The Crane Pool Forum

So we’ve now played 10 extra inning games this season with 14 total innings played under the clown car rules [six 10 inning games and four 11 inning games]

Overall record: 3 - 7
Runs scored in extras: 8 RS / 23 RA

Innings with at least one run scored: Mets = 4
At least one scored by the opposition = 10

So think about this for a minute: even when given a gift runner in scoring position with no outs the Mets have only scored in 4-of-14 opportunities (28.5%) while being blanked in ten. The opponents, meanwhile, are the exact opposite: four half innings in which they didn’t score and ten where they did.

Mets have also given up five runs in an extra inning twice and three runs twice so in addition to all the one and two runs games they’ve played (17 one run games), there are four other games that don’t fit into those categories even though those games were tied at the end of regulation but they then went on to lose by three or more.


I don’t know what the overall league averages are but that 10-of-14 scoreless frames and 8 total runs in 14 tries has to rank well into the pathetic range and you’d almost have to reach that level simply by accident so that’s gotta be the floor this far into the season.

Don't fret.
Just when you think they've hit the floor and can't go any lower, they will.
I'm not sure whether it is approach they're being taught, inability to hit, or they really do just choke.
But something has to change.
Later

Just to beat this one into the ground a little bit more.

Given the 'Manfred Man' runner situation [runner on 2nd, no one out] a typical team should score at least one run
about 60% of the time (61.4% per 2010-2015 stats). And the average number of runs scored starting with the
gimmick rule is 1.1 RS/inning.

So given 14 extra innings a typical team will score in eight or nine of them [14 x .614 = 8.6]. Mets = 4, Opposition = 10
And the average number of runs score given 14 tries is between 15 and 16 [14 x 1.1 = 15.4]. Mets = 8, Opposition = 23

iow the Mets are producing extra innings runs this year about half as often as they should be and about half as many
while giving a lot more than expected.

Great analysis.

I felt like it was bad, but didn't realize it was this bad.

On top of everything else, this team seems to struggle making productive outs.

Centerfield wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:00 pm Great analysis.

I felt like it was bad, but didn't realize it was this bad.

Oh I haven't even finished yet.
There is yet still more ineptness and unclutchness to uncover and expose.

But that's an example of either (a) playing small ball very badly, or (b) eschewing small ball and doing badly at whatever the alternative strategy they deploy.

From my pov, it's been both, but more (b) than (a). They don't advance scorable runners through contact plays, don't particularly care to try very often, and mostly execute terribly the few times they have tried.

Or, boiled down to a simple phrase: it's inept hitting whether big, small, or somewhere in between.



And here's more of it.

RE24 sounds like campaign slogan shorthand, like maybe if my brother in law were running for President this year. His initials are
R.E. and he'd make a much better President than either of the two currently stumbling towards that job ... but I digress.

RE24 is actually a Sabermetric term which measures a hitter's ability to produce runs based on the 24 runner/out situations* in which
he comes to bat. Smith may have more RBI than Perez and also more 'clutch hits' on his hi-light reel but if he -- due to his usual
spot in the lineup, or the prowess of the hitters ahead of him, or via just plain luck -- comes to the plate with a lot more traffic
on the bases as compared to Perez then maybe he's actually pulling less than his share of the load rather than more.

So this works similar to the above mini-analysis: how many runs Should Lindor be creating given the totality and the specifics
of all his ABs. A positive number means a hitter is driving in more than what should be expected given the specifics of his ABs.
A negative number represents fewer runs plated than expected. Zero is average, that you have driven in exactly what you should
be expected to drive in based on the sum of all your situational runner/out ABs.


So without further ado. Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2024 New York Mets:

B. NIMMO	12.9
DJ STEWART	3.7
M. VIENTOS	2.0
S. MARTE	-1.0
P. ALONSO	-1.4
F. ALVAREZ	-1.8
JD MARTINEZ	-2.4
T. TAYLOR	-4.4
T. NIDO	-5.1
B. BATY	-6.0
H. BADER	-6.1
F. LINDOR	-6.9
O. NARVAEZ	-7.5
J. McNEAL	-8.4

As you can see, only Nimmo, Stewart, and Vientos are in the black and of course only Nimmo is a sizable sample size.
Stewart has about half Nimmo's plate appearances and Vientos a lot fewer than that.
So what this basically confirms it what I've been muttering on IGTs all season: that we suck with runners on.

Now, like the extra inning thing, this is as much a case of being below average hitters as a whole as it is about 'clutchitude'.
When you're notching 4 - 6 hits a night it's not like you're going hog-wild with the bases empty either. And bases empty
stats are one of the 24 runners/outs situations so are included in the numbers shown.

The composite of that chart is 32.4 fewer runs created than what would be expected by average-ness across all ABs, and it's
actually a bit lower than that as I left off a few of the short-timers just for brevity sake but they weren't helping matters either.


