Projecting the 2011 Mets

There are, I think, three categories of players to consider when trying to guess how a team will change its performance from one year to the next: the players it has lost, the players it has gained, and the players who have stayed. The Mets have done a very good job of losing players, so far. If one assumes that neither Oliver Perez nor Luis Castillo will be on the team, then the Mets will have gotten 17 players who had negative WAR numbers last year off of their major league roster (except for two possible September call-ups), players who were worth a combined -7.7 WAR last year. So that's an eight-win improvement right there. Now, they've also let 9 players who had positive WAR numbers exit the team, players worth 4.6 total WAR (mainly from Hisanori Takahashi and Pedro Feliciano, a total of 2.1 WAR), so the net improvement from leaving players is a gain of 3.1 wins. That alone moves the Mets to 82 wins.

What of the players they have acquired? They are: Boof Bonser, Taylor Buchholz, Chris Capuano, D.J. Carrasco, Raul Chavez, Scott Hairston, Willie Harris, Ronny Paulino, Taylor Tankersly, and Chris Young. Most of these guys are what I'd call the process of having enough replacement-level players that the assumption of gaining from cutting guys with negative WAR numbers will hold. Last year (since I'm doing "last year" numbers) those players were worth, respectively, -0.1, 0.1, 0.8, 0.5, 0.5, -0.4, -0.8, 0.6, -0.4, and 0.9 WAR. That's a total of 1.7 WAR, meaning that a team with the players the Mets expect to have in 2011 would have won 4.8 more games in 2010 than the actual Mets of 2010 won, a.k.a. 83.8 wins.
Then we have the players the Mets continue to have. Actually, I'll expand this category to include all predictable changes in production from players the Mets expect to have in 2011.

Catchers (1.8 2010 WAR)

Josh Thole, 1.4 WAR
Ronny Paulino, 0.6 WAR
Mike Nickeas, -0.2 WAR

One can hope for an improvement from Thole, but I'm not sure you can really expect it. Nickeas probably won't see as much playing time, which might bump this position up to 2.0 expected WAR, which is the statutory average major-league starter level.

Expect: +0.2     Hope: +0.8

First Base (2.5 2010 WAR):

Ike Davis, 2.5 WAR

I think it's reasonable to hope for improvement here. I've been looking at rookie season numbers for guys like Mark Teixeira, Adrian Gonzalez, and Prince Fielder, and Ike looks about as good as all of they did in their rookie campaigns or better. Those guys are utterly established All-Stars who routinely produce at the 4 or 5 win level. Ike could make the same transformation. But I think it's too soon to expect that he will join their level of play already. No expected change. Improvement from Ike is one of the things that could help the Mets contend.

Expect: +0    Hope: +1

Second Base (-0.3 2010 WAR):

Daniel Murphy, 0 WAR
Brad Emaus, 0 WAR
Justin Turner, -0.3 WAR

If the Mets have a looming giant black hole (and they do!), it's second base. The Mets do not have a player who has demonstrated the ability to be a legitimate major league second baseman on their team. Emaus is a decent minor leaguer, and might pan out; Murphy might recover some of his offensive form and discover that he can handle a tougher position; Turner might turn out, as well. I think it might be reasonable to assume that the Mets can cobble together something like 1 WAR out of these players in 2011.

Expect: +0.5     Hope: +1.5

Shortstop (2.2 2010 WAR):

Jose Reyes, 2.2 WAR

This is a place for some serious improvement. In Reyes' four injury-free full seasons, '05-'08, he was worth an average of 4.5 WAR per year. And in his real heyday, '06-'08, he was worth 5.5 WAR per year. I think it's reasonable to expect a gain of 2 WAR from shortstop in 2011, and to hope for even more than that.

Expect: +2.0     Hope: +3.0

Third Base (3.9 2010 WAR):

David Wright, 3.9 WAR

Again, room for improvement. Over that same '05-'08 stretch when he and Reyes were at the top of their games, Wright was worth 5.8 WAR on average. But he's been so inconsistent and puzzling of late that I'm not sure one can do very much in the way of expecting improvement. Admittedly, since his first full season and including the oddnesses of '09 and '10, he's worth 5.0 WAR/year.

Expect: +0     Hope: +1

Left Field (1.1 2010 WAR):

Jason Bay, 1.1 WAR

Since he won his Rookie of the Year Award, but not including '10, Bay was worth 2.8 wins per year, which included one year when he just plain sucked. We should see improvement here just from having Bay play the whole season, and can hope that he pulls a Beltran and recovers from the power outage his first year in New York.

Expect: +0.7     Hope: +2

Center Field (1.8 2010 WAR):

Carlos Beltran, 1.8 WAR

I'm assuming Beltran's in center, since he's always been in center and his defense started to perk up late last year. Given that Carlos produced his +1.8 in just 255 at-bats, I think it's reasonable to expect that he'll show further improvement this year, and it's reasonable to hope, I think, that he'll do something resembling his past self (which was pretty damn good, at +5.3 WAR/year with the Mets before last year).

Expect: +1     Hope: +2.5

Right Field (4.8 2010 WAR):

Angel Pagan, 4.8 WAR

Here we come, unfortunately, to the one player where I think we have to expect a loss. Now, Pagan's plenty good, and it may well prove that he can keep something like his '10 production levels going, but I think that's a little beyond a rational expectation.

