Your biggest Met blind spot?

[Frayed Knot]

I missed most or all of the Gary Mathews Jr. hours as a Met.

[Edgy MD]

Dude was an Opening Day starter! How do you sit out Opening Day?!

[Centerfield]

Some trends.

*A lot of us lost touch with the Mets when we went away to college, or moved away from NYC. A lot of us didn't have cable during that time. I wonder if kids these days will have gaps like that. Most follow on the internet. And the internet is everywhere.

*We lose touch with the Mets when we're chasing girls. Then we settle down. Get married. Then come back to the Mets.

[Edgy MD]

I was fortunate to go to school within the New York Mets broadcast area. And, I would guess, was pretty fortunate to have survived school while following the Mets.

That said, your theory dovetails with my experience, as the guy who I noted above as somebody I missed was from my college years.

[whippoorwill]

ు

[Gwreck]

Dude was an Opening Day starter! How do you sit out Opening Day?!

In fairness, that was the worst opening day lineup the Mets had trotted out since…the early 1980s?

[Edgy MD]

Maybe, but they somehow won in a walk, 7–1.

That's a good project, though — measuring the quality of Opening Day lineups as they stood in the moment. The lineup that backed Tom Seaver in 1983 was pretty wacky, but they beat the eventual pennant-winning Phils 2-0. The Phils were old and had to shake the rust off.

[batmagadanleadoff]

The lineup that backed Tom Seaver in 1983 was pretty wacky, but they beat the eventual pennant-winning Phils 2-0. The Phils were old and had to shake the rust off.

Oh c'mon. Go and watch a Twilight Zone rerun or something. That was one game. One. One baseball game where dumb luck typically has an outsized effect on the final score. Are you gonna micro-analyze that game to the 1,000th degree to come up with some grand thesis on why the Mets won? And make up your mind: Were the Phillies too old to compete or good enough to play in the World Series?

[Edgy MD]

Wait until you see the analysis of Doug Sisk's biorhythms.

[Gwreck]

That's a good project, though — measuring the quality of Opening Day lineups as they stood in the moment.

I was thinking about that as well. Maybe some calculation of WAR — an even weighting of the prior season’s WAR and the WAR achieved during that season? Open to suggestions though.

[MFS62]

I was thinking about that as well. Maybe some calculation of WAR — an even weighting of the prior season’s WAR and the WAR achieved during that season? Open to suggestions though.

I don't think WAR would be a good measure of the older lineups because the managers in those days wouldn't have been using WAR to set their lineups. WAR didn't exist, did it? It would have to be some combination or subset of the traditional stats in use at the time. What about fantasy measures - one point for each base, run, RBI and SB that they accumulated the prior year?

Later

[Edgy MD]

It doesn't matter what the manager had available to him. What matters is who had the best or worst lineup by some objective measure.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Wait until you see the analysis of Doug Sisk's biorhythms.

Who cares? Years ago, I scored Sisk's mood ring on ebay.

[Gwreck]

It doesn't matter what the manager had available to him. What matters is who had the best or worst lineup by some objective measure.

Preliminary results are that 2004 is a leading contender for worst opening day lineup in the last 40 seasons.

The 9 players in that lineup had a net 5.6 WAR in 2004 (4.0 of which belonged to Glavine); and only had 12.3 WAR collectively in the prior year.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Ah the Karim Garcia Era. Who needed Vlad Guererro? Let's put Reyes at 2B and Matsui at SS! Bring on Shane Spencer!

[Benjamin Grimm]

All I remember about Karim Garcia is that he was caught urinating in public somewhere. Him and somebody else. They were then called "The Whiz Kids".

[MFS62]

It doesn't matter what the manager had available to him. What matters is who had the best or worst lineup by some objective measure.

So, he asked for suggestions of what that measure could be. I gave mine. What's would you use?
Later

[Gwreck]

All I remember about Karim Garcia is that he was caught urinating in public somewhere. Him and somebody else. They were then called "The Whiz Kids".

Shane Spencer. My recollection is that they got into an altercation with someone at the business Garcia (?) was urinating in front of.

[metirish]

Duffy's Bar , next to Big Apple Pizza

Both are still operating in PSL

[Edgy MD]

It doesn't matter what the manager had available to him. What matters is who had the best or worst lineup by some objective measure.

Preliminary results are that 2004 is a leading contender for worst opening day lineup in the last 40 seasons.

The 9 players in that lineup had a net 5.6 WAR in 2004 (4.0 of which belonged to Glavine); and only had 12.3 WAR collectively in the prior year.

That is an excellent data capture.

I wish we were able to get ZIPS projections on past seasons. Part of what I want to see is who the worst lineup was in the moment. Roberto Alomar 2002 may have been a disaster, with a 0.6 WAR, but coming off an MVP-quality 7.3-WAR season, nobody at the time would have thought he would that close to the cliff.

Elliott Maddox 1979, however, in right field on opening day, was never going to be the answer in any timeline.

[Gwreck]

2002 doesn’t quite fare as badly in this metric, because while Alomar was a bust, Alfonzo and Payton had big bounceback years compared to 2001.

1992 was pretty bad though. Starting lineup that year produced 8.0 WAR (5.2 of it for David Cone) versus a collective 22.1 the year prior.

2001, 2009, 2016, 2023 are also (no surprise) years of significant underperformance.

[metirish]

I know they were not good, but that period of the early 2000s was a favorite time in my Mets fandom , there could be many reasons for this , but I really enjoyed it