2014 A Break-Out Year For Jenrry Mejia

It’s hard to believe that he’s only 24 years old. At one time he was viewed as the Ace of future Met rotations. The decision to bring him north and pitch out of the Mets bullpen in 2010 was ill-advised and short sighted.  He’d only pitched 10 games above A ball up to that point. Even those numbers weren’t exactly lights-out. He gave up 22 runs in 44 innings, whiffing 9.5 per 9 innings but also allowing almost 9 hits per 9 innings as a 19 year-old in 2009. 

During the Bernazard era the team rushed players through the system like they were trying to beat rush hour traffic home. Mejia should’ve spent his entire 2009 at St. Lucie but after posting an ERA under 2.00 during his 9 starts there Bernazard promoted him and Brad Holt to AA. A move that effectively killed Holt’s momentum and started his downward spiral from promising prospect into draft bust because Holt proved even less ready for AA than Mejia.  Thankfully under Alderson the Mets are much more judicious in their handling of prospects, especially those who toe the rubber. 

That was not the case in 2009. Within a span of roughly 18 months Mejia went from single A short-season NY-Penn League to MLB. Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya were idiots for letting a strong spring showing from the right-hander cause them to put him in the Met bullpen. Manuel pleaded with Minaya to add him to the bullpen and then proceeded to pitch him into the ground. By the end of May he’d appeared in 24 of the Mets first 52 games. He went from pitching every five days to being called upon in nearly 50% of Met contests during the cold months of April and May. Then Manuel stops using him much, and in a move of utter stupidity they send him back down to AA to stretch out as a starter again in late June. 

Instead of developing their top-ranked pitching prospect they jerked him around, figuratively and literally, leading to ineffectiveness and later injury. He wrapped up 2010 with three disastrous September starts. How bad were they? His ERA went from a respectable 3.25 to a season ending 4.62.

He started 2011 in the Buffalo rotation pitching effectively until the ligament in his right elbow snapped like a dry twig. Tommy John surgery followed and the rise of Matt Harvey along with the 2010 trading deadline acquisition of Zack Wheeler made Jennry Mejia a forgotten man in Metsland. He rehabbed and then returned in 2012-first in St. Lucie then Binghamton before arriving in Buffalo with mixed results. The former power pitcher averaged a measly 4.8 SO/9 while getting hit hard 9.2 H/9. A cautionary tale for those expecting Matt Harvey to be the same pitcher his first year back from TJS? 

Despite this lackluster showing in Buffalo the team called him in September where he was knocked around in 2 of his 3 starts, his longest outing 5 IP. Mejia’s numbers were even worse in New York: 11.3 H/9 and 4.5 SO/9. His star had fallen about as far as it could by this point. He went from rising phenom at 20 into a wash out at 22-an all too familiar story when it comes to pitching prospects in MLB. By the time 2013 rolled around both newly acquired Noah Syndegaard and Rafael Montero had passed by Mejia. 

Elbow tendinitis in the spring led to only four starts by July. He was still giving up a lot of hits but his K rate was up and he’d developed a couple of effective secondary pitches to compliment his cutter- a slider and a curve.  Nearly a year after pitching in a major league game Mejia was called up to start Game One of doubleheader on July 26^th. The Mets won, but more impressive Mejia tossed 7 shutout innings against the Nats, striking out 7 in the process. He followed that up with four more effective outings before bone chips in his elbow cut the season short for a still only 23 year old Mejia. 

How young is Mejia? He’s a few months younger than Harvey and a year older than Montero. 2013 top rookie pitchers like Chris Archer, Wily Peralta, and Dan Straily are all older than Jenrry. I think that he’s being underestimated by many of us. This is a pitcher who could turn out to be the Ace of the rotation in 2014. We acquired John Lannan and might bring back Dice K to compete with Mejia for the 5^th spot in the rotation. Mejia will win this battle running away. He’s a far superior pitcher than either of them. 

He has an arsenal now of four pitches. In his second start of 2013 he threw 30 of 45 cutters for strikes. Mejia threw 12 of 16 sliders ,  11 of 12 curveballs  and 8 of 14 changeups for strikes. For the season batters hit  .111 vs his slider and .143 vs. his change-up.  This year he will be three years removed from TJS and most importantly he’s no longer a one-pitch pitcher. I’d argue that his maturity and evolution into a four-pitch pitcher makes him the most dangerous member of the 2014 staff. 

I don’t buy that he’s injury-prone either. I blame his elbow blowing out due to the Mets misuse of him in 2010 and rushing him through the minors. What we have is a talented pitcher who is entering the prime of his career. A pitcher who’s went from the future of the franchise to an afterthought and now with a chance to break camp in the Mets 2014 rotation. I think he’ll win 10-15 games (depending upon how many the Mets win) with an ERA between 3.25-3.50, giving them 175+ innings and 150-175 K’s. His success in 2014 will give the team a well-needed lift and take some of the pressure off of Harvey’s return in 2015.