Goodbye to LOL Mets?

Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball

The Athletic

Baseball, Sports

4.9 • 746 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Will Sammon joins Eno and DVR to discuss the Mets' increasing distance from 'LOL Mets' thanks to their continued growth in pitching development throughout the organization. Plus, they discuss the ongoing questions around Brett Baty, Luisangel Acuña's path to lock down the second-base job, and changes to Mark Vientos' approach that haven't paid off yet. Plus, they discuss bloated ratios, Dylan Cease's bad luck to begin 2025, and Jasson Domínugez as a long-term target.

Rundown

2:11 Clay Holmes' Excellent Start to 2025

5:56 Griffin Canning's Relatively Simple Adjustments

11:49 Taking Small Market Success Into a Big Budget Situation

14:33 Tylor Megill's Short & Long-Term Changes

17:27 David Peterson is the Mets' Andrew Abbott

21:06 Questions Around the Mets' Bats

27:24 Trading Bat Speed for an All-Fields Approach?

37:04 Hope for Damaged ERA and WHIP?

44:26 What's Going On with Dylan Cease?

49:56 Jasson Domínguez: Still a Long-Term Target?

Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social

Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social

Follow Will on Bluesky: @willsammon.bsky.social

e-mail: [email protected]

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Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels

Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris

With: Will Sammon

Producer: Brian Smith

Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Rheald's Tuesday, May 6th, Derek Fenryper, Enoceris, and Will Salmon of the Athletic, joining us today.
0:18.6	We're going to talk a lot of Mets here with Will as this show gets
0:21.6	underway. I think we can actually, maybe today's the day we officially bury LOL Mets. If it
0:28.5	wasn't already buried last year, this franchise just isn't the same anymore, Will. This is not the
0:33.6	Mets team I grew up watching and laughing at. This is a team that is clearly doing a lot of
0:39.6	things really, really well. We'll dig into what's clicking for them so far. A few things that
0:43.5	haven't yet and try to answer some lingering questions people have about this team. Will, first and
0:48.3	foremost, thank you for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. Sorry in advance for the
0:52.2	sounds of New York City that you may hear.
0:54.2	I have my window open, but I'm sure some people appreciate the horn honking and the screaming.
0:59.6	Hey, a little bit less with congested pricing, right?
1:02.2	A little bit, yeah, a little bit. Depends on what you ask.
1:06.8	I don't hear anything so far, so the magic of automatic sound blocking is working to our benefits so far.
1:14.3	But a lot of ground to cover with this Mets team.
1:16.4	Let's start in the rotation, where entering play on Tuesday, the Mets rotation is 7th league-wide in strikeout minus walk percentage, 15.5%.
1:25.6	First, an ERA by a healthy margin with a 270 ERA, a 130 whip.
1:31.6	A little strange to see those numbers side by side tied for 17th, but they do have a 319 Babbat third
1:36.7	highest in the league. And they're middle of the pack in terms of innings pitch, so they're working
1:40.8	about as much as the typical rotation so far.
1:49.5	Given the injuries they've had to Frankie Montas and Sean Mania, this is probably about as well as anyone could have hoped things were going.
1:52.0	But part of the reason this team is not the LOL Mets anymore is the leadership, right?
1:56.8	A lot has changed in terms of the players they seek out, how they make adjustments for those players.
	...

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