Mets Player Performance Meter: Position players, April 24-30

With the weekend washout, the Mets only played four games this week—and one of them was only five innings. So, our weekly small sample exercise is operating under even smaller samples than usual. But, boy are they ugly. Other than the Mets’ one victory in the series finale over the Nationals, in which they managed to win 9-8 in a ping-pong affair, the offense has been silent; the Mets scored just one run in the other three games combined this week. Though they were both instrumental to the Mets’ victory on Thursday, Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor are slumping at the same time, which is a recipe for disaster for the Mets offense. Pretty much the only bright spot this week is that Brett Baty and Francisco Álvarez are finally starting to show signs of improvement.

We’ll get the bad over with first and there is a lot of that to go around. Tommy Pham gets his second straight poop emoji this week for failing to reach base in six plate appearances this week. After praising his new contact lenses for his early success, his hitless streak has now gone on for two weeks. Perhaps he needs them readjusted again.

Mark Canha also earns a poop emoji this week. He had just one hit—a single—in eleven plate appearances this week. He also drove in a run on a sacrifice fly to get the Mets on the board in Thursday’s game. But that is the extent of his offensive production this week. Canha’s season has been a bit up-and-down so far; here’s hoping he heats up again soon.

The only reason Tomás Nido avoided yet another poop emoji is because had just two plate appearances this week. He did not reach base in either of them. Francisco Álvarez has basically become the starting catcher by default because Nido’s performance has been so poor and it seems like he has benefitted from playing more regularly. After looking overmatched in the immediate aftermath of his promotion, Álvarez collected three hits and a walk in ten plate appearances this week—good for a 116 wRC+. He also scored a run. It seems Nido will remain the catcher for Kodai Senga’s ghost fork for the time being, but other than that, Álvarez has more or less won the job.

Similarly, Brett Baty has been playing almost every day except against the occasional lefty. But, he has performed well against both righties and lefties and finally the numbers are starting to show it. Baty earns the lone fireball on this week’s meter for his 333 wRC+ in 11 plate appearances this week. He led the team in hits with five, including his first home run of the season in the fourth inning of Thursday’s victory which put the Mets ahead. He has also made a mistake or two in the field, but overall has played a solid third base.

As a result of Baty being entrenched as the everyday third baseman, Eduardo Escobar and Luis Guillorme have seen their playing time diminish. Guillorme went hitless in three plate appearances this week. Escobar had a hit and a run scored in two plate appearances this week. That one run scored represented the Mets’ only run scored outside of Thursday’s game.

Starling Marte is the one who drove in Escobar in the third inning of Wednesday’s loss, which brought the Mets within one at the time. But it was one of just two hits Marte had all week in 15 plate appearances. Marte also walked once, stole a base, and scored a run, but a 3 wRC+ for the week is ugly. Marte still seems off—perhaps due to lingering soreness in his strained neck—and unfortunately if he keeps this up, the poop emoji awaits him. Scoring the tying run in the eighth inning of Thursday’s game is all that saved him from that feat.

As I mentioned in the introduction, it is very hard for the Mets’ offense to succeed when Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso are not hitting. Though they were both key contributors to the Mets’ lone victory on Thursday, the overall numbers aren’t pretty for either of them this week. Even though Lindor put up just a 43 wRC+ in 15 plate appearances, he still led the team in RBIs with three, which says all you need to know about the performance of the offense as a whole this week. All three of those RBIs came in Thursday’s game, in which Lindor had two RBI doubles and a run scored. He had just one hit the rest of the week.

Pete Alonso also drove in two runs and scored two runs in Thursday’s game. In the eighth inning, he doubled in Marte for the tying run and scored what was ultimately the winning run. But like Lindor, he had just one hit the rest of the week, putting up a 27 wRC+ in 15 plate appearances this week. A week in which Alonso does not homer is usually a poor indicator of how things are going to go for the Mets overall.

Even Brandon Nimmo—the sparkplug of the Mets’ offense who came into this week scorching hot—has cooled off significantly. He collected three hits—all singles—walked twice, and scored two runs, posting a mediocre 62 wRC+ for the week. But other than Alonso, he is the only Met to score multiple runs this week, which again says more about the overall performance of the offense this week than it says about Nimmo.

Jeff McNeil is still hitting, however. His four hits are second to Baty for the team lead this week. One of those four hits was an RBI triple that drove in Alonso for the winning run in Thursday’s victory. That was his only extra base hit for the week, but he also walked twice and was the only Met besides Starling Marte to steal a base this week. Overall, McNeil put up a 142 wRC+ in 15 plate appearances.

Daniel Vogelbach is also in the green for the second week in a row, posting a 140 wRC+ in nine plate appearances this week. The Mets’ DH hit three singles, walked once, and drove in a run this week. Not surprisingly, that RBI came in Thursday’s game, giving the Mets some insurance which they would turn out to need every bit of.