The Mets' Problem

I'm just perusing the advanced batting and pitching statistics for the Mets and a few things are jumping out at me at what they, as a team, are doing wrong. First, here's what the hitters are doing wrong. They're striking out too much, 21.3% of the time compared to a league average of 19%. They're not hitting enough line drives, 16% of balls in play compared to 18% for the league, and their fly balls are weak, with just 4.8% going for home runs compared to 7% as the league average (though you can chalk that up to CitiField in part, at least). They're not making productive outs, succeeding at that category just 28% of the time, well below league-average 35%, and they're not getting runners home from third with less than two outs. This is egregious: league average is 53%, and they're managing just 38%.

As for the pitchers, they're walking too many people (10.7% against 8.6% average) and they're giving up too many home runs, 9.4% of fly balls versus 7% on average. They're allowing opposing baserunners to run wild, allowing an 86% steal success rate compared to 75% average. Honestly, that's all I see from these advanced stats.

But the biggest thing that jumps out at me is that the Mets hitters have just a .286 batting average on balls in play, while the pitchers are sporting a nasty .338 BAbip. League average is .300. I have a feeling that if on both sides of the ball the Mets were doing average at this, it'd seem like a whole different season. Here's hoping the people who say that all BAbip numbers trend toward the mean rather aggressively as the season wears along are correct.