While the 2016 New York Mets season ended prematurely in the National League’s Wild-Card game, the run in the last six weeks of the regular season just to get to your of fun.
Before finishing 87-75, which led to hosting Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants at Citi Field, seemed rather dead in the water at the end of the game on August 19th with a record 60-62. Sure, they were only 5.5 games behind the second wildcard, but New York had to warm up in style to make this dream even a remote reality.
As we all know, that’s exactly what they did.
Manager Terry Collins saw his position the players lead the league with 8.7 fWAR from 20 August until the end of the season. This group also slowed 60 home runs, which was second only to the Baltimore Orioles in baseball (65), and their cumulative 113 wRC + was also the second best (the Detroit Tigers were the first with a score of 118). It was a full 180 degree lap from the start of the season until August 19 – the Mets were in the top 10 with 158 humeri, but their 14.6 fWAR collective was in 15th place, while a wRC + team of 94 was firmly in the lower third of baseball.
The beginning of New York’s soaring end of season to a wildcard spot coincided with Yoenis Cespedes is Asdrubal Cabrera both return from the damaged List. Cespedes did his usual crush amount, but it was Cabby who went well beyond the stretch. I mean, while none of us forget the humerus and bat that forget it, did something every evening for the Mets when they needed it most.
Compared to the rest of baseball
Cabrera led or was tied for command of the team in almost all major offensive categories. So with a .347 / .410 / .646 line, 10 humeri, 29 RBI and 184 wRC + – which led to 2.4 fWAR – I was curious about how he measured himself against the rest of baseball during this six-duration of the week.
Apparently, the comparisons have been favorable.
Among the skilled hitter, Cabrera’s 2.4 fWAR was second in baseball, with solo a guy named Mike Trout (2.6) ending in front of him. He was also in the top five in wRC + and OPS (1,056), while the 29 RBI he had collected were in the top 15.
Curtis Granderson he wasn’t actually too far behind his teammate when he looked at his wRC + (165) and OPS (1,002), so when we combine Grandy’s performance with Cabby and Yo, the overall offensive lift that the Mets have seen isn’t it was no surprise at all.
Compared to its performance
If you consider the numbers of the Cabrera season, the 2016 campaign was certainly one of its best. His accumulated 3.6 fWAR and 23 homers were both the second best number of his career in 2011, when he accumulated 3.7 fWAR and attacked 25 dinger for the Cleveland Indians. If we want to pinpoint the six-week period above again, the 2.4 fWAR that released ended up being more than six different full seasons and was within reach of three more.
Considering the fact that he has been in the big leagues for parts of 13 seasons now, this trait in 2016 seems to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime-hot-as-the-face-of-the-sun times.
However, it wasn’t that he necessarily had a bad year up to that point because he seemed to have grown up in crucial situations. Regardless, the numbers actually showed her performance as meh. Through his first 407 plate appearances (until August 19), he cut .255 / .307 / .408 with 13 home shots, 33 RBI and 94 wRC +.
Before he almost doubled a number of his counting statistics throughout the season, his wRC + put him in the company of guys like Cheslor Cuthbert, Addison Russell, is Denard Span. It is a group quite different from Mike Trout, I would say.
The obvious question to ask is: what the heck happened? One thing that turns up is a dramatic increase in BABIP, ranging from .291 to .357 between these time periods. And with just a five percentage point increase in the percentage of hard hits (from 35.2% to 40.2%), it would be easy to indicate and say it was good luck. That’s not to say that luck wasn’t on Cabby’s side, but his batting ball profile shows he has gained every part of this hot streak:
All the classic signs of elite production are found in these numbers, in particular the 10 percentage point drop in the earth balls and an almost equal drop in the infield flies. And while his hard hit rate didn’t have a dramatic jump that one would assume, he significantly reduced soft contact.
It would have been more than interesting if the entry of the Mets in the post-season 2016 had lasted more than one game. But if any of us had been told that they would participate in the October baseball game on August 19, we would all have thought someone was crazy.
Luckily, they weren’t, and Cabrera’s incredible elite production series was one of the main reasons why New York came there.
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