THE CONTENTS: For the first time since 2013, the Mets will host the Tigers for three games at Citi Field.
THE EPIGRAPH: “I dwell in Possibility / A fairer House than Prose.” —Emily Dickinson
THE ABSTRACT: An important adjustment at an important time for Todd Frazier; an analysis of the Tigers’ dreadful offense; who even is Spencer Turnbull?; which Tigers team from the first half of this decade most deserved to win a World Series?; a personal memory from the first Mets-Tigers series, which honestly is my only memory of a Mets-Tigers series; Three Questions with a Beat Writer; a brief scouting report on minor-league reliever Ryley Gilliam.
Advertisem*nt
THE EXPOSITION: The Mets bounced back from a humiliating sweep by the Marlins over the weekend to sweep four straight from the Nationals at home. Mickey Callaway’s job seems secure for the, ahem, foreseeable future, as New York is back to 24-25, 4.5 games behind the Phillies in the NL East.
The Tigers should provide little resistance this week, since no team in the majors could possibly rebound from the indignity of being swept by the Marlins. Yes, Miami made it six wins in a row — the longest in the NL East this season! — by taking three in Detroit this week. Losers of 13 of their last 16, the Tigers are 18-29, 14 games behind the MLB-best Twins in the AL Central. Only the Orioles have a worse run differential in baseball.
THE PITCHING MATCHUPS:
LHP Gregory Soto (0-2, 10.80 ERA) v. RHP Noah Syndergaard (3-4, 4.50 ERA)
TBA v. LHP Jason Vargas (1-2, 5.92)
RHP Spencer Turnbull (2-3, 2.68) v. RHP Zack Wheeler (3-3, 4.74)
THE PROTAGONISTS: Todd Frazier felt like things were getting better when he finally drew his first walk.
It didn’t happen until last Friday in Miami, 58 plate appearances into the season.
“When I’m walking and the on-base percentage is going up, I’m seeing the ball better,” Frazier said. “We made a few adjustments. I’m trying to swing at strikes. That’s the bottom line for me. If I swing at strikes, I’m going to be a good hitter. I’m going to hit the ball hard, at least.”
Over the last week, starting with a pinch-hit double last Thursday, Frazier is 8-for-19 with three extra-base hits, four walks and a hit by pitch. That’s an OBP north of .500 in a limited sample, at a time when the Mets can use the offense.
Ten days ago, it looked like Frazier’s playing time was about to be seriously reduced. J.D. Davis had started three straight games at third base — at a time when the Mets had held a meeting to figure out how best to use their roster — and Jed Lowrie was days away from a return. Frazier wasn’t necessarily an odd man out on the 25-man roster, but he wasn’t going to be seeing everyday at-bats.
Advertisem*nt
Then Lowrie suffered a setback, everyone in the outfield got hurt, Robinson Canó landed on the IL, and Frazier was batting third on Thursday. Life comes at you fast, especially when you’re the Mets. And so the target of much of the fan base’s recent ire — since Travis d’Arnaud was released, at least — has once again become an important puzzle piece for the time being.
Frazier’s taken advantage of it, looking the best he has all season.
“To be honest with you, I watch him work now and he’s working with a purpose,” said hitting coach Chili Davis. “Fraz always has fun. He has fun working and enjoys being out here. Watching him work now, and he’s talking about what he’s trying to do, calling his shot and working with a purpose. Because of that, he’s starting to make himself track the ball better, track the ball out of the hand better.
“He’s always going to be Todd. He’s never been a guy that hits .300, but he’s got the ability to do damage. If he’s not leaving his zone, he allows himself to get pitches to do damage.”
Yes, he’s never going to hit .300 — “that’d be nice,” he said with a chuckle — but in 2017 with the White Sox and Yankees, Frazier mitigated his perennially dipping batting average by dramatically increasing his walk rate. The .344 on-base percentage he posted that season was the best of his career. His batting average only dropped two points from 2017 to 2018, but the OBP dropped 41 because he couldn’t sustain the walk rate. This year, even with the average up a half-dozen points, the OBP has fallen another 25.
Frazier said then that the 2017 jump in walk rate was a conscious alteration in approach; he and Davis implied it’s one he could get back to with improved focus at the plate. Frazier’s also been tweaking with his mechanics, getting his foot down earlier, the way he used to during his best years with Cincinnati.
