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MINNEAPOLIS — New York Mets co-hitting coach Jeremy Barnes is fond of describing his job not just as solving problems, but also as accurately dismissing what doesn’t qualify as a problem. Seventeen games into the Mets’ season, the offense has been sluggish at best, averaging just over four runs per game. Advertisement So, is it a problem? The Mets were held down Tuesday night by righty Bailey Ober, who worked 6 1/3 efficient innings in Minnesota’s 6-3 win.
New York scored two of its three runs on solo shots by Pete Alonso and Juan Soto, and it uncharacteristically generated just four at-bats with a runner in scoring position all night. Yes, the Mets are still off to a strong 11-6 start. No, the offense isn’t yet where they’d like it to be this season.
So let’s examine what’s up offensively and whether the Mets should be worried going forward. Juan Soto is getting pitched differently in 2025 Starting with the topic du jour, Soto told the New York Post on Monday that not having Aaron Judge behind him in the lineup has changed the way he’s been pitched this season. And as hot as Alonso has been all season long, Soto is right.
In very broad terms, Soto is seeing fewer fastballs than ever before: less than half the time for the first time in his career. (It was a career-low 50.8 percent of the time last year.
) He’s also seeing fewer pitches in the strike zone than ever before, at 43.2 percent — down more than three percentage points from 2024. This year’s mark is the fifth-lowest in baseball.
And if you narrow the zone to the “heart” of the plate, Soto is seeing just 21.6 percent of pitches there — again down about three percentage points from last year. Again, this year’s mark is the fifth-lowest in baseball.
“We’ve faced a lot of righties lately, and they’re making a choice to pitch around him a little bit more and try to get to Pete, and we’ve been fortunate that Pete is Pete and has been doing a really good job,” Barnes said. “If they don’t throw him a strike, he’s happy to take his walks, and that’s a positive thing for us. Pete’s done a great job so far coming up with some really big hits.
” Advertisement Now, to be fair to Alonso, Soto was also pitched more selectively in 2024 — with Judge behind him — than he had been earlier in his career. It’s basically a career-long trend of teams pitching him more and more carefully. In the end, it doesn’t much matter why Soto is being pitched differently than in the past.
It matters that he is, and it matters how he adapts to it. Given his home runs each of the last two nights, it looks like he’s making the adjustment. Back-to-back games with a homer for Juan Soto 🚀 pic.
twitter.com/D1nEsd8Tte — MLB (@MLB) April 16, 2025 Under the hood, the Mets offense looks solid When examining an offense, and especially when examining an offense around Tax Day, it’s best to forget what the bottom line says about batting average or runs per game. The things I like to focus on are process stats: How are the Mets doing in those core areas? All stats are entering Tuesday.
Strikeout rate The Mets are striking out 20.3 percent of the time, which ranked sixth-best in the sport and a good bit ahead of the 22.6 percent league-wide rate.
That’s pretty much in line with the 19.7 strikeout rate from the 2022 team, when the Mets’ contact-heavy approach helped them finish fifth in baseball in runs per game (and, you know, to win 101 games). Walk rate Buoyed by the presence of Soto, the Mets are walking in 9.
9 percent of plate appearances, tied for the eighth-best mark in baseball. Only the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies have posted better strikeout-to-walk ratios. Chase rate The Mets have chased 26.
1 percent of pitches outside the strike zone this season, down a good amount from the 28.7 percent rate they ran last year. They rank fifth in baseball in 2025.
Ground ball rate The Mets are just below the league average for hitting the ball on the ground at 42.6 percent, one-half a percentage point above where it was in 2024 and lower than the 2022 mark. That ground ball rate has been driven up a bit by Soto, who typically runs an above-average rate and is higher than ever so far this year, and by Brett Baty, who has once again struggled to get the ball in the air.
Advertisement Barrel rate The Mets have barreled up 10.8 percent of their balls in play, entering Tuesday — good for fourth in baseball, behind the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels and Atlanta Braves. That’s a big improvement over the last few years.
The ’22 Mets barreled just 7.1 percent of balls in play — which is why some opposing pitchers deemed them lucky — and the last two years the Mets were at 8.1 and 8.
9 percent, respectively. Put all of this together, and you get an offense that should rank in the top 10, if not the top five, in all of baseball. These are all reasons to be encouraged about the early-season performance.
The main problem has been with men on base Entering Tuesday, the split was pretty stark. But those are the bottom-line results. What can we see under the hood in those spots? While the Mets are chasing quite a bit more in those spots, everything else looks pretty good.
That barrel rate happens to be the best in baseball with men on base. That’s one reason Barnes is so confident it’ll turn. “We have a bunch of guys that have come through in the clutch their entire career.
(Hitting with runners in scoring position) is a fickle stat,” Barnes said. “We can be better in this area. I expect us to be better in that area.
” Barnes said he’s seen some evidence of individual hitters pressing in those situations with runners in scoring position — hence the bigger chase rate. That can be unavoidable, especially when a team generates as many opportunities as the Mets have. “Just take what the games gives us,” he said.
“These guys don’t need to be anything more (than who they are). We don’t need Lindor 2.0 or Vientos 2.
0. We’re very talented. Let’s let the game come to us.
” (Photo of Soto: Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images).
