Small Sample Size Theater Presents: David Wrongz and the Mets’ Success in Games He Has Not Played.

Tonight I was wondering about the Mets’ two most recent wins, which were both in games in which David Wright did not play. While reviewing his stats on Baseball Reference I came up with an interesting point. While David in his 134 appearances this year has a slash line of .292/.363/.507 and an OPS nearing his career high, in the four games he has not played his slash line is an abysmal .000/.000/.000. Clearly something is wrong in the way that the Mets are utilizing Wright in games he has not played. However, just in case this is a problem personal to Wright I checked other members of the Coar to see how they have fared.

Answer: not well. Jose Reyes features a surprisingly similar slash line of .000/.000/.000 in the games he has not played, a figure no higher than that of known duds Jeff Francoeur and Luis Castillo, and infinitely worse than he has posted in his approximately 3,000 PAs from 2005-2009. Because an argument can be made that for each of these players the number of non-appearances may be too small to have any actual statistical significance, I decided to run these numbers on two players more notable for their absence than their presence. Interestingly, even Oliver Perez and Nick Evans feature that slash line in their non-appearances, though oddly Perez appears to feature a WAR of -17.8 when not playing, apparently due to the deleterious effect on other players’ performance when the clubhouse freezer’s supply of soft-serve has been exhausted. Evans’ failings in this regard are mysterious, but it would be a question to pose to him should his whereabouts ever be determined.

Clearly Howard Johnson and the Mets coaching staff have a few things to explain about this. Since it is clearly the responsibility of casually obsessive fans to do their job for them, I attempted to analyze how Wright and Reyes react to a variety of pitches while not playing. Below is an analysis of what Wright and Reyes' pitch result are in these games, as well as the appropriate Keith Hernandez reactions. 

Wright: 

via www.themightymjd.com

[Source]

Reyes: 

[Source]

As you can see from the above graphics, both Wright and Reyes want nothing to do with batting when they are not playing. They have failed to hit any pitches thrown their way, and feature horrific contact ratios against fastballs, curves, sliders, and any every other type of pitch included in this analysis. On the plus side, their plate discipline appears to be strong in these instances, as they have taken all such pitches without registering as much as a single swing on pitches thrown outside of the zone. But that upside is merely fleeting; yes, it gets worse. Neither Wright nor Reyes made a single put-out on any ball hit to them in games in which they did not appear, leading to a fielding percentage of .000, well below the number we would reasonably expect from our best infielders. While I could not figure out their UZR or TZR in these games given the limitations of available statistical programs, it clearly would not be good based on such a fielding percentage.

In sum, it appears that the Mets should be encouraged to not TRAID the COAR, as the COAR appears to have had far better success when playing than when not. Still, looking ahead to 2011, I think it is imperative that the coaching staff address the basic problems outlined here, namely that player production on days-off needs to increase to a level well in excess of the league average in order for this team to be competitive in 2011.