Advertisem*nt
In the long run, the best Mets team probably doesn’t include Frazier in the everyday nine. But the current Mets nine needs him there, and it sure could use a short-term boost from the third baseman — the same way it could use short-term boosts from Juan Lagares and Carlos Gómez and Rajai Davis and Adeiny Hechavarría and all the players who probably aren’t part of New York’s ideal everyday nine. Depth isn’t just about accumulating talent, sometimes it’s about fortunate timing as well.
THE ANTAGONISTS: Goodness, the Tigers have a bad offense. Like the Marlins you get. They’re a National League team and they’re the Marlins. But Detroit’s offense is just as bad and the Tigers get Miguel Cabrera as their designated hitter!
Detroit entered play Thursday batting a league-worst .219 as a team. They have five players with more than 100 plate appearances batting under .200. Only one player with 100-plus plate appearances has an OPS better than the league average (Ronny Rodriguez, who has made up for an OBP under .300 with 18 extra-base hits in 100 at-bats). Cabrera and Nicholas Castellanos have been alright — though not as good as they need to be — but the rest of the order is unsightly. It turns out that stealing the Pirates’ middle infield of Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer was not a good idea — couldn’t see that coming — and JaCoby Jones is not an everyday regular in a batting order.
Like Miami, the Tigers do have some good news with their starting rotation, with Matthew Boyd and Spencer Turnbull both posting really strong starts to the year. As Three Questions with a Beat Writer will elaborate on later, there’s a lot more to like with Boyd than with Turnbull. That’s helped to ease, if even just slightly, the blows Detroit’s sustained for the rest of the rotation. Former Mets farmhand Michael Fulmer — Detroit’s best trade candidate until Boyd’s breakout — underwent Tommy John surgery. Buy-lows Matt Moore and Tyson Ross are both hurt — Moore for the season — and Jordan Zimmermann is on the shelf, as well.
Shane Greene has been very good in the bullpen, Thursday notwithstanding. Nobody else has.
THE CONFLICT: Can the Mets beat a bad team on the weekend?
THIS GAME MOVES FAST: Remember when the Tigers used to own the AL Central? When they had four guys who won or would win Cy Youngs in their rotation? When they should have won at least one World Series?
Advertisem*nt
WHICH TIGERS TEAM SHOULD HAVE WON A WORLD SERIES THE MOST? The 2012 Tigers had three of the 10 best players in the American League, with Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Justin Verlander and also got very good years from Austin Jackson and Andy Dirks. Max Scherzer basically became who he is now in the second half of that year. I wonder how differently that World Series plays out if, like, Quintin Berry doesn’t bat second in Game 3.
I don’t think the 2013 Tigers were necessarily better than the Red Sox team that beat them in the ALCS, but I do think if Xander Bogaerts swings at that 3-2 Scherzer slider or Jose Iglesias makes that play up the middle in the eighth inning of Game 2, Detroit wins the series.
Nobody in their right mind knows how the Orioles swept the 2014 Tigers by beating Scherzer, Verlander and David Price. I think Baltimore started Brad Bergesen, Daniel Cabrera and Sidney Ponson in that series.
(It was Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen and Bud Norris.)
YOU DIDN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION: All of them. All of them probably should have won the World Series.
RECENT SERIES HISTORY: The Mets are 9-12 in their history against the Tigers, including a very uneven 5-4 mark in Queens. They won the first five meetings and have lost the four since.
Really poor series are sometimes memorable, and Detroit’s three-game sweep of the Mets at Tiger Stadium in 1997, in which Tony Clark, Damion Easley and Bobby Higginson helped the Tigers score 31 runs in three days, still resonates with me. On the final day of that series, a friend had taken me to Yankee Stadium to watch a rematch of the 1996 World Series – Greg Maddux was brilliant that day — and I remember being in the car ride home listening to the Mets on the radio and feeling like they weren’t even playing the same sport as the Yankees and Braves.
Advertisem*nt
MEMORY ISN’T ALWAYS STRONG: I thought Tony Clark had killed the Mets that series, but it was Damion Easley who hit three homers in three games. And oh yeah, Bobby Higginson hitting three in the series opener.
