Not-Catch-Up Growth

Catch-up growth, also apparently known as compensatory growth, is when something grows especially quickly after a period of slowed growth. This is an idea in biology, but also in economics, which is where I encountered the term. The idea is that, heading into a recession, an economy might be growing at a certain fairly predictable linear trend. The recession then causes the economy to shrink, falling well behind its previous trend. In these situations, it is supposed to be possible for the economy to go through a brief period of extreme growth that would be unsustainable normally. What this does is get the economy back on its pre-recession trend, so that (in terms of GDP at the very least) the recession might as well never have happened. This is what isn't happening in the American economy right now: we're growing, but not fast enough to undo any of the damage from the recession.

I can think of a couple of examples of catch-up growth in baseball. Entering the 2008 season, Carlos Delgado had a .280/.386/.549 career batting line while averaging 38 home runs and 121 RBI's per 162 games. But through June 25th of that year, he was hitting just .229/.306/.396 with 11 home runs and 35 runs driven in over 75 games. Then, in a memorable game at Yankee Stadium as part of a cross-town double-header, he hit a two-run double, a three-run bomb, and a grand slam, tying the Mets club record for runs driven in in a single nine-inning game. Beginning with that game, he hit .308/.392/.626 with 27 home runs and 80 runs driven in over the season's last 84 games. Yeah, 80 RBI's in 84 games. He ended up with a .271/.353/.518 slash line in 2008, with 38 home runs and 115 RBI's in 159 games, in line with his career averages. But he wouldn't've gotten there without his amazing second-half run.

Likewise, entering the 2010 season Jose Reyes had a career .286/.337/.435 line, but through May 22nd, he was hitting just .211/.258/.277. But from that point until he got injured playing on a hideous astroturf field in Puerto Rico (and no, I still haven't forgiven Major League Baseball for that), he hit .354/.394/.583. After that, he was at .277/.321/.419, and he ended the season at .282/.321/.428, very much in line with his career averages. But he needed that month of amazing catch-up growth in order to get there.

Here's one subtle story of the Mets' recent offensive success this year that's gone kind of unnoticed. Well, mainly it's the story of why it's gone unnoticed. Entering this year, Josh Thole had a career .286/.357/.373 line; Angel Pagan had a career .285/.335/.435 line; and Jason Bay had a career .278/.374/.508 line. Through his injury that kept him out until late May, Pagan was hitting .159/.259/.246. Through May 21st Thole was hitting .205/.281/.241. And through June 13th, Bay was hitting just .207/.303/.273. But since those various points, Pagan's been hitting .305/.377/.418, Thole's hitting .329/.430/.438, and Bay's hitting .347/.405/.542. All of those are slightly better than their career lines, or what you might hope to get out of those players over a full season. But they're also not as ridiculous as what Delgado or Reyes did in their runs of catch-up growth. All three of these players still look like they're having a very disappointing year, and in a sense they are. For that reason, it doesn't really look like Bay, Pagan, or Thole are 'surging.' (Slightly different in Bay's case, since there's been so much attention on his struggles and any sign of his breaking out of this slump.)

But it's still a huge deal for the team. Sure, it'd be nice if one of them would decide to carry the team the way Delgado did after the break in '08, or Reyes did in June of '10. But hey, Reyes is kind of carrying the team already. What Pagan, Thole, and Bay have done is stopped being automatic outs. They're no longer black holes in the lineup. They are, more or less, themselves. And that is all they need to be. Remember, the point of the Mets entering this year was that Thole/Davis/Murphy/Reyes/Wright/Bay/Pagan/Beltran was, on paper, a very good offense. The problem was that all of them had question-marks. There were reasons to doubt all of them, although Wright and Davis perhaps less than the others. And those doubts were well-founded early in the season, as Thole, Wright, Bay, and Pagan all sucked. But it's still true that, on paper, that's a great offense. So if Thole, Bay, and Pagan can stop sucking, and just start being themselves anymore, that's plenty. It'll make the Mets a good team going forward, especially if Wright and/or Davis come back and play like themselves as well. Catch-up growth is very nice, it's flashy, and it gets attention. But unlike in the American economy as a whole, it's not what the Mets need. They just need nice, normal growth. Pagan, Thole, Bay, and, eventually, Wright don't need to play like people making up for a slump, they just need to play like people playing their normal games.