Mets Player Performance Meter: Position Players, July 16-August 2

Thus far in the second half, the Mets have puttered about just under .500 and the offense has struggled, especially with Juan Soto hitting the injured list. Though Francisco Lindor has gone back to looking more like himself offensively, the other regulars the Mets have gotten back from the injured list have not been positive contributors. Their hottest hitter—Tyrone Taylor—was traded at the deadline.

Player	Last week	This week
Francisco Alvarez, C
Brett Baty, UTIL
Carson Benge, OF
Bo Bichette, 3B
A.J. Ewing, OF
Francisco Lindor, SS
Jorge Polanco, DH
Luis Robert Jr., OF
Marcus Semien, 2B
Juan Soto, OF
Tyrone Taylor, OF
Luis Torrens, C
Eric Wagaman, 1B/DH
Jared Young, 1B/DH

Juan Soto—one of the only players hitting consistently—is out for a considerable amount of time with

a calf strain, though he expects to play again this season. This meant a lot of playing time for both Tyrone Taylor and Luis Robert Jr. to showcase them before the trading deadline. With Taylor this approach was successful; his incredible power surge continued to the tune of a blistering 267 wRC+ in his last 30 plate appearances in a Mets uniform. He went deep an astonishing four times to lead the team and his eleven RBIs were second-most on the team despite having half the number of plate appearances as the true everyday players. He also led the team with eight runs scored. At least Taylor went out on a high note. Robert, on the other hand, did not. He hit a couple of very impressive home runs, but that was about it in his 40 plate appearances thus far in the second half—good for a rather putrid 38 wRC+ overall. Robert walked three times, scored four runs, and drove in four runs. He also struck out a whopping 16 times. Unlike Taylor, Robert was not dealt at the deadline so he will be around as the Mets play out the string in the final two months to see if he can give the Mets any reason to pick up his option for next season.

The only Met to strike out more times than Robert over the past 16 games is A.J. Ewing, who has unfortunately hit a bit of a rough patch. He put up a 53 wRC+ in 70 plate appearances. He notched 14 hits, which is the third-most on the team, but only three of those went for extra bases (all doubles). Carson Benge put up an identical number of hits and proportion of those being extra base hits to Ewing, but he did so in 12 fewer plate appearances, translating to a more respectable 87 wRC+, but that is still a drop-off from what he had been doing heading into the break. Both young Mets outfielders drove in four runs apiece since the break.

Much like Robert, Marcus Semien has not done a whole lot offensively since returning from the injured list other than hit a few long balls, which represent three of his nine total hits over his first 48 plate appearances back on the active roster. He drove in six runs and also scored six runs, which is a three-way tie for the second-most on the team, despite his 79 wRC+.

The other two players to score six runs so far in the second half are two of the only players to earn positive marks on this meter. Francisco Lindor has been the best everyday hitter on the team since the injury to Soto, putting up a 165 wRC+ in his first 70 plate appearances in the second half. He leads the team in both hits (18) and RBIs (13). He matches Tyrone Taylor’s four home runs to also lead the team in that category. Somehow his nine walks are only second-most on the team. The player with the most walks is a surprising one: Francisco Alvarez with a whopping twelve walks in 46 plate appearances. Patience at the plate has been the defining feature of Alvarez’s second half so far. It’s unlikely he can sustain a walk rate quite this high, but it is clearly a concerted effort he is making to see more pitches and it is working. Of Alvarez’s nine hits so far in the second half, over half of them went for extra bases, including three home runs. He’s driven in five runs and like Lindor and Semien, scored six runs. He holds an extremely impressive 186 wRC+ so far in the second half, which leads the team among position players still on the roster.

Other than Lindor and Alvarez, the only player still wearing a Mets uniform to be in the green this week is Jared Young, who continues to see regular playing time against both righties and lefties with Mark Vientos still sidelined. Young has posted a 115 wRC+ in 42 plate appearances since the deadline, racking up nine hits, including three extra-base hits. He has scored four runs, driven in a run, and walked four times. Eric Wagaman, by contrast, has been playing far less and has one hit in just six plate appearances in the second half so far.

After a brief period of hope that he had turned his season around, Bo Bichette headed into the break on a downturn that has not improved since the break. In the second half of July and the first few games of August, Bichette put up a decidedly medocre 60 wRC+ in 70 plate appearances. His 16 hits are second only to Lindor for the team lead, but just two of those went for extra bases. He has scored five runs and driven in only two in the second half.

Brett Baty has been seeing some time in the outfield and it has not gone very well defensively. And he is not producing at the plate either; he holds a 64 wRC+in his first 32 plate appearances since the break. He has six hits—four singles and two home runs, which represent his only runs batted in over this 16-game span. He has also walked once and scored five runs.

Despite receiving some trade interest, the Mets opted to hang on to Luis Torrens, who has posted a 66 wRC+ in the second half thus far. Of course, his offense is not why the Mets value him. They value his defense and skills as a receiver. As long as Francisco Alvarez is producing, Torrens’ light hitting is not a problem, but with the rest of the lineup performing as poorly as it is, it exacerbates the issue.