Reese Kaplan -- End of April Isn't the End of Season

As the calendar flips to May 1^st it’s time to take a look at the state of the Mets after closing out April of 2019 and the inevitable comparison to April of 2018.  During skipper Mickey Callaway’s rookie season he finished the month with a record of 15-9.  He slid backwards a bit with a of 14-11 which represents an inferior winning percentage.

If you wanted to analyze what’s gone wrong for the 2019 Mets thus far it can be summed up in the single word – PITCHING.  The team ERA sits at a ghastly 5.32, the WHIP is an untenable 1.473 and they’re giving up close to 4 free passes per game.  About the only positive number you can find amongst the wreckage is a pretty impressive 9.9 Ks per 9 IP. 

If you look first at the starting rotation, Jacob de Grom’s performance is not exactly horrible, but it’s surely not up to his own lofty standards.  He has pitched to a 4.85 ERA but has struck out nearly 15 per 9 IP.  If he's healthy, then he'll be fine, though he's weathered on short IL stint already.

Picture by Ernest Dove

Noah Syndergaard is probably the biggest surprise of them all.  Thus far he’s pitching to a 6.35 ERA, walking few and his K numbers are on par with his career numbers at 10.35 per 9 IP.  He simply been hittable.

Picture by Ed Delaney

The Zack Wheeler situation is perhaps the most difficult to reconcile as he is in his walk year.  Last year he very nearly matched de Grom down the stretch with quality starts but this year he’s not even as good as de Grom's 4.85 ERA.  He’s not striking out people with aplomb and is walking too many.  That’s a recipe for disaster. 

Jason Vargas, well, he’s been an unmitigated disaster since putting on a Mets uniform.  Even with his strong finish to the 2018 season he ended the year with a horrific 5.77 ERA.  Today most Mets fans would sign up for that quality of pitching considering he’s nearly as bad as Thor.  To his credit, in his past three starts he’s looked markedly better but didn’t last long enough to qualify for a win in the first two though did cross the 5 inning mark last night.

The somewhat surprising saving grace to the pitching rotation this year has been the enigmatic Steven Matz.  He made arguably the worst start in Mets history when against the Philadelphia Phillies he didn’t record a single out and gave up 8 runs (6 earned) before he was mercifully yanked from the game.  If you throw away that one outlier, he’s actually been quite good.  His ERA without that nightmarish game is 1.86. 

Picture by Ed Delaney

I won’t even dwell on the bullpen woes.  You have Edwin Diaz and Seth Lugo.  After that they’re spraying kerosene on the fires they’re asked to extinguish. Even Diaz had his first klunker this week.

On the flip side, offensively they are doing pretty well.  While not necessarily hitting as many homers as would have been expected, they’re still doing pretty well.  They’re currently 9^th in the major leagues in batting average at .261 and 11^th with 5.22 runs per game.  If you asked anyone during the past several seasons of NY Mets baseball if they would be in the top ten in hitting and just one team off the pace in runs scored, they would have taken the under given the dismal state of offense the club has experienced. 

Personally, I think the pitching will self-correct in the starting rotation, but I’m not nearly as confident about the bullpen.  Robert Gsellman has been mediocre for much more than this season. Jeurys Familia was never good in non-save situations yet today he had the chance to nail it down and failed miserably yet again..  Justin Wilson apparently has gone into witness protection since nothing is being said about the state of nor duration of his current injury.  That leaves bullpen duty to the likes of Drew Gagnon, Daniel Zamora and the surprisingly bad Luis Avilan (9.90 ERA!)

When Brodie Van Wagenen set out to create a contender, he assumed (as  did most of us) that the starting pitching would be just fine & dandy (outside of Jason Vargas), and the bullpen was vastly improved with the additions of Diaz, Wilson and Familia.  It seems that while he’s done his job as promised when it comes to the offense providing a tremendous amount of depth (save for outfielders), he’s not done the same on either side of the pitching equation.  It’s a long season and there’s still time but passing on quality reinforcements like Gio Gonzalez and others may come back to bite him.