Time to buy low on more reliable Mets

Major baseball analytics sites start to release preseason projections right around NFL Divisional Round weekend. It’s about when hardcore baseball fans get the itch for spring training.

I’m more of a hardcore baseball gambler than a true baseball fan. Regardless, now is about when I start digging into MLB win total bets, with all players required to report to camp a month from today.

Here are my two favorites I’ve found so far.

Mets Over 82.5 wins

There’s no reason to get overly excited about the Mets. This team isn’t a World Series contender or even a division contender. The rotation is weak, the bullpen is uninspiring, and there’s a lack of superstar power in the lineup sans Pete Alonso.

That said, we should be optimistic that the Mets will win more games than they lose in 2024.

Last year was an abject disaster. It cannot get any worse for the Mets.

Even from a luck standpoint. The Mets won 75 games, but their Pythagorean win-loss record was 80-82 based purely on run differential. That alone signals that positive regression looms in Queens.

And from a roster standpoint, the championship upside isn’t there, but the floor is much higher. At the minimum, the Mets roster is crystal clear.

Alonso will start at first and be the power bat. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo are two four-to-five-win players who should play 150 games toward the top of the order. There’s nothing wrong with Jeff McNeil or Starling Marte. Francisco Alvarez has a chokehold on the starting catching job, and I’m excited to see another year from his bat (25 homers in 123 games in 2023).

There’s more mystery surrounding the pitching staff.

Still, I can’t entirely hate on a rotation led by Kodai Senga — a legit Cy Young candidate — and a bullpen anchored by a healthy Edwin Diaz — a legit Trevor Hoffman Award candidate.

There’s no more confusion and speculation surrounding All-Stars, Cy Young and MVP candidates littered across the roster. There’s no more worrying about Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander’s age curve and injury potential.

Instead, there’s a basic roster with plenty of depth and a clear hierarchy — one that the FanGraphs ZiPS system projects with the 11th-most WAR among MLB teams, which would peg the Mets for around 85-90 wins.

The Mets won 101 games in 2022 and assembled a superstar-littered-but-thinand-broken roster that we could sell high on in 2023. But the market has overreacted to the Mets’ change in direction, and I’m buying low on a team that should perform solidly.

Tigers Over 79.5 wins

The Tigers seemingly underperform every season, but I think there’s legitimate hope at Comerica Park for 2024. There’s less hope in the lineup, but plenty of Tigers have high upside. Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, and Kerry Carpenter are three young hitters who started pulling the ball in the air more in the second half of last season, and it did wonders for Detroit’s lineup. FanGraphs projects Mark Canha and Austin Meadows to both post an OPS+ over 120 in 2024.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that replacing Miguel Cabrera with a normal designated hitter situation is worth about two wins a season. The real hope comes in the pitching staff, where Tarik Skubal has transformed into a legitimate Cy Young candidate. He was the best pitcher in baseball in the second half of 2023 and projects as a top-five starting pitcher in 2024. Pair him with Kenta Maeda, Eduardo Rodriguez and several young mid-20s pitchers with legitimate upside, and the sky’s the limit.

Most importantly, Detroit won 79 games last year and finished second in the AL Central. Because they compete in the worst division in baseball, the Tigers will be in the hunt for 162 games and likely won’t sell heavily down the stretch, making an 80-win season far more likely.

I’m buying into Detroit’s upside.