New York Mets: Clear Favorites to Win NL East

The New York Mets will enter the 2016 season as clear favorites to defend their 2015 National League East Division Title.

I’ll start with this: I did NOT expect the Mets to sign the heart and soul of their 2015 playoff run, Yoenis Cespedes. I did not believe they would after the World Series, and felt the chances were even smaller when the Washington Nationals offered him a 5-year, $100 million offer.

Yet, general manager Sandy Alderson stayed the course, and got a deal done. Alderson gave Cespedes three years and $75 million which is an incredible deal. It’s short-term so he won’t eat up payroll space for years and years into the future, if things were to go south.

More importantly than that, the return of Cespedes to New York makes them the lead dog in the NL East. They were arguably the favorites before bringing him back, but had Cespedes gone to Washington, things would have been a lot more interesting.

Cespedes’ bat in the lineup makes the offense much more legitimate. According to projections by FanGraphs, the Mets lineup (without Cespedes) were projected to score 4.02 runs per game in 2016, fifth-fewest in baseball.

New York was going to use Alejandro De Aza and Juan Lagares as a platoon in center field if they were unable to convince Cespedes to return. FanGraphs projected De Aza to post a 103 OPS+ with 1.2 WAR and Lagares to post an 87 OPS+ and 2.2 WAR.

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Cespedes’ return forces Lagares and De Aza to ride the pine and brings a game changing bat to the starting lineup. He is projected to produce a 125 OPS+ and 4.4 WAR, a significant upgrade as compared to the De Aza and Lagares platoon.

With or without Cespedes, the Mets’ young rotation will continue serve as the backbone of the team going forward. They are a devastating foursome, and quite cheap as well.

Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz are set to make $6 million in 2016, with $4.3 million of that going to Harvey. That’s all folks.

In 2015 Mets’ starters had the fourth best ERA (3.44), struck out the fifth most (891), walk the least batters (213), and batters batted a dismal .248 against New York’s rotation.

With the provision of good health, this rotation could perform even better in 2016, especially with Zack Wheeler’s hopeful return in the summertime and Harvey no longer needing to worry about the stupid innings limit.

Last year, the Mets came in as underdogs in the NL East. Everyone pointed to the Nationals, who possessed a roster stacked with talent and were even tabbed as early favorites to make the World Series.

They failed to live up to the hype, mainly caused by dysfunction, but injuries, underperformance, frustration and more led to that collapse. The Mets have the hype, but is there any reason to believe the Amazins can’t win the division again?

Absolutely not.

Their pitching is still devastating, their bullpen still looks rock solid, and they have Cespedes. He transformed the Mets last season and again here in the offseason. Can he use that magic to take them all the way to a parade in the Canyon of Heroes?

One thing’s for sure, they’re much closer

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