New York Mets: Is Their Outfield Defense That Big of a Deal?

The New York Mets added National League RBI leader Jay Bruce at Monday’s deadline, and the talking point that came from this addition was whether or not the addition of Bruce, paired with some combination of Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson and Michael Conforto in the outfield, would offset the offense he provides because of the poor defense the team now exhibits in the outfield.

Heading into Tuesday’s game, the Mets ranked 19th in baseball in outfield defense per FanGraphs, and while defensive metrics aren’t as widely accepted as WAR or even wRC+, they do tend to be pretty accurate. At the top of the list, by a wide margin no less, are the Chicago Cubs, followed by the Royals, Rangers and Astros. Each one of these teams has at least one player that can convince you that they belong in the upper echelon of defensive outfields.

Instead, the Mets have continued to add power bats to their outfield, as their sluggers have accumulated 57 homers without Bruce, good for fourth in baseball, and accumulated a .188 ISO, which ranks fifth.

Bruce brings his 25 home runs this season to an already homer happy outfield, and has an ISO of .295, ranking him fourth in the game behind David Ortiz, Jake Lamb and Trevor Story. Even with these impressive offensive statistics, Bruce only has a 0.7 WAR this season which is undoubtedly because of the defense he provides.

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With this in mind, I wanted to take a look at which pitchers on the roster could do the best job of limiting the outfield chances for any given trio the Mets decide to roll with. I looked at strikeouts per nine innings and ground ball rates, both of which really shouldn’t result in a misplay in the outfield.

The pitchers that lead the team in both categories should come as no surprise:

Jeurys Familia: GB rate: 62.9%, K/9: 9.24

Noah Syndergaard: GB rate: 50.8, K/9: 10.95

Steven Matz: GB rate: 50.3, K/9: 8.44

Jacob deGrom: GB rate: 46.4, K/9: 8.71

These four pitchers represent the first three starters of a potential playoff series and the one arm in the bullpen that Terry Collins will be looking to use any chance he gets. That’s the good news. The not so good news is that Bartolo Colon and Logan Verrett both have ground ball percentages just over 44% and strikeout roughly six per nine frames, meaning more fly balls for the outfielders.

Addison Reed and his 1.97 ERA (1.90 FIP) comes in third among the arms in the bullpen behind Familia and the newly re-acquired Jon Niese (53.0) at 41.3 percent, while his strikeout rate of 11.44 this season is the best on the club.

It gets more tricky from there. Both Hansel Robles and Jerry Blevins have high strikeout percentages at 10.41 and 10.16, but their ground ball rates of 27.9 and 39.1 mean a lot of outs will be made in the air. This will likely result in some late-inning defensive replacements for marginal upgrades. All in all, it appears as though there may be enough upside to work with from the pitching staff and some clever managerial decisions to make Bruce’s offensive upside outweigh the Mets defensive capabilities in the outfield.

The Mets rank third in the NL in home runs with 135, behind only the Cardinals (143) and Nationals (139). With the pitching staff that New York boasts, the threat of the home run could be enough to cobble together enough wins to earn a playoff spot.

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Adding another power bat also makes the lineup deeper, which gives protection to players like Cespedes and Conforto (if he gets moved up a spot or two), which should give the Mets offense, which ranks 28th in baseball in runs scored, a jolt over the final two months. Outside of Neil Walker, Conforto and Cespedes, nobody else in the Mets lineup has a WAR over 1.0, but with some mixing and matching, the Mets could have a slightly more productive lineup, and slight upgrades could be the difference between making the playoffs and watching from home.

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