Mets Player Performance Meter: Position players, July 31-August 6

Well folks, welcome to your first post-trading deadline set of meters. As you can imagine, they aren’t pretty. In fact, I procrastinated doing these today because I simply did not want to look at them. But, soldier on we must. The Mets did not win a single game this week, getting swept by both the Royals and the Orioles on the road. They were shut out two times. Mark Canha and Tommy Pham have departed for greener pastures and even among the regulars that remain, no one is really hitting the cover off the ball right now. Starling Marte and Brandon Nimmo missed some time this week, resulting in some truly heinous lineups. Perhaps the most notable item here is how mightily Brett Baty has struggled of late.

Since I mentioned it, we’ll start with Brett Baty, who gets slapped with the smelliest of poop emojis for going hitless over 23 plate appearances this week, striking out over a third of the time. He did walk five times, which leads the team; that is basically the only positive contribution he made this week. Baty’s struggles right now are deep on both sides of the ball, as he has also looked terrible in the field of late. The Mets are just playing out the season now so it doesn’t particularly matter, but this stretch from him has been pretty alarming—so alarming, in fact, that as I was crafting this meter the Mets announced that Baty was sent down to Triple-A.

We’ll do a quick cleanse by next covering Francisco Lindor, who is the Mets’ hottest hitter at the moment. While he was unable to replicate his fireball-worthy performance from last week, a 175 wRC+ over 24 plate appearances is nothing to sneeze at—it leads the team, in fact. Lindor also leads the team in hits with seven and three of those went for extra bases, including a home run in Thursday’s game. Lindor also leads the team in RBIs this week with four. In a year in which many big name shortstops have struggled, Lindor holds a 119 OPS+ for the season and has already put up 4.3 bWAR.

Jeff McNeil trails Lindor for the team lead in hits by only one, collecting six hits in 26 plate appearances this week. His fourth home run of the season on Saturday night briefly brought the Mets within striking distance; that was his only extra base hit this week. McNeil was responsible for all three Mets runs on Saturday night. Overall, McNeil posted a 94 wRC+ with three runs scored and three RBIs as his season continues to trend in a more positive direction of late.

Pete Alonso also collected six hits this week, including a home run and two other extra base hits—good for a 102 wRC+ across his 25 plate appearances. His home run accounted for all of his run production this week, but he also is no longer very protected in the current iteration of the Mets lineup.

This week’s meter brings some new faces into the fold, including Rafael Ortega who has been getting the bulk of the outfield at-bats with Canha gone and Nimmo and Marte ailing. Ortega collected two hits, two walks, and two runs scored in his first 17 plate appearances with the Mets. DJ Stewart is playing almost every day now as well and posted a respectable, but unremarkable 105 wRC+ this week over 16 plate appearances. With his three walks this week in addition to three hits, his .375 on-base percentage is second only to Lindor for the team lead. This week also saw the Mets debut of infielder Jonathan Araúz, who had a single in six plate appearances this week. He was briefly sent back down to Triple-A, but called back up before today’s game to take Baty’s place on the roster.

Starling Marte returned from his IL stint suffering from migraines and went hitless in eight plate appearances. He has now been placed back on the IL with a right groin strain, which is concerning since he had that surgically repaired in the offseason. Abraham Almonte has been called up to take Marte’s place on the roster. Brandon Nimmo missed some time this week as well with a quad issue, but has returned to the lineup. In eight plate appearances since coming back, Nimmo has two hits, walked twice, and scored two runs.

With all of the new holes on the Mets roster, Mark Vientos has been given consistent playing time and has not done all that much with it, posting an ugly 11 wRC+ in 19 plate appearances this week. Two of his three hits were for extra bases and he drove in one run. He did not draw a walk this week and continues to strike out far too often. Daniel Vogelbach is now sharing time with Vientos at DH and had one hit—a single—in six plate appearances this week across three games.

Francisco Alvarez improved upon his numbers from last week, posting a 108 wRC+ in 16 plate appearances. He collected three hits, including a home run as part of a two-hit performance in Tuesday’s narrow loss. Alvarez also walked twice and scored two runs this week. Meanwhile, Omar Narváez had just one hit—a single—in seven plate appearances this week.

Danny Mendick put up a -10 wRC+ this week, but he will continue to play frequently because the Mets don’t have anyone else to roster in his stead. He had two singles and an RBI this week in 12 plate appearances.