The Mets Lineup, a Carousel of Confusion

I think we all need to give Carlos Mendoza a ton of credit for constantly shifting the lineup around in order to best get results. Especially considering that nearly every hitter on the team has been extremely streaky all season. Outside of Francisco Lindor (who is still a very legitimate NL MVP Candidate) in the leadoff spot, has anybody cemented their specific spot in the lineup? Brandon Nimmo was having a career year up until the All-Star Break, and has be a non factor the entire last month. Francisco Alvarez had us all chanting “Extension” in June, and has been cold as ice for a concerning amount of time at the plate. JD Martinez was a massive breath of fresh air when he finally arrived, however since June his power has seemingly vanished.

On the flip side Pete Alonso (yes I’m writing positively about Pete Alonso, it does happen) has looked much more like himself recently. Mark Vientos has probably been the most consistent player on the team all season not named Francisco Lindor (Seriously who saw that one coming in the offseason?). And Jeff McNeil went from an automatic out to the most productive player in the lineup since the all-star break.

Time to look at the stats because it is staggering when you look at just how streaky this team has been, I don’t know if I’ve ever quite seen anything like it. Starting off with Jeff McNeil, who up until the break was pretty universally considered the weakest link in the Mets lineup. Over the last 30 days, he has a 1.031 OPS. Nobody else on the Mets has an OPS above .900 in that time period. Continuing to use that time frame, McNeil has 7 HR in the last 30 days. That’s more than JD Martinez (2), Brandon Nimmo (1), Francisco Alvarez (1), Jesse Winker (0) and Harrison Bader (0) combined! Perhaps letting Jeff take a different approach to the one that made him so successful against shift heavy defenses in 2019 and 2022 is exactly what he needed in order to get going. Pete is having his best month of the season outside of when the whole team became prime Bonds in June, and would arguably have even more impressive numbers if the hitters often placed in front of him (Martinez, Nimmo, Winker) were getting on base. I don’t regret my prior article(s) about Pete, I still believe he has maturing to do and they will need this level of production out of him through September if they want to survive what will be a photo finish in the NL Wildcard race. With that being said, credit where it’s due, he’s been much better at the plate as of recently.

JD Martinez hasn’t been awful, a .719 OPS over the last 30 days is passable. But oh man, where has the power gone? He only has 8 doubles and 3 HR since July 1st, and given that he’s always batting in the middle of the lineup and is the default DH you need more production than that. His numbers with runners on for the season are still strong, but it is certainly concerning that the aging Martinez has seen a considerable drop in power at the exact time the Mets need him to turn it on. Jesse Winker I’ve actually thought has been alright since we brought him over. The numbers don’t show it, particularly because of his lack of extra base hits, but he’s been taking extremely strong at bats and I expect the numbers to come around. The problem once again is that he’s batting in the middle of the lineup nightly, and you can’t have your 3 or 5 hole hitter being a singles machine. Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Alvarez are probably the two guys on this team I like the most behind Lindor so believe me I am trying to look for any positives in their recent performance but man has it been rough. Nimmo has a .495 OPS over the last 30 days, Alvarez .472. They have a combined 6 extra base hits over that time period, two of which being home runs. And once again over that same period Alvarez has a total of 12 hits, you have seen 12 Francisco Alvarez hits in the last 30 days, 10 of them being singles. Alvarez has dealt with some injuries this season, is still only 22 years old, was fairly streaky last season and is still brilliant behind the plate, so this feels more like very rough growing pains to me personally rather than an area of genuine concern. I still see him as a guy with 30 HR potential, he’s taken some of the best and gutsiest at bats of the past two seasons, the moment he puts it all together he is going to be nasty. I struggle with Nimmo’s slump, mostly because I can’t understand what happened. His at bats have been absolutely poor, the power seems to have completely vanished and he just looks completely lost. I personally feel that bunching Nimmo, Martinez and Winker at the top of the lineup nightly is only adding to their cold stretches and the need to produce.

So let’s say the Mets consider re-shuffling the lineup again, how would I arrange things? Let’s remember I am a 22 year old hopeful journalist and not a professional baseball manager, this would be my lineup for the rest of August to see if it sticks.

1. Lindor SS

2. Iglesias 2B

3. Vientos 3B

4. Alonso 1B

5. Martinez DH

6. Nimmo CF

7. McNeil LF

8. Winker RF

9. Alvarez C

Lindor has been absolutely brilliant in the leadoff spot, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Iglesias never going to charm the analytics and placing him at the bottom of the lineup to hit a single around Francisco Alvarez and Harrison Bader is in my opinion a huge missed opportunity for what his skill set as a hitter brings you. Placing Iglesias in the 2 hole makes his nearly nightly hit per game much more valuable as he can advance the speedy Lindor, and give you a duck on the pond for the power bats behind him. Mark Vientos has just been absolutely brilliant this year and nobody deserves their flowers more than him after being written off by nearly everybody as a career AAA player. I keep waiting for his bat to come back down to earth a bit, but he’s just a really good hitter. The Mets have been toying with moving him up in the lineup and I personally love having Vientos and Lindor in the top 3 of the lineup, give your best guys more at bats and allow yourself to take 1st inning leads that had been a prominent feature of previous successful Mets seasons. Alonso clearly wants to be the 4 hole hitter and if he’s starting to come around, I don’t want to mess with it. Martinez in spite of his power struggles as of recent still has a very good track record, is a seasoned vet and continues to be strong with RISP. Batting him behind Pete not only protects Pete in the lineup, but gives the Mets another RBI machine behind Alonso in spots where Pete doesn’t come through. Demoting Nimmo to the 6 hole was easily the roughest part of this lineup shift but I’m building on possibly my favorite 1-2 punch in recent Mets history and expanding on it.

By far my favorite part of watching the Mets in the early months of 2022 was Jeff McNeil and Mark Cahna batting back to back. Both were just colossal pain in the asses for the opposing pitching and put up frustrating at bat after frustrating at bat, and it was beautiful. I still cannot for the life of me figure out why Buck stopped batting them together, but I see a similar potential with this current Mets group. As I mentioned earlier in the article, I’ve quite liked Winker’s at bats even if the results aren’t there yet. Brandon Nimmo has an elite eye at the plate, and Jeff McNeil at his best (which it feels so nice to say he’s showing right now) has incredible bat to ball skills. Putting 3 guys back to back who put up frustrating at bats (and all in different ways, Nimmo with the patience, McNeil’s ability to foul off everything and Winkers mix of both) allows the Mets to have productive innings even when they don’t put up runs by running up a starters pitch count. I placed McNeil below Nimmo because he’s mentioned prefering being lower in the lineup, and I put Winker in the 8 hole not as an indication of any lack of production but actually the opposite. Winker is a hitter that thrives in big spots, he likes the spotlight and he likes having guys on base. Putting him behind Nimmo and McNeil gives him a really good chance to have ducks on the pond and we could start seeing some of those clutch hits we were looking for from Winker. As for Alvarez in the 9 hole, this may at first seem like a situation of “where else were you going to put him” but this placement is also intentional. Alvarez batting behind Nimmo, McNeil and Winker allows him to hopefully see a lot of pitches from the opposing pitcher before his at bats, not only allowing him to be better prepared but also potentially facing a pitcher who’s used up his best stuff already in the inning. On the flip side, having Lindor follow his spot in the lineup will allow Alvarez to see better pitches and start to work on fixing his approach at the plate. Bader being on the bench allows you not only a late inning defensive replacement but also a pinch runner in situations late in games where you need a run.

I’d love to hear what you all think about the current state of the Mets offense and how you’d shake things up, and thank you as always for reading, take care.