By Mike Steffanos January 13, 2021
As it stands right now, the fourth and fifth starters at the start of the season will come from the group of David Peterson, Steven Matz and possibly Seth Lugo, who I'd still prefer to see back in the bullpen. You can add Robert Gsellman, Franklyn Kilome, Sam McWilliams, Corey Oswalt and Thomas Szapucki to that competition also. It's certainly more respectable depth than the Mets have enjoyed in quite some time, but I think it's fair to say that we're all crossing fingers that nothing more than a handful of starts is needed from that second group in particular.
The Mets rotation isn't the group of kids that powered them to the 2015 World Series. Jacob deGrom will turn 33 in June. Carrasco will turn 34 during spring training. Stroman will be 30 in May, and Syndergaard will be 29 in August. That doesn't make them candidates for Old Timers Day, but it does increase the likelihood that some of that group will miss starts during the year, and we don't know for sure what Syndergaard will be able to give the team when he comes back.
Right now David Peterson has a leg up on being the fourth starter, but I've written previously that he doesn't seem like a legitimate candidate to make 30 starts. He's been in the Mets system since 2017 and never pitched more than 128 innings. Last year he pitched less than 50 innings and missed some time with shoulder fatigue. Even if you thought he might be durable in 2021, you still have to question if he's "proven himself" based on 9 MLB starts in a weird season. Remember how good Gsellman looked in 2016 in 7 starts? I'd want to see more from David Peterson before I was confident he was a solid major league starter, and I'd also want to see him prove that he can hold up to the workload.
As great as Seth Lugo has looked as a reliever, he's never come closer to proving that he can be a good starting pitcher in the major leagues. He's never pitched more than 101 innings in the majors, and has a partial tear in his UCL. I can't understand why the Mets would make him a starter unless they really, really believed he can be a good one. If I was making the decision, I'd leave him in the bullpen. If they do decide to make him a starter, however, they can't half-ass it like Brodie did last year. He's got to be a starter from the start of spring training.
2 comments:
"Combined with the solid offense and a defense that has certainly been upgraded..."
---It hasn't, though. It actually has a chance to be worse.
Lindor is better than Giminez on defense, granted, but not a lot better--not acc to Statcast and OAA or pick your metric--and by dealing Giminez and Rosario, both of whom have the arms to handle 3B, the Mets will necessarily be giving more starts to Davis at 3B. They also haven't replaced what Marisnick can do. With the CBT threshold increasingly near, that's a real problem.
With the Lindor deal the Mets expended considerable money and talent on a position they had well-covered at least on defense, so short of substantively improving two positions by signing Springer (after which they'll STILL need a Marisnick caliber backup out there), defense will surely continue to be very poor.
The team is still significantly below average on defense at 1B, 3B, and LF, below average in CF, marginally improved at SS, and only meaningfully improved at C.
The position I am most worried about defensively is second base. I still like somebody's idea of trying Pete in LF - if he is as capable as Dom out there, then let Dom play 1B.
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