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Five hyped MLB teams destined to fail

MLB Teams, David Price

2. New York Mets

To be fair, there’s reason to be optimistic about the Nationals, as well. Even if Washington’s struggles come to fruition, its main rival in the National League East is also a shaky team.

All-Star Jeurys Familia was arrested in the offseason in a domestic violence incident. And while charges were dropped, he will serve a 15-game suspension to star the year. That was expected, and in fact, the suspension could have been worse.

But even if we can somehow look past the domestic violence issues, Familia struggled at the end of 2016. He blew five saves a season ago. In and of itself, that’s not too many. But none of those five came before July 28. Blowing five saves in two months? That is a problem. Additionally, for the second year in a row Familia’s season ended with a massive disappointment in the postseason.

The problems don’t stop there for the Mets.

Entering 2016, New York’s starting rotation was its unquestioned strength. Yet Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Jacob deGrom all finished 2016 on the shelf. Harvey had a dismal year before getting shut down. On top of that, none of the Mets’ top seven starters — including the great Noah Syndergaard — has ever topped 200 innings in a regular season. That’s an issue, especially given the concerns at the back end of the bullpen that New York faces.

Offensively the Mets have some big names, but we can’t completely depend on good seasons from any of them. Lucas Duda played in only 47 games in 2016 and hit a measly .229/.302/.412 when he was there. Jay Bruce had 33 home runs and slashed at .250/.309/.506 in 2016. But most of that damage was done with the Cincinnati Reds in the hitter-friendly Great American Ballpark. After the trade to the New York and the more spacious Citi Field, Bruce hit eight home runs with a .219/.294/.391 slash line.

If those guys struggle again, it puts even more pressure on Yoenis Cespedes. The Mets are a talented group for sure but are far from flawless.

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