I also forgot Dwight Gooden opposed Maddux that day in the Bronx.
THREE QUESTIONS WITH A BEAT WRITER: Today we’re chatting with Cody Stavenhagen, who covers the Tigers for The Athletic. Read Cody on hitting coach Lloyd McClendon’s quest to cure Detroit’s inept offense.
1. Are these breakouts for Matthew Boyd and Spencer Turnbull legit? And are they likelier to figure as long-term solutions in Detroit or as trade bait?
STAVENHAGEN: This is a good question and one the Tigers are still trying to find the exact answer to. Matthew Boyd’s start in particular has been impressive. Boyd also started off great last year before struggling in the second half. But Boyd’s slider has become a legitimate out pitch, and his 10.83 K/9 is the best of his career. He has a 3.41 ERA and a 3.02 FIP, so he’s actually had more bad luck than goodluck. Boyd is under team control for three more years, so he could be a valuablepiece. But the Tigers want to acquire young bats, and if Boyd is still pitching like this into July, he could be the best way to acquire one.
Turnbull is a little bit of a different case. He has solid major-league stuff, but the metrics all suggest he’s due to regress some. He has a 2.68 ERA, a a 3.85 FIP and a 4.49 xFIP. He struggles with command quite a bit. He’s a rookie and likely a guy the Tigers will hold on to, and perhaps he can be a back-end starter in the years to come.
2. Is there anything nice you can say about the Tigers offense?
STAVENHAGEN: Um, not really. But I’ll try. Here’s a weird stat: The Tigers actually rank No. 5 in baseball with a 41.2 hard-hit percentage. Problem is they chase out of the zone more than any team and are striking out at an absurd rate. But when their hitters make contact, they can actually strike the ball with some authority.
3. Are Jeimer Candelario’s offensive struggles the worst thing to happen for the Tigers this season or am I missing something even worse?
Advertisem*nt
STAVENHAGEN: It depends on the context. The worst thing to happen, in terms of success this season, is losing four-fifths of the starting rotation to injuries. Michael Fulmer and Matt Moore are out for the year. Jordan Zimmermann and Tyson Ross are on the shelf, and there’s no realguaranteefor when or if they will return. That has led guys like Gregory Soto starting MLB games despite initially having only three appearances above A-ball (!).
In the framework of their long-term rebuild, Candelario’s struggles and eventual demotion might be the worst thing. The Tigers hope he can be a long-term piece in the infield and he started off hitting well last season. But Candelario’s slump actually dates back to last June, and so it is fair to wonder how well he can really hit at the MLB level. I think we’ll see Candelario back in the bigs soon, but his long-term future is a lot more questionable than it was a few months ago.
MINOR-LEAGUERS SHOULD MAKE MORE MONEY: When Ryley Gilliam was drafted in the fifth round out of Clemson last June, the thought was that the college reliever could potentially move quickly through the system. He is not disappointing.
A harder thrower than his 5-foot-10, 170-pound frame suggests, Gilliam has been lights out in High A and Double A already this season, combining to throw 20 2/3 innings between the levels with a 2.18 ERA. His WHIP is below one, and he’s struck out more than 40 percent of opposing batters.
Gilliam excels with his fastball down in the zone, and he complements it with a curveball with above-average spin rate. (An average curveball has about a 2300 rpm spin rate; Gilliam’s is about 2500-2600, while Seth Lugo’s is one of the highest in the league at 3400.) To really take advantage of that curveball, the Rumble Ponies would like to see him more consistently spot his fastball up in the zone. You know, to get the tunneling action.
Binghamton manager Kevin Boles thinks that shouldn’t be too difficult for Gilliam and a scout at a recent Rumble Ponies game brought up Gilliam’s intriguing repertoire unsolicited.
We’re already starting to see the weeding out process with some of New York’s right-handed relievers in the upper levels. Paul Sewald and Tim Peterson have both been designated for assignment this week. Guys like Gilliam can replenish that group before long.
WHAT THE ATHLETIC IS TELLING YOU TO THINK: J.D. Davis is excelling in large part thanks to his intense preparation.
PREDICTION TIME: The Tigers will not score 31 runs this weekend. They may score more, they may score less, but not 31.
(Top photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