Surprises? Not a lot.
As Keith & Gary mentioned often this year, it's not often when your leadoff hitter, as Nimmo was for much of the games,
leads the team in RBI, but hitting well with runners on certainly helps create that oddity. Maybe Bader being so low? But
that's the fallacy of remembering his handful of game tying or winning hits at the expense of a whole lotta ABs of less
obvious importance but still ones where failure to drive in ducks on the pond maybe didn't cut a deficit earlier or failed
to pad a lead that was later lost.






* These are the eight possible runner scenarios: bases empty, runner only on 1st, only 2nd, only 3rd, 1st & 2nd, 1st & 3rd, 2nd & 3rd, loaded,
and each of those with 0 outs, 1 out, or 2 outs. Since each of those situations has a specific potential you can measure how each batter is reaching or
not reaching that expected potential

One who surprised me one was Bader.
I would have guessed, based on the number of key runs he's driven in, that his number would have been higher.
The others look consistent with the eye test.

Later

MFS62 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 3:16 pm One who surprised me one was Bader.
I would have guessed, based on the number of key runs he's driven in, that his number would have been higher.

But, again, this takes in the totality of Bader's ABs which, as the numbers imply, more than negatively compensate
for the handful of hi-light ones.


And as I type this Lindor & Baty flail in consecutive ABs with runners on 1st & 2nd. Those ABs count too even if it's not the 9th

Frayed Knot wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 6:17 pm

MFS62 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 3:16 pm One who surprised me one was Bader.
I would have guessed, based on the number of key runs he's driven in, that his number would have been higher.

But, again, this takes in the totality of Bader's ABs which, as the numbers imply, more than negatively compensate
for the handful of hi-light ones.


And as I type this Lindor & Baty flail in consecutive ABs with runners on 1st & 2nd. Those ABs count too even if it's not the 9th

For me, this is in part, because I expect Bader to fail. Knowing that he's not a great hitter. So when he hits, it's that much more memorable.

But does RE24 measure a skill? Or randomness? Luck?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2024 6:24 pm But does RE24 measure a skill? Or randomness? Luck?

It certainly measures the result of skill, of execution, of success at creating runs.
If it's randomness/luck then there'd be no consistency to it as sample sizes get larger.
But poor hitting teams are going to have bad scores in these measures and the Mets
have that both collectively and, almost without exception, individually.

Wouldn't you have to believe that clutch hitting is a skill in order to believe that RE24 measures a skill?

No, because it's not clutch hitting that's contained in those numbers it's ALL hitting.

So is clutch hitting. A batter who didn't get a hit in a so-called clutch situation didn't get a clutch hit.

Okay. I shouldn't have used "clutchness" because RE24 accounts for all 24 of the base/out possibilities, even when runners aren't in scoring position, or even on base.

But still: two batters each go one for two, tripling and striking out. All plate appearances are with two outs. All plate appearances are with the bases empty except one of the triples, which occurs with the bases loaded. The batter that tripled with the bases loaded and two outs has a higher RE24 than the other batter, who tripled with the bases empty and two outs. Both batters did the same thing but their RE24's aren't the same.

Each will get credited or debited based on the run expectancy in both the bases loaded ABs and the bases empty ABs.

The 3B w/bases loaded has a much higher run expectancy and therefore will get credited only with the difference between
what he did and the typical amount from that situation. The bases empty 3B also gets a positive score because his team's
run expectancy also went up more than what is expected.

Frayed Knot wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2024 7:51 pm Each will get credited or debited based on the run expectancy in both the bases loaded ABs and the bases empty ABs.

The 3B w/bases loaded has a much higher run expectancy and therefore will get credited only with the difference between
what he did and the typical amount from that situation. The bases empty 3B also gets a positive score because his team's
run expectancy also went up more than what is expected.

I edited my last post. Did you respond to the edited or unedited post?

OE -- Not that it matters much. I didn't change it substantively. I sinlpy clarifed a point.

The two out three run triple is worth approx. 2.6 in RE24. The two out bases empty triple is worth about 0.3 or 0.4 in RE24. See what I mean?

But the run potential going in are different between the two situations so the batter is credited with how much he exceeded, or didn't, the expectation.

Frayed Knot wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2024 8:17 pm But the run potential going in are different between the two situations so the batter is credited with how much he exceeded, or didn't, the expectation.

I get that. And it's accounted for in the 2.6 and 0.3 or 0.4 RE24's in my previous post. A batter has nothing to do with how many runners are on base when he bats. That's all total sheer luck from the batter's perspective. The three run tripler greatly exceeds the run expectation for that situation. The batter who bats with the bases empty couldn't exceed run expectation like the three run tripler did even if he hits the ball 25,000 feet all the way into the next zip code.

So two batters do the exact same thing: they each hit two out triples. Yet one batter's RE24 score is almost 10x the other batter's.