New York Mets full season simulation in MLB the Show 20

With the recent release of MLB the Show 2020 and the delay of the beginning of the New York Mets season, I decided to simulate the year.

As I’m sure you are all already aware, due to all that has been transpiring in the news recently, the MLB made the decision to delay the start of the 2020 season indefinitely. Originally, the New York Mets were slated to start the 2020 season against the World Series champion Washington Nationals on March 26th.

Now, we are not quite sure when the season will begin.

Fortunately, the video game MLB the Show 2020 was just released on the PS4, complete with all 30 teams, full rosters, and the complete 2020 schedule.

In order to help hold myself over until the eventual start of the major league season, I decided to pick up the copy of the game and naturally, I wanted to play a franchise mode of the 2020 New York Mets.

As the Mets were originally projected to be a contending team in 2020, I decided to simulate the entire season and see how things would play out based on the game’s evaluation of the roster.

Is this club championship bound?

March and April

Mets fans got some great news to just before Opening Day, as Yoenis Cespedes broke camp with the team and would be in the starting lineup for the opener. Additionally, invitee Eduardo Nunez made team out of Spring Training and will join the Mets as a bench player.

Opening Day’s lineup was as follows: Jeff McNeil RF, Pete Alonso 1B, Michael Conforto CF, Yoenis Cespedes LF, Robinson Cano 2B, Wilson Ramos C, JD Davis 3B, Jacob deGrom P, Amed Rosario SS.

The Mets crashed the start of the Nationals’ victory tour, beating them on Opening Day behind a strong start from the back to back Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, going 8 innings while giving up 2 hits, 1 BB and 11K’s. Pete Alonso hit a 2-run home run in the first and Yoenis Cespedes hit a solo shot in the 6th in his return to the big leagues, leading New York to a 4-0 win.

Another highlight was Game 6 of the season, facing off against the Phillies and our old friend Zack Wheeler. His return to Queens did not go well, as Wheeler allowed 4 ER over 5 innings. Dominic Smith hit 2 home runs in the game and deGrom pitched a complete game, giving up 1 run and recording 9 Ks.

Unfortunately, the Mets lost Noah Syndergaard for a few weeks to an ankle injury suffered on April 9th, but he returned to the team on the 25th against the Atlanta Braves, going 7 innings, allowing 2 ER and recording 8 Ks.

Overall, at the end of April, the Mets record stood at 20-11, first in the division. Conforto was New York’s top hitter, batting .365 with 12 HR and 29 RBI. In Cespedes’ first month back, he is second on the team with 6 home runs.

Edwin Diaz appears to have rebounded from an awful 2019, recording 9 saves with a 0.75 ERA in 12 games, but Seth Lugo struggled to start the season, posting an ERA of 4.76.

June

After a strong start to the year, the Mets struggled to start the month of June. They went 1-3 over an important 4-game series against the Washington Nationals, and went on to go on a 2-7 skid over 9 games later on in the month.

This skid unfortunately knocked the Mets down to second in the division behind the Nationals. They were briefly overtaken by the third-place Phillies.

Michael Conforto didn’t hit nearly as strongly as he did to start the year and only hit 4 home runs on the month. The Mets also suffered a few injuries to key players, primarily Robinson Cano, who missed two weeks from a sprained ankle and set up man Seth Lugo, who will miss more than a month from an arm injury

Despite this rough patch, the Mets went on to win 6 games straight following the skid and managed to go .500 over the month of June, going 13-13/50-35 overall on the year.

Reigning Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso took over the team home runs lead, recording 21 by the end of June ahead of Conforto’s 19, and Rick Porcello lowered his ERA from 4.27 at the start of the month to .3.45 by its end.

July

After evenly splitting all their games through June, the Mets went positive over the month of July, going 13-11 over 24 games and improving their overall record to 63-46.

With his average cooling off and falling to .269, Jeff McNeil was replaced as the leadoff man by Amed Rosario, who’s average was .291 at the time of the switch, and McNeil was moved to the tw0-spot, with Alonso batting thirrd and Conforto fourth.

The big highlight of the month was the Mets defeating their crosstown rival Yankees, sweeping them in the 4 subway series games, with Game 4 being won thanks to 8 shutout innings thrown by Marcus Stroman.

Thanks to their strong efforts in the first half of the season, the Mets sent four players to the All-Star Game: Jacob deGrom, Edwin Diaz, Wilson Ramos, and Pete Alonso.

However, Wilson Ramos’ great 2020 was sadly cut short, as in a July 19th game vs the Seattle Mariners, the starting catcher tore his rotator cuff and was ruled out for the season. The GM acted quickly however and traded for a replacement, acquiring Salvador Perez from the Royals in exchange for Dominic Smith. At the time of the trade, Perez was batting .247 with 15 home runs.

With Justin Wilson also struggling as the primary southpaw out of the bullpen, they traded Brandon Nimmo and Tomas Nido to the St Louis Cardinals in exchange for Andrew Miller & additional prospects. To replace Nimmo as the backup outfielder, the Mets also traded for Yasiel Puig from the Miami Marlins.

On July 31st, the Mets received another tough blow, as LF Yoenis Cespedes was struck on the hands by a pitch and was ruled out for 1-2 months.

