New York Mets: Comeback, Value, Breakout

The Mets pitchers may get a lot of love from fantasy baseball managers but Sports Illustrated’s analysts identify a few players from New York that will help fantasy managers in 2020.

When it comes to the Mets roster, a lot of fantasy baseball players are eyeing up Jacob deGrom for obvious reasons. The New York ace pitcher is coming off back-to-back CY Young awards and is getting picked in the first round of nearly every fantasy baseball draft. But as Sports Illustrated’s Shawn Childs and Ben Heisler point out there’s a handful of players on the Mets roster than can help fantasy baseball players win their league in 2020. 

Check out the attached video for evaluations of Edwin Diaz, J.D. Davis and Robinson Cano.

For more Mets fantasy baseball analysis, read the transcript from their conversation:

Bill Enright: Fantasy baseball players can't wait to draft Jacob deGrom, rightfully so, he's coming off back-to-back Cy Youngs, but according to Sports Illustrated's fantasy baseball analyst Shawn Childs, there's a handful of other Mets players that you'll want on your team. Pleased to be talking to Shawn and also Ben Heisler. Shawn, I'm going to go to you first for your value and breakout player from the Mets this year.

Shawn Childs: As far as a value player, Robinson Cano needs 430 hits to reach 3000. A couple of years ago, that looked like a pretty easy task. Last year, he really battled injuries, probably had the worst season of his career. It just was all season. He got banged up and he had a torn hamstring, missed a lot of time. He's getting drafted really, really late this year. He has the pedigree of being a top player and he's going to hit a premium spot in the batting lineup. So as far as his hard-hit rate in 2018 was top twelve and last year it was 44th, which shows that he can still hit the ball pretty hard. So I think he's going to bounce back and be undervalued in drafts, not going to be a lot of speed. Overall, he's a talented player. As far as J.D. Davis as a breakout player, I think he's going to be a lot more attractive because he's for sure going to be in the lineup if NL plays with the designated hitter. His walk rate and strikeout rates around league average. His average hit rate and contact batting average came in strong last year and he has the potential to probably reach 30 home runs if he played a full season. He's going to push higher and higher with batting average as well. So I like what he's going to bring to the table and I think he's going to be a pretty attractive this year.

Bill Enright: Ben, I'm going to go over to you. What do you make of Edwin Diaz?

Ben Heisler: I like him a lot. Bill, as a possible comeback player of the year for the New York Mets. This is a guy that had really good stuff last year. But right after the end of May, he kind of fell off a cliff a little bit. Got off to a good start, ended up with a 2 - 7 record, an ERA of right around 5.59. Highest WHIP and walk rate through nine innings of his career. If he can harness that fastball, he's got a great wipeout slider. Shawn wrote about him early in his New York Mets preview for the season. I think Edwin Diaz, especially if the health is there, if we're not worried about the velocity going down, I think he has a chance to get his confidence back up and really put together a nice season in a shortened season for the New York Mets in 2020.

Bill Enright [00:02:15] Shawn and Ben, I appreciate your insight. Plenty more MLB fantasy team previews. You can check out more of them by going to SI.com/fantasy.

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