Mets, Yankees enter Subway Series in serious power outage
The absence of Pete Alonso and Aaron Judge from their respective lineups creates the biggest power outage in New York since the 1977 blackout.
Baseball is not supposed to emulate basketball, with one player having such an outsized impact on success or failure. But unplugging the National League and American League homer leaders through the weekend has left the Mets and Yankees lineups as electric as Muzak.
There are similar reasons why both lineups are so currently drab as the first New York-New York contests of 2023 arrive Tuesday at Citi Field: 1. The well-paid veterans who are supposed to be worthy supporting actors to the leading men have mainly underperformed and, 2. The touted youngsters not named Francisco Alvarez have often looked not ready for primetime.
The difference between the two teams — why the Yankees will enter 38-29 and the Mets 31-35 — is that the Yankees have improved so greatly over the last few years at run prevention. They not only have upgraded the performance of pitchers (notably relievers), but also their defense behind the staff.
When Steve Cohen talked to The Post over the weekend, he mentioned that when he began his ownership, the Mets lacked quality and quantity in pitching prospects (especially close to the majors) and also were antiquated in how they used modern technology to develop and prepare pitchers, notably in comparison to organizations more in the vanguard such as the Yankees, Rays, Astros, Guardians and Dodgers.
Aaron Judge will likely be absent from the Yankees for a significant amount of time. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST
He mentioned that the Mets only opened a pitching lab this season and that it takes time to staff it with the right people and the proper equipment. Thus, “We are catching up. Developing pitchers is not a three-month phenomenon. It’s gonna take years. That’s a problem we have. We’re trying to fix those problems in the organization to be a high-performing organization from a pitching perspective. But it’s gonna take time.”
Cohen thought he was buying time by, among other items, making Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander the highest-paid, per-annum players in history. But the duo has combined for just 17 starts, a 4.19 ERA and 92 ¹/₃ innings. They face the Yankees on Tuesday and Wednesday. And they face a lineup that lacks menace; a lineup that is in Season 2 of being a one-man band.
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For the entirety of last season, Judge had a 1.111 OPS and the rest of the Yankees a .708 OPS. It was more outsized after the All-Star break when Judge was all that stood between the Yankees blowing a 15 ¹/₂-game division lead. In the second half of 2022, Judge had a 1.286 OPS and the rest of the Yankees were at .652.
Nothing has changed this year. Judge’s OPS in 213 plate appearances is 1.078. The rest of the Yankees are .686 in 2,242 plate appearances. In the seven games since Judge injured his big right toe, the Yankees hit .183 with a .586 OPS while averaging three runs per contest.
In these last seven games, the players the Yankees would most rely upon — their salaried veterans — are Anthony Rizzo (0-for-22), Josh Donaldson (2-for-18, both hits are homers), Giancarlo Stanton (2-for-18), DJ LeMahieu (3-for-19 without an extra-base hit or RBI) and Gleyber Torres (4-for-24 with two homers). The youngsters they were hoping would emerge this year have not. Oswaldo Cabrera is 1-for-8 and is now batting .196 with a .551 OPS for the season and could be heading to Triple-A when Harrison Bader returns. Anthony Volpe is 3-for-18 and down to .186 and .605. The questions are becoming louder if the Yanks should try to reset him in the minors in favor of Oswald Peraza.
The Yanks are still looking at weeks until Judge returns. The Mets announced that Alonso would be gone 3-4 weeks when he was placed on the IL last Friday with a bone bruise and sprain of his left wrist.
One Mets issue this year has been their homer differential, which is 91-79. And that was with Alonso hitting an MLB-best 22. Even after missing the past four games, Alonso has hit 27.8 percent of the Mets’ homers. Only Miami’s Jorge Soler (29.7) has hit a larger percentage.
Right now, Mets fans would form a blame posse and go after Daniel Vogelbach. And he has been bad. But that is like worrying about a dirty window on the Hindenburg. Francisco Lindor, Starling Marte and Jeff McNeil have multi-year commitments to be core lineup pieces and last year their combined slash line was .295/.355/.456 for an .811 OPS. It is .248/.319/.372 for a .691 OPS this year.
Francisco Alvarez is one of the few young prospects living up to his potential this season. Getty Images
Alvarez has provided much needed power in his debut season. But after a strong first three weeks following his promotion, Brett Baty since May 6 had the 11th-worst average (.184) and eighth-worst slugging percentage (.276) among those with 100 plate appearances. Meanwhile, the people’s choice, Mark Vientos, has done nothing in sporadic play to warrant regular play beyond not being Vogelbach.
This is how the Yankees and Mets lineups show up for the Subway Series. The main men have been removed from both lineups and not for an inconsequential period. This leaves the New York squads playing Survivor amid a power outage
Source: New York Post
