nmigliore

Yeah, because I'm sure those New Yorkers decided to take a 2+ hour drive down the Turnpike on a Monday night in April to see the Mets face one of the worst teams in baseball.

Well with deGrom not around and Harvey looking frighteningly not-good, there's really no debate. But like CR said, we should HOPE that becomes debatable as the season wears on, although even if deGrom and Harvey return to excellence it still may not be. Not sure there is a pitcher in MLB with better pure stuff than Thor.

Nice to see them take 2 of 3 on the road. Pitching matchups aren't exactly spectacular against the Phillies -- Noah tonight is exciting but Verrett vs Velasquez (who has looked incredible so far) and Colon vs Hellickson doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. I'd obviously be very happy with 2 of 3 again. Hopefully the Nats can cool down a bit but they have 4 on the road against Miami and then 6 home games vs the Twins and Phillies. Miami might be decent this year but they're 3-7 out of the gate. 9 of the Nats' first 11 games played have come against the Braves and Phillies. I know the divisional games balance out in the end, but man, what a cakewalk of an opening schedule that allows them to get ahead of the pack in a hurry.

I have to be honest, I laughed when Yo! crashed into that fan. It looked too funny in slow-mo.

Well at least Robles was the right call there after the Henderson mess; highest strikeout rate of anyone in our 'pen last season in a situation where strikeouts were needed.

What a silly move to turn to Henderson. He looks completely tired. He's sitting 89-90 this inning. This is a guy who averaged 95+ on Opening Day...

Ugly outing by Matz, but going 10 days without a start must've had some factor. I also agree that people are being unfair by lumping him in with the Big 3. I like him, but there's bound to be growing pains. Not every elite arm comes up and dominates right out of the gate - we've been very spoiled with Harvey, deGrom, and Thor in recent years (and even Matz's first taste of MLB late last season and the playoffs). Ynoa is right there with Gsellman as one of the top pitching prospects in the system (which again says more about the system than it does either of those two). He'll be interesting to follow in Vegas - he throws lots of strikes with okay stuff but his strikeouts have been trending in the wrong direction with each level he moves up. I'm afraid his profile looks like the type that might get torched in the PCL but at least his first start went decently. Montero is apparently on the way up, per Rubin.

Yeah, I remember saying after 2013 that Harvey's year may end up being his peak season, results-wise (2.27 ERA, 2.00 FIP). He was still terrific last season but not quite on 2013 level. deGrom really concerns me with the velocity. I know I'm beating a dead horse but this fastball velocity graph is a bit scary: I'm not buying it's the lat issue since that is a "new" thing and the down velocity was happening in ST, but we'll see. Assuming nothing is wrong with his arm, which is a big assumption, one silver lining is that deGrom was still really good in 2014 with sub-95 mph velocity. Completely agree on the status of the pitching prospects - it's a cycle; when you graduate so many arms and move some others, the system is going to end up hitting a valley. Gsellman may be the most intriguing arm in the minors at this point, although I'm not giving up on Montero yet either.

Glowing report on Robert Gsellman's velocity from his 1st start, via Baseball Prospectus:

Annoying start to the season considering how bad the Phillies are, but it's 5 games. Let's hope for better things vs the Fish. CR, you may have noticed, but Tyler Pill showed up in the AA boxscore yesterday: 5 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 K.

Love Conforto <3

Haha same here via MLB Network's PC feed. Luckily they are broadcasting this game (and no blackout!) or else I'd be following through Gameday.

Impressive stuff from Henderson. Would be a nice boon to the 'pen if he can rekindle what he was in 2012-2013.

You'd hope its the weather but he had this velocity in ST too in sunny, hot Florida...

deGrom's down velocity from ST seems to have carried over to this first start...

All scouting reports pointed to Rosario having a projectable body, so yeah, I'm assuming he's bulked up a bit since last year. Here's a video of one of his exhibition homers, which was apparently a bomb based on the verbal reaction: http://www.amazinavenue.com/2016/3/31/11339340/holy-s-amed-rosario-crushes-a-baseball-out-of-sight

I think it was 2 or 3 seasons ago where I went to like 3 games in April and hit horrible weather every time - either it was terribly freezing, insane winds, raining, or a combination of all of those... since then I've boycotted going to April games. With that said, have fun! Opening Day is still super exciting and the one exception I would make to going to an April game...

Nice debut for Rosario last night in St. Lucie: 3-for-5 with a homerun. The homer was a walk-off shot to the opposite-field in the bottom of the 9th. Lugo is on the mound tonight for Vegas; really curious to see if his hot finish in AAA carries over from last season.

Minor league seasons kicks off tonight -- opening night starters on the mound: AAA (Las Vegas): Rafael Montero AA (Binghamton): Robert Gsellman A+ (St. Lucie): Josh Prevost A (Columbia): Chase Ingram Some notable top prospects and where they were assigned: Brandon Nimmo, OF: AAA Gavin Cecchini, SS: AAA Dominic Smith, 1B: AA Amed Rosario, SS: A+ Wuilmer Becerra, OF: A+ Luis Guillorme, SS: A+ (will play 2B unfortunately due to Rosario at same level) Milton Ramos, SS: A And similar insight from Jon Mayo of MLB.com: http://m.mets.mlb.com/news/article/170658998/where-mets-top-30-prospects-will-start-season

Yeah, there are definitely instances where using solely FIP or xFIP isn't being fair. Some pitchers ARE simply just very hittable, homer prone, or not good with runners on base and you can't always expect their BABIP (or homeruns per flyballs allowed) to regress to league average, but it's generally tough to determine those outlier cases until you have quite a few seasons of data of the pitcher. Sample applies for the reverse - Chris Young, for instance, will forever be hated by FIP/xFIP but since he's always been able to produce low BABIPs due to the type of contact he induces, he's been able to be a useful pitcher (when he's not hurt, that is). For a pitcher like that, there's enough data to support that using metrics like FIP or xFIP isn't fair. Clayton Kershaw, scary enough, is actually underrated by FIP and xFIP as well. He routinely posts low BABIPs and low HR/FB rates. And then there are cases like Joe Blanton (when he was a starter, in recent years) where he had shiny K/BB rates but was very hittable and homer-prone. So yeah, there are absolutely limitations to using FIP and xFIP for everyone. It does work for mostly everyone, and in smaller samples it's still better than ERA, but there comes a time where we have enough data on certain pitchers where it becomes wiser to concede to actual results than expected results.

By the way, this Mets' opening schedule is completely ridiculous. Sunday opener in KC, off day Monday, game Tuesday, off days Wednesday AND Thursday followed by a weekend series with Philly. They have 6 overall off days during this month, which is more than the next two months combined. I'm sure there is some logical reasoning behind it, maybe adjusting for possible bad early-April weather, but it just looks so wonky; I don't understand why it wasn't arranged for the Mets/Royals to either play 3 or Mets/Phillies for 4.

McHugh has solidly-above average defensive-independent numbers the last two seasons. I know a lot of people don't buy into the stuff, and I certainly didn't expect him to turn out to be this efficient, but he's gotten the job done pretty well with it. Dillon Gee really only had one "solid" season by traditional measurements -- in 2013 when he made 32 starts, won 12 games, and pitched to a 3.62 ERA -- but even then the metrics didn't back it up (his FIP and xFIP were both below league average).

Rockies SS Trevor Story became the first player in MLB history to homer in each of his first 3 big league games (and he already has 4 on the season). Wow.

Speaking of velocity... Thor's 95 mph slider/cutter in .gif format...

He averaged 89-90 in 2014-2015 but was significantly below that last night - 87.5 per PitchFX, granted it was only his first outing of the season.