The World's Worst Sports Blog

Exactly how big an impact have those trades had? August 26, 2015

The Mets made some huge deals near the trade deadline to pick up Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson on July 25, Tyler Clippard on July 28, and Yoenis Cespedes on August 1. (Those are the dates of the first games the players appeared in for the Mets.) Let’s take a look at the effects of those trades. If there was no effect from the trades, then the Mets’ improvement would have to be basically indistinguishable from chance.

Juan Uribe on July 25; credit slgckgc on Flickr

• April: The Mets scored 97 runs and and allowed 81 for a 16-run differential and a .581 Pythagorean expectation. They went 15-8 for a win percentage of .652, giving them a Pythagorean differential of .071 and 1.63 Wins Above Expectation.¹
• May: 95 runs scored, 105 allowed, 11-14, for an expected .455 winning percentage, .440 actual winning percentage, -.015 differential and -.36 WAE.
• June: 84 runs scored, 105 allowed, 9-15, for an expected .413, actual .375, -.038 differential and -.90 WAE.
• July: 89 runs scored, 83 allowed, 11-12, for an expected .532, realized .478, -.053 differential and -1.23 WAE.
• August: 137 runs scored, 84 allowed, 16-5, for an expected .709, actual .762, .053 differential and 1.11 WAE.

Clearly, the jump in August has been enormous, especially since they only played 21 games in August; in fact, the Mets averaged 3.76 runs per game through July, but 8.2 in August. In fact, if we start on July 25, the Mets have averaged 9.26 runs per game. Between Uribe, Johnson, and Cespedes, that’s a huge improvement – five and a half runs per game!

What about Clippard? Well, for one, the Mets averaged 3.9 runs allowed through July; since August 1, we’re at 4.0. However, Clippy’s ERA with the Mets is 1.93, and the bullpen ERA overall is 3.08. The August ERA for the bullpen has been an alarming 3.59, but that includes the hilarious trip to Colorado, too. That makes Tyler’s low ERA even more impressive. (For the record, future Mets closer Hansel Robles has a 3.27 August ERA – that’s 4 ER in 11.0 IP – and current closer Jeurys Familia hasn’t allowed a run in 11 1/3 innings pitched in August.) Clippy’s definitely value-added in the bullpen, especially considering that the alternative might be Dario Alvarez or Dillon Gee unhappy in his role.

Most notably, though, since the Mets picked up Uribe and Johnson, their wins above expectation have been statistically zero. They’ve been playing to their potential, not above it, since July 25.

We’re in for an interesting end to the year.

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¹ Pythagorean differential is computed as (Winning percentage – Pythagorean Expectation). Wins Above Expectation is computed as Pythagorean differential times games played. They measure the same concept but are scaled differently.