Mets: Three important lessons the team had to learn in 2020

The New York Mets struggles that occurred in 2020 can be attributed to three key lessons they can learn from this offseason.

There was plenty for the New York Mets to learn about themselves even in a truncated season that felt anything but normal. Despite there being no crowds at the ballpark, players who are not playing sitting in the stands, or even members of the organization having to undergo consistent Covid-19 testing before being allowed at the ballpark, at the end of the day it was still the beautiful game of baseball between the lines.

The Mets ultimately fell short of the postseason for the fourth season in a row and there were a few factors that led to another disappointing season that was once filled with hope and promise during summer camp in July. Taking Yoenis Cespedes and Marcus Stroman’s departures out of the equation the Mets still had a team built to contend for the division title this season, but too many ugly common themes reared their ugly head throughout the season.

The Mets were unable to build off the momentum that carried them at the end of the 2019 campaign and had many analysts around baseball believing the Mets were a legitimate threat to win the National League East. Not all hope is lost, however, as the Mets have a young nucleus of players, the best pitcher in baseball, and a new owner coming into town that’s going to spend big to win.

But going back to this past season, I wanted to look into three key lessons that the Mets can learn from this past campaign in terms of the glaring issues that consistently plagued the ballclub throughout the 60 game season. With the Mets learning from these lessons and correcting them they can establish themselves as the contenders that we all believed in coming into this season.

Lesson #1: Starting Rotation Depth Is Important

Going into Spring Training this season the Mets were praised for building starting rotation depth in the offseason with the additions of veteran starting pitchers Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha. There was even a point in time where we were debating whether Michael Wacha or Steven Matz would be the fifth starter as there was almost too much starting pitching on this team.

All of that would be for naught as the Mets Achilles heal this season ended up being their depth in the starting rotation. Noah Syndergaard ended up undergoing Tommy John surgery in March, and Marcus Stroman would end up opting out of playing this season due to Covid-19 concerns, which put the Mets down two quality starting pitchers at the top of their rotation. That left a starting rotation behind Jacob deGrom with little room for error.

Unfortunately, Steven Matz had the worst statistical season of his career and heads into the offseason with more questions than answers. Both Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha were unable to give the team quality innings this season and taxed the bullpen many times during each of their starts. Fortunately, our hulking rookie southpaw David Peterson was able to provide the organization with a glimmer of hope after posting a 3.44 ERA over nine starts this season and one appearance out of the bullpen.

The lesson to be learned here is that the Mets had no quality options to turn to within the organization after realizing the starting rotation was struggling. Yes, the Mets did turn to hybrid reliever Seth Lugo to make some starts down the stretch that came along with a large mixed bag of results and weakened the Mets bullpen in general. Robert Gsellman was also inserted into the rotation from the bullpen and largely struggled before going down with a season-ending injury.

Most of the Mets’ upper minors pitching depth has been depleted by trades over the past two seasons, and besides David Peterson, the Mets don’t have a young starting pitcher ready to take the reigns of a rotation spot in the short term. This is an issue that needs correcting.

You can never have too much pitching, and of course, the Mets could’ve never predicted both Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman both missing the season. But there was no depth built in the minors after David Peterson and there were no other starting-caliber pitchers brought in as reinforcements during summer camp to strengthen the rotation depth, especially when Stroman went down with a calf injury.

The front office this offseason is tasked with rebuilding not only the starting rotation but the depth that comes along with it to build a contender.

Lesson #3: Situational Hitting Is Key

Many around baseball had known that the Mets were equipped with numerous offensive weapons and came into the 2020 season with as deep of a starting lineup as any team in baseball, with or without Yoenis Cespedes. For the most part, the Mets offense met expectations by leading the Majors in team batting average. The Mets also were second in the MLB in on-base percentage and third overall in hits and OPS. To put the icing on the cake the Mets were fourth overall in team slugging percentage as well.

But that is not where the problem lies for this ballclub. The Mets were one of the worst teams in baseball when it came to situational hitting and driving runners in on base. Despite the gaudy offensive numbers the Mets were 13th in baseball in average runs scored per game at 4.77 and were dead last in the league in driving in runners in scoring position.

The Mets as a whole hit .245 with runners in scoring position, and I hate to single any one player out as this was a collective failure among the offense, but Wilson Ramos hit .139 in 38 plate appearances with runners in scoring position this season. That is unacceptable, especially in a shortened season.

When your team ranks at the top or near the top of all of the offensive leaderboards and you are struggling to put runs on the board there is a fundamental issue at hand. It has been said multiple times that many players missed having hitting coach Chilli Davis in the dugout with them this season, and maybe that was part of the reason the team could not execute with runners on the basepaths as adjustments weren’t being made quickly enough. Or maybe it was simply bad luck?

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Bad luck or no bad luck it’s an area that needs to be addressed this upcoming Spring Training. In an abbreviated season where the Mets starting pitching was ravaged by inconsistency, the offense was unable to pick them up on most nights when needed. If the Mets could’ve just even been in the middle of the pack in terms of driving runners in this season, the Mets would be playing October baseball.