August

After shuffling around the defensive alignments and shifting J.D Davis from 3B to LF, the Mets primarily used Yasiel Puig to replace Cespedes in the outfield.

Additionally, Mets’ top prospect Andres Gimenez was called up to the show from Triple-A to replace Cespedes on the big league roster. He made his debut for the team on August 1 batting 7th and hit his first home run on August 9th, but only batted .210 for the month.

Robinson Cano helped to pick up the slack, raising his average from .267 to .280 as the Mets worked to make up some ground in the playoff race down the stretch.

They dealt another blow when Noah Syndergaard was ruled out for 1-2 months with a broken wrist and was replaced by Michael Wacha, who was moved into the rotation from out of the bullpen.

Despite these injuries and setbacks, they had a strong start to the month, winning interdivisional series vs the Nationals, Phillies and Braves, but were swept by both the Angels and Athletics later in the month, and lost a 4 game series 1-3 against the Dodgers.

Overall, the Mets went 14-14 on the month, with their record sitting at 77-60 at the end of August, sitting second in the division, 6 games behind the Washington Nationals.

September

With the Nationals running away with the division, the Mets’ playoff hopes relied on earning a spot in the wildcard game. They received some offensive reinforcements with Yoenis Cespedes returning to the lineup on September 6th, helping to spark the offense.

On the month, the Mets went 16-10 and finished the 2020 season with a 92-70 record, a six-win improvement in their 2019 season. They finished the 2020 season tied for the 5th seed with the San Diego Padres, forcing a 163rd game to be played in New York to determine the spot in the Wildcard Game.

Led by a strong effort by starting pitcher Marcus Stroman and a 7th inning two-run home run by Yoenis Cespedes, the Mets won the game 6-5 and advanced to the Wild Card Game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

For the end of the year awards, Jacob deGrom, after going 21-4 with a 2.07 ERA with 294 Ks, winning his third consecutive Cy Young Award and his first NL MVP Award.

Additionally, Edwin Diaz had the second most saves among NL closers with 44 over 59 innings while recording a 2.14 ERA.

Pete Alonso finished the year as the team’s top offensive player, hitting 35 HR 89 RBI and batting .269. Michael Conforto was the second-best on the team, hitting 26 HR 79 RBI and batting .267.

After struggling last season, Robinson Cano rebounded nicely, hitting 15 HR 58 RBI and batting .278, and after missing over a year and a half of baseball, Yoenis Cespedes finished the season batting .251 with 17 HR and 51 RBI over 110 games.

Playoffs

The Mets entered their Wild Card Game with Milwaukee with the lineup as follows: Jeff McNeil RF, Amed Rosario SS, Michael Conforto CF, Pete Alonso 1B, Robinson Cano 2B, Yoenis Cespedes LF, JD Davis 3B, Salvador Perez C, Jacob deGrom P.

In an absolute nail bitter, Jacob deGrom started opposite Brandon Woodruff, with the game remaining scoreless until the top of the 7th Inning when Pete Alonso hit a Solo Home run off of Woodruff, making it 1-0 Mets. The Brewers answered back in the bottom of the 8th and scored the tying run against deGrom.

The score remained 1-1 until the top of the 11th until Amed Rosario drove in Jeff McNeil on a one-out double, and Edwin Diaz struck out the side in the bottom of the inning to close the game and advance the Mets to the divisional series for the first time in 5 years against the 107 win Los Angeles Dodgers.

In the NLDS, the Mets win the first game 4-2 in Los Angeles behind Marcus Storman, who gave up 2 runs in 6.2 innings. The Mets struggled in Game 2, losing 10-6, and in Game 3 they lose 1-0 after Andrew Miller gave up the game’s lone run in the 8th.

The Mets tied up the series in Game 4, winning 7-3 following 4 home runs in the game, one each from Rosario, Alonso Cespedes and Conforto respectively. Finally, in Game 5 in LA, Marcus Stroman pitches a 3 hit shutout and wins a 2-0 game, advancing the Mets to the NLCS.

Facing off against the division rivals and 2019 World Series Champion Washington Nationals, Steven Matz starts Game 1 and pitches well, but the Mets end up losing 3-2. The Mets win Game 2 of the NLCS 8-6 to tie up the series, but in Game 3 in NY, Porcello got lit up and the Nats won 7-0.

In Game 4 of the NLCS, the Nationals win by a score o 8-4, taking a 3-1 series lead. New York fought back in Game 5 winning 6-2 behind home runs by Cespedes and McNeil and tied up the series after winning Game 6 by a score of 5-4 following a start by deGrom, forcing a Game 7.

Sadly, it was not meant to be as Porcello started the game and gave up 5 runs in the first 3 innings and the Nats went on to win 5-2 and advanced to the World Series. The Yankees would go on to defeat the Nationals in 6 games.

Overall, this simulation of MLB the Show 20 has the better teams in the league. Winning 93 games and making it to the NLCS doesn’t quite meet the desired expectations, but it is a marked improvement from the previous year and the Mets do hang with some tough teams.

Hopefully, when the MLB season does eventually begin, the Mets exceed this simulation’s predictions.

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How far do you think the Mets will make it in the 2020 playoffs in the non-virtual world?