Expect: -1.5     Hope: 0

Through the starting lineup, we have an expected gain of 2.9 wins (which gets us to a total gain of 7.7 wins over 2010, for 86.7), and a hopeful gain of 11.8 wins, which would put us at 90.8 wins. That's probably a little overly optimistic as an upside estimate, since the odds of all eight positions fulfilling our unreasonable hopes are pretty low.

Bench (-0.3 2010 WAR):

Nick Evans, 0.2 WAR
Chin-lung Hu, -0.2 WAR
Zach Lutz, 0.0 WAR
Jordany Valdespin, 0.0 WAR
Lucas Duda, 0.0 WAR
Scott Hairston, -0.4 WAR
Willie Harris, -0.8 WAR
Raul Chavez, 0.5 WAR

I don't really think there's any reason to expect much improvement here; the bench is replacement-level, but most benches are replacement-level.

Expect: +0    Hope: +1

Starting Pitching (11.7 2010 WAR):

Johan Santana, 4.4 WAR
Mike Pelfrey, 2.5 WAR
Jon Niese, -0.3 WAR
R.A. Dickey, 3.4 WAR
Chris Capunao, 0.8 WAR
Chris Young, 0.9 WAR

Santana, who will be out for about half the year, I think one has to figure for a downgrade. For Pelfrey to stay at his '10 levels would be wonderful. I don't think one can really expect R.A. Dickey to do likewise. Neither Capuano nor Young was mainly starting last year, and it might be optimistic to expect them to be as flukishly good as they were last year. Niese, on the other hand, I think one can project for substantial improvement; he was going much stronger than he ended up, but faltered down the stretch as he got overworked and they didn't let him rest even though the team was miles out of contention. Overall:

Expect: -2/0/+1.5/-1/0/0 = -1.5      Hope: -1.5/+0.3/+2.5/0/0.5/1 = +2.8

Bullpen: (3.2 2010 WAR)

Francisco Rodriguez, 2.1 WAR
Bobby Parnell, 0.4 WAR
Manny Acosta, 0.6 WAR
Manny Alvarez, 0.0 WAR
Pedro Beato, 0.0 WAR
Boof Bonser, -0.1 WAR
Taylor Buchholz, 0.1 WAR
D.J. Carrasco, 0.5 WAR
Taylor Tankersly, -0.4 WAR
Armando Rodriguez, 0.0 WAR
Josh Stinson, 0.0 WAR

Uhhhh.....? Not sure about this, exactly. Maybe we could hope that Bobby Parnell improves a little bit; after all, his lousy '09 results were entirely about his sucking as a starter and he pitched 41 innings in AAA last year in addition to his 35 innings in the majors, so he might be able to get up to 1 full WAR next year. Not sure there's any particular reason to expect the remainder of the 'pen to improve any from its 0.7-WAR performance, though.

Expect: +0.5    Hope: +1.0

Total Expected Improvement:  +6.7 wins compared to 2010, for a total of 85.7 wins. Note that this is quite similar to the 87.74 wins that an algorithm of mine focused only on the front-line players (lineup, rotation, closer) produced. I don't think this is the kind of expectation going into the season that ought to make all Mets fans throw their hands in the air and say, oh well, this season will suck, but it's all in the service of 2012. No, the Mets aren't projected to do better than the Phillies, or to contend with the Phillies, but I'm not sure it makes them wildly out of the picture for, say, the Wild Card. The NL Wild-Card winner has had between 88 and 92 wins every year since 2003; if the Mets start with an expectation of 86-ish wins, it doesn't take a whole lot of overperforming to put them in contention. Notice that I were to get essentially all of my players to perform as I would hope, rather than as I expect, the Mets would be at more like 95.6 wins. And that isn't really "every player performing way above expectations," because I didn't give each player in the bullpen or bench a hopefulness boost. So I think the Mets could contend next year, at least for a wild-card spot.

What are the keys to making that happen? That is to say, what are some improvements that I don't think one can expect, exactly, but one can hope for and think might very well happen?

- Improvement from Ike and a rebound from Wright. I don't see any reason he couldn't become something like .280 average with 25-30 home runs and a similar number of doubles, and if he keeps up his good defense he could easily improve on his '10 performance significantly. Meanwhile, David Wright needs to get his batting average back to his career levels and not stay mired at .283. Improving his defense wouldn't hurt, either.

- Reyes, Bay, and Beltran staying healthy and productive, ideally at something like their typical levels. A lineup of Reyes/Pagan/Wright/Beltran/Bay/Davis is intimidating, but only if all of those players show up in something resembling their true forms. As best I know all three of them say they feel good. This just takes a little luck.

- Chris Young. In 2007 Young threw 173 inning with a 3.12 ERA, and the year before he threw 179 innings with a 3.46 and went 11-5. From '05 to '07 he averaged about 3 WAR per year. If he returns healthy and competent, he could actually be a big boost to a rotation that will be lacking a Mr. Santana for a couple of months.

- Dickey and Pagan to show that their 2010 selves were the real deal. If we could get 8.2 wins out of these two again, that would be huge. Neither has a track record of producing at that level, but Pagan's been money since he became an everyday player and Dickey has literally reinvented himself as a pitcher.

- An early, and hopefully dominant, Santana return. Dare we hope?

Of course, each could backfire: Ike could turn out to be a flash in the pan, Wright could have the power of '09 and the average of '10, Reyes, Bay and Beltran could continue to be injury-prone, Chris Young could be injury-prone, Pagan and Dickey could revert to prior mediocrity, and Santana could be out all year. If all of that happens, the Mets will be mired in the mid-to-low 70s in terms of wins. But if these big factors were all to break our way...