nmigliore

2-run homer by d'Arnaud! 4-1 Mets!

What a smart move by Wright to deke out Upton and turn that single into a 2-base hit. Nice.

ZiPS projects him to put up a .777 OPS (which works out to a 122 wRC+) the rest of the season. Would that be acceptable enough?

The raw OPS doesn't even do Duda full justice because of the Citi Field factor. Adjust for the park using wRC+ and Duda has been 39% better than the average hitter, which ranks 25th in MLB and 10th among 1B. Unless Duda has suddenly turned into one of the 20 or so best hitters in baseball he's not going to keep up that kind of pace, but he has room to regress and still have a strong overall season. He should absolutely be the 2015 1B at this rate. He's also only making $1.64 million this season so his arbitration payout this winter won't be much.

What a fantastic game from deGrom. In one start he bumped his season strikeout rate up from 20.9% to 22.8%, his ERA down from 3.77 to 3.38, and his FIP down from 3.78 to 3.38. Still only talking about 66 innings here, hence the wild swings these numbers can take from start to start, but his emergence has been such a welcoming story for a team that could use some.

EY Jr. doesn't do much good but damn that was some catch. Hopefully this is the last inning for deGrom. I can't stand when TC runs the young arms into the ground. Just totally unnecessary when you're going nowhere.

Grandy Grandy Gone!

Saw this from ESPN's stat guru Mark Simon: Granderson has an .895 OPS since April 29th, 7th best in the NL. Overall he's sitting with a .771 OPS -- 21% better than average after adjusting for the league and park -- and is on pace to be worth between +2 and +3 WAR. My biggest fear over that signing is what he'd look like in 2016-2017, when the Mets are more likely to contend and he eating up $15-16M per on the payroll, but hard to complain about what he's doing in 2014.

Just not good enough, I'm sure. He was #65 in BA's preseason list and didn't even make BP's preseason list. If he sustained his AAA success from last season he probably would've made BA's list but he's gone backwards a bit at that level.

Couple of midseason Top 50 prospect lists from Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus came out this morning. Three Mets made the BA list: Syndergaard at #19, Plawecki at #40, and Nimmo at #48. Two Mets made the BP list: Syndergaard at #9 (which is actually UP from his preseason #11 rank) and Nimmo at #45.

Syndergaard was terrific tonight: 7 IP, 6 hits, 1 run, 0 BB, 8 K. Great to see, let's hope he keeps it up.

Congrats to Murphy. He's worked his butt off to find a position on the diamond that agrees with him, and although he'll never be mistaken for a great defender, he's turned himself into a really solid player and he's easily been the Mets' best position player this year. Well deserved.

Well at least d'Arnaud homered and it was a beautiful night at the stadium. Sounds like Niese is going to the DL and NOT from the liner he took last night, but instead another shoulder issue. Ugh. Given his history and velocity trends, can't say this is a shock. Really unfortunate timing given how Niese was pitching and the trade deadline looming (I don't think he would've been moved, but you never know; he is/was one of the best, maybe the best, "sell" chips the Mets have).

Holy sh!t what a trade between Oakland and the Cubs: @jonmorosi: Deal is Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for Addison Russell, Billy McKinney and Dan Straily, source confirms to @FOXSports1. No PTBNL.

Mets have lost 4 in a row and 7 of their last 8. Jeez. Fangraphs' and Baseball Prospectus' rest of season projections both have them going 36-41, which would put them at 73 wins. Funny that this could be the worst season of the Alderson era when it was supposed to be a step-forward kind of year. Nobody was expecting them to contend, but a .500 team that hung around in the playoff race for awhile, not unlike what the Marlins are doing, wasn't out of the question. I'll be going to Saturday's game, haven't gone since late April when there were hurricane winds vs the Cardinals . Texas has been such a disaster this season. Injuries have taken a big toll but they've just as bad as the Mets, maybe worse. I really didn't like their Kinsler-for-Fielder swap initially and now it looks downright laughable now, with Kinsler having a big year (4th in the AL in WAR) and Fielder hitting like sh!t (.720 OPS) before landing on the DL for the rest of the season. Shin-Soo Choo, the $130 million dollar man, has heavily regressed and is hovering around replacement level (+0.3 WAR in 338 PA).

Awesome, thanks for the info fiesty.

