Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports
Fan Shot By Greg Jones
Please note this piece was submitted before we knew of the lockout injury to Michael Conforto.
First off, as I write this on March 29, there is a very good chance Michael Conforto will have signed somewhere. He is by general consensus the best bat remaining at the free agent party, and some team with a sudden injury or an alarming weakness in their outfield may well pick him up.
That aside….I have been very surprised at the almost universal disinterest or even hostility I have seen in the Mets blogosphere for Michael and/or the prospect of his return here. I would break this into:
Let’s take those in order.
Conforto had the worst year of his career in 2021, after a sparkling 2020 (yes, an abbreviated season, people feel compelled to tell me as if I didn’t know.) Nonetheless, in 2020 Michael stroked .322/.412/.515/.927.
In the National League, that was:
Without parsing each list, I can see that in batting average Michael was 2nd among outfielders.
What goes under the radar sometimes with Michael is his work patrolling rightfield. In 2020, among NL rightfielders, he ranked:
Yes, yes, small sample, but through his career Michael has been in the Top Ten in many defensive categories.
He had a terrible 2021…for him, and, so did many Mets. The team ranked dead last in offense well into the summer, wracked by injuries to McNeil, Davis, and Nimmo, and those who were here were doing not-so-hot-so, with Lindor batting .194 on June 1 and Dom Smith with an anemic .605 OPS on May 1, and McCann with a more anemicer .588 OPS at the end of May.
Was it ResinGate? Was it the departure of batting coach Chili Davis? Discuss among yourselves.
At any rate, Conforto was not immune to this team slump, but at least he had an excuse or two. Two weeks prior to spring training Michael was diagnosed with Covid-19. He had a mild case, but was unable to do his usual workouts coming into camp. To those who dismiss this, in my household I have two cases of “long Covid” and the fatigue symptoms can drag on, even if they aren’t pinpointed. At any rate, that happened, and it was and continues to be cited by Conforto’s agent Scott Boras, that paragon of straight talk, as a reason for his weak start. Following on to that, Michael pulled a hamstring on May 16, joining McNeil (hammy), Davis, Nimmo, Guillorme, deGrom, Carrasco, and Lugo.
Michael was out for 5 weeks and missed thirty five games. It should be noted that aside from that stretch, Michael only missed two games in 2021, and since 2019 only Pete Alonso has played more games for the Mets. I say that because some people remember a hamstring tightness issue in 2020 and count it against his resilience, but that was the last week of the season when the race was over, and Michael played 54 of the team’s 60 games in 2020.
So what happened in 2021? Well, a good working hypothesis is the Covid and the hammy hamstrung (see what I did there?) Michael’s bat for his first 50 games. Does it make sense that a 28-year-old guy that has slashed .259/.358/.484/.843 over a 600 game career, plunges that severely? Was it the teamwide slump, or the Covid, or the batting coach, or the hammy that had him batting .202 on July 10? The answer, I think, lies in what happened from that date on. From July 11 to the end of 2021, Conforto slashed:
Finally, it must be considered that the Mets, as a team, had a terrible offensive year, especially for a team that had led all baseball in batting average and OBP the year before. While Conforto’s OPS of .729 (weighted down by those first 50 games) was startling, he still clocked ahead of teammates Dom Smith, Jeff McNeil, and James McCann.
In closing….yes, a lousy 2021, but actually merely a terrible first 50 games, with excuses aplenty.
Mandatory Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports
Yes, he did, but most players do. In the first ten years of the Qualifying Offer system, 99 players out of 110 turned it down and opted for trying their luck on the free market. At 29, looking for his first multi-year contract, Conforto would have been pretty dumb to take a one year contract, even at that $18.4 million number (dang! I would have taken it!) He is a family man, or at least just got married. He blows out a knee or gets beaned or just starts sucking, his earning years are pretty much over at age 30.
Yeah, he has made a lot by our fan standards, $18.4 mil would have put his career earnings over $40 million, but after New York taxes that is like $5 mil (or something.) Anyway, there is no winning this argument because these sums are outrageous for any guy playing ball and beyond our comprehension, but suffice to say that a $100 million retirement contract is better than a one year prove it. I can’t research this right now, but I doubt a Boras client has ever taken a QO, and if one has, certainly two haven’t. He made this decision, of course, with 2021 hanging around his neck, a different hand of cards than when…
Yeah. This news came out a few weeks ago (5 or 6 years at $100/$120 million), and this one is harder to understand given his oft-repeated narrative that he wanted to be a Met for life and would give a hometown discount, etc.
