The Way Things Work Out
Lindor, McNeil, Davis, Conforto, and the folly of an 18-game sample size.
Welcome to Shea Bridge Report! This morning, we cover several Mets who started the 2021 season slowly, and why it’s okay not to completely freak out.
Conforto
Don’t look now, but Michael Conforto has started hitting.
Conforto is batting .310/.375/.522 over the Mets’ last eight games. His OPS has risen from .509 to .710. His season-long OBP is already back up to .343; with a few more solid games, he’ll be right back around his .260/.360/.480 career line.
Will Conforto return to his 2020 .300/.400/.500 self? Probably not. But he’s been a consistent hitter for years, and looks like he’s found himself again. Did his representation cost him money by not pushing harder to get him signed to an extension this offseason? Probably. But he’ll be fine, and in November, he’s still likely to be one of the best outfielders on the free agent market.
Lindor
Here’s the thing about Francisco Lindor’s slow start: his BABIP is .224. That will increase. He’s clearly seeing the ball well enough — he has 10 walks in 18 games, far above his career pace — and eventually, his luck will turn.
23 games into his monstrous 2018 season, Lindor was batting .215/.305/.366. Then he batted .442/.482/.909 over his next 17 games, and raised his OPS from .670 to above 1.000.
There are two completely separate things that can be true about Lindor. It’s fine to worry that he’ll never return to his 2018 offensive form. What doesn’t make sense is to look at an 18-game sample and think “welp, guess he’s a .212 hitter now.” In fact, don’t look now, but Lindor is batting .280 over his last six games. Obviously, that’s a small sample size — but the whole point is that this whole season is a small sample size. Eighteen games really isn’t much. 60 games isn’t even that much. Give it time.
McNeil
Speaking of BABIP, has anyone checked in on Jeff McNeil recently? Despite barely striking out and hitting the ball fairly hard, McNeil is batting .196/.281/.353. Why? His BABIP is .182.
So let’s talk again about sample size. McNeil had a great year in 2020. He batted .311/.383/.454. An excellent all-around offensive season.
So how did that year look from the inside? In the first 30 games of last season, he batted .253/.326/.304. In the next 30, he batted .356/.427/.567.
I think people have this false conception of good seasons in which players don’t have good streaks and bad ones; they’re just consistently excellent. But that’s not how most players work. Jeff McNeil started last season badly, then he picked it up, found his stroke, started to have better luck, or something else. Maybe all three. He started to hit, because he’s a hitter. Sometimes it just happens that way.
Davis
Here’s another example of just how small even a 60-game sample size really is.
J.D. Davis was fantastic at the plate in 2019: he batted .307/.369/.527, good for an .895 OPS, with 22 home runs. That was mostly powered by Davis’ spectacular second half, in which he batted .335/.395/.584.
In 2020, meanwhile, Davis regressed. In the abbreviated 60-game season, he batted .247/.371/.389; his OPS fell more than 100 points.
Here’s the thing: Davis’ numbers in 2020 were actually better than his numbers after 60 games in 2019.
That’s right. In 2019, after the Mets’ 60th game, Davis was batting .257/.327/.424. That’s a .751 OPS, lower than his 2020 number. His OBP in particular was far lower than his 2020 mark. So what happened? He’s a hitter. He picked it up. Even 60 games is a pretty small sample size. It might seem like making excuses or hyping up a bad team, but look at the numbers. This is just the way things work out sometimes.
All in all
Let’s put it this way: if you’re worried about regression to the mean, you have to worry about it both ways.
Jacob deGrom will not have a 0.32 E.R.A. when the season ends. Brandon Nimmo will not be batting .364. J.D. Davis will not have a 1.096 OPS. Why not? Because over a full season, their numbers will all regress toward their true-talent levels, which are still good, but not that good.
But to agree with the above, but also freak out about players underperforming so far — that’s not realism. It’s just pessimism. If you know for sure that Brandon Nimmo isn’t a .364 hitter — he’s not — you should also be fully convinced that Jeff McNeil is not a .196 hitter, and Francisco Lindor isn’t a .212 hitter.
The Mets will hit their stride immediately. Please believe me. It seems impossible, because that’s how sports work: whatever happened yesterday seems like all that will ever happen again. But it’s not.
Bad teams have good stretches, and good teams have bad stretches. The Mets are just a good team in a mediocre stretch, and they’ll be fine eventually. This is just the way things work out sometimes.