Tom Brennan - Man, Can Those Mets Pitchers Hit!

the greatest hitting pitcher ever, Babe Ruth

Who needs a DH when you have pitchers that can hit like the Mets pitchers have hit over the past several years? 

Mets fan in years past had hungered for their five young stud starters to come up, but one thing besides their pitching prowess that we as fans couldn’t count on was - how would they hit? 

Well the answer to that question has been very, very, well, thank you.

Jacob deGrom? Well he’s hit .189 in his major league career.  

Steve Matz has hit nearly as well at .172.   

Noah Syndergaard has led the pack in power while hitting .153.  

Zack Wheeler had a fine 2019 with the bat and has hit .150.  

Former Mets meteor Matt Harvey clocked in as a Met with a .123 batting average. 

Overall, those five pitchers as Mets have gone 188 for 1170 which is a superior .161, with 32 doubles, a triple, and 14 home runs and 79 RBIs.  Impressive, really.

This compares extremely favorably to the rest of the major-league pitchers' hitting statistics.

Looking at the 2019 season, major-league pitchers excluding the Mets hit a paltry .119. 

And it should be noted that in 2019 the Mets pictures had a pretty robust 177, 50% higher than the rest of baseball's pitchers.  Pretty impressive. 

Certainly not what you would expect out of a DH, but a whole lot better than having Mets' pitchers hitting .119 instead. 

Of course, Zach Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard both won’t be with the Mets in 2020, and Matt Harvey is long gone.

So the hitting excellence of the Mets pitchers over the past several years may we are more toward the mean for all pitchers, but over the last several years, the Mets pitchers relatively speaking have done a truly outstanding job putting bat on ball.  

Coincidentally, Jerry Koosman hit .119 in his long career, and it would hurt if Mets pitchers' bats suddenly turned Koosman-like.  

Unlike Jerry, two former Mets pitching greats were better with the stick.

Tom Seaver hit .154, with 12 HRs and 86 RBIs, while Dwight Doc Gooden hit .196 with 8 HRs and 67 RBIs.

But none of them come close to a guy who really COULD have been a major league hitter, Mike Hampton.  In his one season as a Met, he hit .274.  In two years in Colorado, he hit - well - like Daniel Murphy, with a .315/.329/.553 split and 10 HRs and 21 RBIs.  Over his career, he hit an amazing .246/.294/.356, with 16 HRs and 79 RBIs in 725 at bats.

Of course, Syndergaard and Wheeler will be replaced, and 3 of the Mets' likely 5 starters are not part of the aforementioned fab five.  So what is their hitting creds?

Michael Wacha in his career is hitting .093 (23 for 248), Rick Porcello a much better .178 (8 for 45), and Marcus Stroman an anemic career .105 hitter (4 for 38) - UGH!

So perhaps the Mets had better hope that any resumption of baseball in 2020 includes a universal DH.