Changes coming for Mets, NL East
The quarter-point of the MLB season has come and gone with every team surpassing 40 games played. The sample is now more than big enough to draw meaningful conclusions about all 30 teams using their underlying numbers, run differential, and assess where we may have gone wrong or been right in our preseason assessments of them.
Here are some betting observations about the five teams in the NL East (stats through Friday’s games).
Mets
The Mets rank third in baseball in runs per game despite being 14th in xwOBA, 22nd in hard-hit rate and 27th in barrel rate. The Amazin’s have gotten by with excellent pitching to this point, but injuries to Max Scherzer and Tylor Megill will test the depth of their rotation.
One reason the Mets have been so efficient at the plate has been their play in clutch-hitting situations. They lead baseball in comeback wins and are second in clutch hitting by win probability added. You can expect some regression for this offense, and if the pitching depth fails to hold up, expect to sell high on the Mets in the coming weeks.
I highly doubt they’ll continue to play at a 104-win pace.
Braves
The defending world champions rank 21st with 4.1 runs scored per game. The offense has some legitimately concerning indicators — sixth-worst in chase rate and worst swinging-strike rate in all of baseball to name two — but the Braves also have positive regression coming in the clutch-hitting metrics.
Atlanta ranks 28th in clutch hitting based on win probability added, per FanGraphs. That tends to be a very noisy indicator and one that doesn’t hold any predictive value. But it does suggest that with just average clutch hitting, the Braves would produce more offense. Atlanta ranks eighth in xwOBA as well.
Phillies
A lot of attention is paid to Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola at the top of the Phillies’ rotation. Even more attention is given to the Philadelphia lineup that was expected to be one of the best in the league, but has largely underperformed to this point in the season.
Perhaps more attention should be given to Phillies right-hander Zach Eflin. He always has been underrated in the market, and he has a 2.26 xERA heading into Saturday, which is a career low by more than a full run.
Eflin’s swinging-strike rate is the highest of his career, his hard-hit rate is 12 percent lower than last year. He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but he just struck out 12 in seven innings against the Dodgers.
I’m looking to buy Eflin in his next few starts.
Marlins
Based on Pythagorean win-loss records, no team has been more unlucky than the Marlins this season. They are 6-14 in one-run games, and that tends to even out in the long run. The pitching staff remains elite, but there’s not much encouragement from the lineup outside of the breakout season from Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Miami could, and likely will, positively regress with its close-game luck going forward.
Nationals
The Nationals have one starter with an xERA under 5.00 at this point in the season, and his name is Erick Fedde.
Joan Adon, Josiah Gray, Aaron Sanchez and Patrick Corbin have been varying levels of bad. Corbin’s and Fedde’s fastballs grade out as two of the worst among all starters, based on Eno Sarris’ stuff+ model from The Athletic. Gray is a fly ball pitcher giving up way too many barrels and homers, and Adon has major command issues with a 14 percent walk rate.
Nationals Park has played much bigger than normal thus far this year. But if the humidor helps the ball fly in the hot months ahead, it’s going to be a long summer for the Nationals, with plenty
of runs scored.