Jorge López and the Mets’ melodrama; José Siri’s home run robbery

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[Jazz hands] The Mets! Also: more on the integration of Negro Leagues stats and we look at bat speed from another perspective. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

The Mets! Are Metsing!

There’s a well-known (but not fit for print) joke in stand-up comedy, the punchline of which is a simple two-word finale: “… The Aristocrats!”

I can’t count how many times in the last decade I have read an utterly bonkers baseball story, and mentally concluded my read with a bewildered but entertained “… The Mets!” (Here’s a Reddit thread if you need to catch up.) I mean, come on.

So about yesterday …

The eighth inning had already fallen apart by the time Jorge López entered the game, but his first act was to attempt a pickoff, which hit third-base umpire Ramon De Jesus (this is foreshadowing). A two-run bloop double, a fly out, and a two-run tank from Shohei Ohtani later, it was 9-3 Dodgers.

Then after a Freddie Freeman checked swing, Mets catcher Tomás Nido appealed to De Jesus, who signaled “no swing.”

I don’t know what López said, but I do know that less than three seconds separated Nido’s appeal and De Jesus barking “WHAT?!” so combatively that his arms clenched.

While López said something after the call, it wasn’t aggressive until De Jesus responded, at which point, it did escalate. Not to harp on it, but umpires: Stop making things worse on purpose.

I’m defending López, exactly. On his way off the mound, he threw his glove into the stands. Cool souvenir, but not exactly professional. After the game, he insisted he did not regret doing that, going on to say that either the Mets were the “worst team in the whole f—ing MLB” or he has looked like “the worst teammate, probably, in the whole f—ing MLB.”

(Oh. I guess it was both.)

Shortly thereafter, the team parted ways with López, designating him for assignment.

This was not the only bad news the Mets got yesterday. Struggling closer Edwin Díaz was added to the IL before the game, and Pete Alonso exited after being hit on the hand by a pitch. Further, the 10-3 loss completed a sweep, leaving the Mets at 22-33, fourth place in the NL East — 16 games behind the Phillies.

If López, a nine-year veteran and 2022 All-Star, finds another job, he may find himself on a worse team than the Mets. But I’m almost certain he won’t find one with a more insatiable penchant for outlandish melodrama.

“… The Mets!”

Ken’s Notebook: Acknowledging Negro Leagues greats

From today’s column:

To anyone questioning the legitimacy of making Negro Leagues statistics part of Major League Baseball’s official record, I pose this question: How legitimate were MLB’s statistics prior to 1947, when the league was essentially an all-White men’s club?

If you want to argue Josh Gibson didn’t face the best competition, well, neither did Babe Ruth. And if you want to argue Gibson’s newly anointed record-setting 1943 season is less meaningful because he appeared in only 69 games, well, people who follow the sport are forever engaging in such context-driven debates.

The question of whether Henry Aaron or Barry Bonds should be considered the all-time home-run leader is not exactly settled in the minds of many fans, is it?

I understand why some found it jarring to learn Wednesday that Gibson was the new all-time leader in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS. But I found it more jarring that MLB, before declaring the Negro Leagues a major league in 2020, did not fully acknowledge a generation of elite Black professional players.

That’s what this is all about, really — acknowledging that Gibson and Oscar Charleston and Turkey Stearnes deserve the same recognition as Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and other pre-1947 greats.

Yes, Gibson, Charleston and Stearnes are among the Negro Leagues players in the Hall of Fame. The difference now is their statistics will be a formal part of the baseball narrative, increasing awareness, sparking curiosity. As Reds pitcher Hunter Greene put it, “I’m going to have to do a little bit more research and understand some of the history to kind of rewire my brain on some of the best players.”

“People will be, I don’t know if upset is the right word, but they may be uncomfortable with some Negro League stars now on the leaderboards for career and seasons,” Larry Lester, an author and longtime Negro Leagues researcher, told The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner. “Diehards may not accept the stats, but that’s OK. I welcome the conversations at the bar or the barbershop at the pool hall. That’s why we do what we do.”

Lester was part of a 17-person committee, comprised of historians, writers and statisticians, as well as a former player and GM, that determined which Negro Leagues games counted toward the official record. The sole goal of the committee members was to achieve historical accuracy. Some worked tirelessly to document Negro League records even before MLB became interested. And the committee will continue trying to assemble the most complete account of Negro Leagues games possible, adjusting as more information becomes available.

More on this story: Cody Stavenhagen and Stephen Nesbitt relay some of the excitement from the families of Negro Leagues players after their inclusion in the official MLB record books.

Bat speed metrics … for pitchers?

A couple weeks back, we told you about the new bat speed metrics that Baseball Savant had introduced. It stands to reason that when the metric is about bat speed, the outliers we would point out would be, well, batters.

But did you know they track this for pitchers, too?

That’s a tiny visual, I know. Click here to explore the board yourself. In the meantime, let’s dig in. (Note: These numbers were pulled last night, so they might have changed slightly in the last 12 hours.)

• See the dot on the bottom left? That’s Kyle Bradish of the Orioles. That position means the average swing against him is slower than any other (qualified) pitcher in the game. Being that far down means that when hitters do swing, they only square up the ball 17.2 percent of the time. Is it any surprise that Bradish is tied for first in the league with zero home runs allowed this year?

• Over there on the bottom right: Blake Snell. Hitters swing harder against him than any other pitcher. His whiff rate (31.5 percent) is still in the 85th percentile, so hitters don’t square it up that often, but when they do, it goes far. When you change the parameters from “swings” to “contact,” his 11.5 percent barrel rate is the highest of his career. Same for his 12.8 hits per nine innings. That’s probably not a recipe for success.

• The lowest “Squared Up” rate here is Fernando Cruz of the Reds (16.3 percent). That tracks. The highest is Framber Valdez of the Astros (36.8 percent), which might be a byproduct of the elbow issues that landed him on the IL.

More stats: Eno Sarris’ “Caught Looking” column this week runs the gamut, including a pitcher setting a new knuckleball velo record.

Handshakes and High Fives

Britt Ghiroli examines Fernando Tatis Jr.’s early stardom, the PED suspension, and the long road back to success.

In Shota Imanaga’s first nine starts, he allowed five earned runs. He allowed seven to the Brewers yesterday. Not the end of the world, but not great timing, either.

It was a fun doubleheader yesterday in Detroit. Tarik Skubal of the Tigers shut down the Pirates in the first game, and Paul Skenes returned the favor in the second contest.

Alec Manoah finished third in AL Cy Young voting in 2022. It has been a long rough patch since. The latest: He left yesterday’s start with elbow discomfort and will undergo an MRI today.

From the podcasts: Sam Miller of Pebble Hunting joined Andy McCullough and Grant Brisbee on The Windup to talk about Angel Hernandez retiring, the Ronald Acuña Jr. injury and more.

This GIF has everything:

Tied game, ninth inning, José Siri homer robbery. A slight collision, followed by a celebration before we know whether Randy Arozarena is OK. And look at the glove colors! Later, Siri walked it off with a single for a 4-3 win over the A’s.

You can buy tickets to every MLB game here.

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(File photo of Jorge López: Luke Hales / Getty Images)