Unfortunate US got eliminated but they really didn't deserve that game. Belgium completely took them to school and the game might've been over by halftime if not for Tim Howard. What a performance. That game is an instant classic if only for his play. At least they beat the odds of getting out of the Group of Death, and did so without Altidore and a broken nose or two. Even though it's becoming time for guys like Howard, Dempsey, Beasley, etc. to pass the torch, I'm excited for the future of US Soccer -- Yedlin, Green, etc. Excited for Friday's games. Don't really care who wins France/Germany but it should be a hell of a game. Pulling for Colombia vs Brazil because they're in an easy underdog to cheer for. I've never been big on soccer but this World Cup has piqued my interest; I have followed the Red Bulls very casually throughout the years but I'd love to check out some of the European leagues -- EPL, Serie A, La Liga, etc. If I understand the scheduling right I believe their seasons start in August?

Yeah, I didn't expect deGrom to be the one of the Vegas three to be sticking in this rotation in July. Kudos to him for that. At the same time, I'd like to see more separation between his strikeouts and walks. He's having a very 2013 Wheeler-esque season. 2014 deGrom: 19.5 K%, 10.4 BB%, 3.62 ERA, 4.01 FIP, 4.04 xFIP 2013 Wheeler: 19.5 K%, 10.7 BB%, 3.42 ERA, 4.17 FIP, 4.21 xFIP His K% minus BB% in AAA was 11.8% so it's not that shocking that has fallen to 9.1% against MLB hitters. The biggest surprise for me is that the groundballs have completely vanished for him; he was at 55% (percentage of balls in play that were groundballs) in Vegas, that's way down to 41% in MLB.

What a miss by Wondolowski. Game was on his foot. Argh.

I'm showing numbers that strip out the luck factor and purely focus on what a pitcher controls. ERA, AVG, WHIP, etc. all have varying degrees of luck that can distort the picture. Just look back to Wheeler last season when he was pitching way over his head, or Bartolo Colon, who was a league average-ish pitcher masquerading as one of the AL's best pitchers. I'm not going on one thing at a time, I just think you're just underestimating the power of those K% and GB% increases, probably because the results haven't shown yet; if you don't believe me, then look at what his FIP and xFIP say. Even with those walks, there's a pitcher in there who could be posting a sub-3.50 ERA. I'm not saying bad luck is purely to blame and Wheeler himself is blameless, to be clear, but there's a lot of room for "positive" regression there, which is why I keep saying with better luck AND with Wheeler executing better, he could turn this around quickly. If he suddenly finds the plate more (I doubt it), then he could really take-off.

Here's a table of what I'm referring to in regards to his progress: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=c,13,-1,120,121,40,48,-1,45,62,122&season=2014&month=0&season1=2013&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=10310 I'm sure you know this by now since you're familiar with how FIP works, but ERA rarely tells the whole story, and there's no reason to limit yourself to that stat or other stats that rely on luck to some degree (such as AVG, WHIP). That's why I can't look at those numbers and declare "nope, no progress." K% and GB% are core pitcher skills, ones that a pitcher has a lot of control over, and ones that even stabilize quicker than any other pitcher stat in a season, so I don't think you're being very fair by saying those increases "may be due to luck more than anything else." The walks still need work, clearly, but the process is there for a pitcher whose ERA should be a lot better than what it currently is this season. Like I said yesterday, maybe with better fortune and better execution from Wheeler himself, he'll turn it around a lot quicker than people think.

Campbell boots it now. Unbelievable. 3 fvcking errors in the INNING.

What a disastrous inning. Familia did himself no favors by spiking the throw but Tejada still should've been able to handle it. Rare miscue by Lagares in center brings in the tying run. Damn.

Why isn't TC challenging this? Bethancourt didn't retouch 2B. Awful.

Fascinating stuff here - someone leaked 10 months of internal trade talks from the Astros: http://deadspin.com/leaked-10-months-of-the-houston-astros-internal-trade-1597951970 Some notable Met items involved: - Paul DePodesta wanted SS Jonathan Villar as a centerpiece (or only piece) for Daniel Murphy in December. (This would look freakin' laughable right now.) - Mets turned down Lucas Harrell and Alex Sogard for Ike Davis in late February. There was also a note from a conversation with John Ricco that the Mets were looking for corner OF help, a veteran starter, and a little bullpen help. Had payroll flexibility to fill those needs.