2024 Team Previews: New York Mets
Going through all 30 teams, looking back at 2023 and ahead to the 2024 season through a fantasy baseball lens.
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Mets Intro
It is hard to believe that I’m reviewing the Mets this early on. They had the eighth-worst record in the league at just 75-87 despite having a payroll upwards of $350 million.
I’m pushing out two of these per week, so this bad boy is going out in late December. That is not giving a team like the Mets enough time, because they haven’t made any big splashes in free agency yet but I still do expect them to do some stuff. We may have to come back to this one throughout January to make some updates.
The money stuff is going pretty nuts in baseball this off-season. Not that it’s anything new, but the recent Ohtani and Yamamoto deals have taken things to the next level, perhaps. We have long seen these big market teams benefiting from TV deals and international renown and population size and all of that to separate themselves a ton from the field spending-wise. That turns a lot of people off, which of course is understandable. It also allows us to bask in the glory of things like the Mets 2023 season.
They bullied everybody in free agency and broke records in spending, just to be out of the division race in July and start dumping salary through trades. It’s not any ill-will against Mets people, but there is something inherent in human nature to root for the little guy - so anytime a big spending team under-performs it feels like something right has happened.
But I like the Mets, I’m not one of these guys throwing my hands up and being all woe-is-me about these huge contracts. That is mostly because my interest in baseball is mostly about the fantasy aspect rather than allegiance to a single team, which makes me not care too much about how the individual teams are constructed! So let’s go through the Mets.
Hitters
Pete Alonso
Age: 29
Pos: 1B
Another studly season for Alonso, hitting 46 more homers.
654 PA, .217/.320/.507, 22.6% K%, 9.9% BB%, 46 HR, 92 R, 118 RBI, 4 SB
He’s a counting stat stud and that is not going to change. Despite that, the lower batting average and lack of steals keep him outside of the first couple of rounds, and I don’t expect that to change in 2024.
The thing that sticks out most about his 2023 line is the batting average. He’s never going to be a .300 hitter or anything like that - but this .218 mark was way below what we have come to expect. His career so far:
2019: .260 AVG, .280 BABIP
2021: .231 AVG, .242 BABIP
2022: .271 AVG, .279 BABIP
2023: .217 AVG, .205 BABIP
So the true BABIP with Alonso is probably around .270, and he was sixty-some points below that in 2023. And it’s not like we saw the strikeout rate explode upward - it was still a very solid 23%. It is much more likely that we’ll see at least a couple dozen points added to that batting average next year.
There is no more reliable home run bat in the league than Alonso. You could put Aaron Judge above him there, I guess, but Alonso seems to be able to avoid injury much better than Judge - and that might be helped by the fact that he plays first base rather than the outfield where other bad things can happen.
I don’t think we need to get deep into the known commodities like Alonso here, he’s going to be a top-five first baseman and a top-30 pick for me, these types are pretty easy to rank.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Matt Olson
JA Projection: 648 PA, 90 R, 37 HR, 105 RBI, 6 SB, .249/.348/.496, .843 OPS
Francisco Lindor
Age: 30
Pos: SS
Lindor went through a little bit of a down patch from 2020-2021 but had a strong 2022 season and got pretty much back to being an elite fantasy player in 2023.
684 PA, .254/.336/.471, 31 HR, 30 SB, 108 R, 98 RBI
That is a huge season in a 5x5 roto league. It was good enough to make him the #12 overall player on my player rater, and that was with the Mets underperforming.
He’ll be 30 at the beginning of 2024, which is pretty wild to see since he’s been around so long. I suppose he’s no longer in the prime years, but we’re not to the point where we should expect any serious declines in skills.
We want homers and steals, and Lindor gives us that. He also plays a lot of games and racks up quite a few runs and RBI, so there’s nothing negative to say about this guy.
He was good with the bat in 2023, he’s one of the elite dots in the LA vs. EV plot here:
The thing we have with Lindor is that he’s not completely elite at anything, but he’s very good at everything.
Very strong across the board, which is pretty rare to see. We did see his strikeout rate come up to a three-year high, so maybe that’s a sign of some slight aging - but we’re talking about 20% here so it’s not much of an issue, although every point does matter here. If he ticks up to 22% next year, then yeah we should probably expect a .250-.260 batting average rather than him having a shot at .280+ like we have seen a lot from him. That said, he still should be expected to give you a good batting average at this point in his career.
The projection is going to be very nice on him, and he will probably still find a way to fall into the mid or late-second round, just because for whatever reason people are never overly excited to get this dude. He’s going to be on my list though as an early-round pick that feels extremely safe and gives you production across the board.
Comps/Rank-Around: Luis Robert, Jose Ramirez
JA Projection: 665 PA, 91 R, 28 HR, 93 RBI, 25 SB, .258/.337/.455, .791 OPS
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