The weirdest NY Mets projections might be who leads the team in plate appearances

This is the time of year when baseball fans start doing dangerous things. Lineup cards get imagined. Seasons get simulated. Projections get treated like prophecy. With spring still out of reach, everyone needs something to chew on, so numbers get poked and stretched until a future starts to feel real. Recently, for the New York Mets, that annual exercise usually brings comfort. This time, it does not.

If you look at the FanGraphs Mets plate appearance projections, the result does not line up with how this lineup is supposed to work. The Mets have already pointed to Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, and Bo Bichette at the top of the order. Those spots are designed to win the plate appearance race. Somehow, the projection skipped the obvious answer and picked a fight with common sense.

Somehow, the Mets’ projected plate appearance leader is Marcus Semien

Carlos Mendoza has already hinted that he can see what the top three of the Mets lineup will look like. It was not framed as a mystery or an experiment. It sounded like a plan. Lindor. Soto. Bichette. Those are the hitters built to start innings and stack plate appearances by default. When FanGraphs projects a different Mets player leading the team in trips to the plate, it immediately clashes with that vision.

That is why Mets fans are hoping this projection stays theoretical. One clean way Marcus Semien ends up leading the team in plate appearances is by moving to the top of the lineup. And if that happens, it likely means the original order was not cutting it. Teams do not reshuffle the top of the lineup when things are working. That kind of move usually comes after early innings stop producing runs.

The other path to this projection is even less comforting. FanGraphs has Francisco Lindor projected for 139 games and Juan Soto for 138. That is more than 20 missed games for each, despite neither playing fewer than 150 games in the last four seasons. These are everyday players, not managed stars. Shaving that much availability off the top of the order is a big reason the plate appearance math flips.

That is what gives this projection its bad-omen feel. Semien leading the Mets in plate appearances is not about him. It is about what has to go wrong for it to happen. Either the lineup gets reshuffled because it isn't producing, or the stars aren't on the field as often as expected. Mets fans are free to laugh this off now. They just do not want to see it start making sense later.