunately, even though Amed Rosario’s offense improved greatly in 2019, he is still a terrible defensive shortstop. His UZR slightly improved from -5.2 in 2018 to -0.8, but he posted a -16 DRS in back-to-back years.

He’s definitely a big reason why the remainder of the Mets’ infielders must step up in 2020 because it’s unclear if Rosario will ever be even an average defender at short.