3 surprising negative stat leaders from the 2022 team

In preparation for the coming year, I’ve been looking over a lot of what the New York Mets did in 2022. Every so often something will catch my attention. This time some negative statistics did the trick.

Many of us can recall who led the team in some of the positive statistics. Pete Alonso had more home runs and RBI than anyone else. Chris Bassitt pitched the most innings. Jeff McNeil led the team and all of Major League Baseball in batting average.

What about those statistics we try to ignore? You may not have realized it but these three Mets led the team in a negative statistic you may not have predicted they could if they tried.

1) Starling Marte led the 2022 NY Mets in double plays grounded into

Starling Marte led the Mets with 18 stolen bases, but he also grounded into more double plays than anyone else on the team. His 18 GDP beat Pete Alonso by one. A pair of additional shockers: Tomas Nido had 14 and Luis Guillorme had 15 despite each being part-time players.

2) Francisco Lindor led the 2022 NY Mets in strikeouts

Not as jaw-dropping but still a surprise, Francisco Lindor led the team in strikeouts with 133 of them. This was a close race. The guy you might have guessed would lead the team, Alonso, had 128. He was actually only third with Eduardo Escobar taking second-place. He fanned 129 times. In this instance, Lindor having more plate appearances than anyone else is a part of the cause.

3) Adam Ottavino led the 2022 NY Mets in wild pitches

Adam Ottavino was brilliant for the Mets out of the bullpen. His 7 wild pitches still led the team. It was significantly more than any other relief pitcher. No one else had more than 2. Chris Bassitt and Carlos Carrasco each had 5. Amazingly, Taijuan Walker didn’t have a single wild pitch. Ottavino somehow still managed to have a walk rate of 2.2 per 9 despite the wild pitches. This was the best ratio among any Mets pitcher with 10 or more innings not named Jacob deGrom or Max Scherzer.