All I can surmise is that on the back of 2020, Scott Boras was putting enormous numbers in his ear, and, in fact, with a solid basis in fact. At Age 29, with his offensive year among the top three in league outfielders and a solid glove, he stood above most of the free agent class either by age (Marte) or by glove (Castellano and Schwarber).
In fact, digging back and finding MLB Trade Rumors pre-2021 projections for the 2021-2022 free agent class, they have Michael at the No. 9 ranked free agent and the top outfielder calling him a Top 20 hitter, and saying due to his age he could get as long as a seven year deal.
So…it is what it is, Conforto turned down the 5/$100 or 6/$120 or whatever the offer is, and I’m sure he regrets it. But was his 2021 so bad that he now is only worth a 1/$15 or 2/$30?
Mandatory Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports
The current rule of thumb among the green eyeshades is that the cost of one Win Above Replacement is $8 million. That is a whole other article, but let’s proceed from there.
With Conforto, the top outfielders signed so far in free agency, with 2022 age and contracts, are:
Conforto (Age 29)
Castellanos (Age 30) 5/$100 $20 million AAV
Schwarber (Age 29) 4/$79 $19.75 AAV
Marte (Age 33) 4/$78 $19.5 AAV
None of the above accounts for opt-out, option years or incentives. Age, of course, is important, because reams of data documents the cliff outfielders fall off in their early 30s, both at the plate and in the field and staying healthy. Signing an outfielder to Age 37 is foolish and risky, so the Mets did with Starling Marte, and the Giants did with Bryant, although he can move into the infield when his legs fail.
Now, let’s look at how the market looked for these five guys last spring, going off the last three years (2018-2020) combined WAR (bWAR):
Marte (Age 33) 8.5 WAR
Conforto (Age 29) 8.4 WAR
Castellanos (Age 30) 5.6 WAR
Schwarber (Age 29) 4.5 WAR
Even adding in Conforto’s wretched first 50 games of 2021
Marte (Age 33) 13.2 WAR
Conforto (Age 29) 9.3 WAR
Castellanos (Age 30) 8.9 WAR
Schwarber (Age 29) 7.6 WAR
Digging further…Marte can not be expected to maintain his production or health until Age 37, in fact, his health is already a problem. He was signed for centerfield money, and he has already apparently been supplanted there by Brandon Nimmo.
Schwarber is a trainwreck in the outfield, the worst OFer in either league by dWAR, and he simply must move to 1B or DH.
By these numbers…..factoring in Conforto’s strong rebound in the second half, I believe he should have been in the running for the best OF contract this year.
Still, there he is for the taking. Michael, remember, was a team leader, so highly regarded he was bandied about (along with Alonso) to be the first Mets Captain since Keith Hernandez. When the team voted for a union rep, they chose Conforto. Our OF, to me, is our biggest weakness. We have Marte and Nimmo, great players when they are on the field, but they haven’t answered the bell much lately. Then we have Canha, in his Age 33, who slashed .231/.358/.387/.746 last year. On a contender, Canha is a 4th OFer. Sorry, Mark.
And there is Mike, a proven team leader and good citizen, a guy considered the best free agent outfielder on the market just a year ago, available for maybe $20 million with a team option for 2023. (Trivia factoid: Conforto is one of only three players to have played in the Little League World Series, the College World Series, and the MLB World Series.)
Yeah, we give up a compensation draft pick, but if Mike hangs out there until after the draft, we don’t get it anyway. And it isn’t the 14th overall we have all been defending – if he signs for less than $50 million, which seems likely, that compensation pick comes after Competitive Balance Round B, maybe overall number 70 or 71. Since we have two firsts, a second and a comp for Noah, that is de minimis.
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This Fan Shot was contributed by MMO community member Greg Jones. Have something you want to say? Share your opinions with the best and most diverse Mets community on the web! Send your Fan Shot to getmetsmerized@aol.com.
The post Fan Shot: The Case for Michael Conforto first appeared on Metsmerized Online.
