Reese Kaplan -- Syracuse Starting Pitching Makes Stomachs Churn

The Mets have gotten a lot of attention to how much they've improved their minor league squads with the recent rash of trade deadline transactions.  As I've previously commented, you need to give a qualified approval for what the club did to try to improve in the future as some of these newly acquired Mets youngsters as well as the existing crew of productive prospects ascend the ladder towards an eventual locker at Citifield.

However, you really need to take a look at the AAA roster to see how little help is on the immediate horizon for the 2024 season.  With four pitchers hitting the end of their Mets career you would think naturally there would be some reinforcements upstate who could lend assistance now and next year.  The truth is, however, that the cupboards are pretty bare.  

How bad is it?  Well, we have seen a couple of the starting pitchers in the major leagues already.  Leading the team with 70 IP on the season is one Jose Butto who is not sending up signals that he's the next Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer.  Hell, he's not even pitching like the next Carlos Carrasco.  For the season he has a 2-5 record with a 6.56 ERA while not even achieving a 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio.  He's not new against this level of competion but he's crumbled rather dramatically.  

Veteran starter Joey Lucchesi is next on the relative iron man status with 69+ innings pitched.  He's fared a bit better in the win column with a 6-3 record and a respectable if not eye popping 3.89 ERA.  His control has been better than Butto's and he's giving up relatively few baserunners via the base hit.  Right now he would seem to be the next likely target to advance to the majors if you based such decisions on the stat sheet.

Then there's also familiar pitcher Tylor Megill.  Yes, we have all seen how good he can be and unfortunately how awful he's been for long stints as well.  In AAA the numbers are not a pretty site.  He's gone 0-3 with an 8.67 ERA over the course of his International League stint.  He's walked 11 and struck out 14.  In 27 IP he's given up 35 hits.  Yeah, it appears that he's not quite ready to be a pitching savior either.

A somewhat less familiar guy who has ridden the Syracuse Uber both ways is Denyi Reyes.  The big man has been primarily used as a starter but in his minor league career he looked solid until reaching AA.  Then the wheels came off and after shuttling between a few organizations the 26 year old continued his AAA domination by minor league hitters while being paid by the Mets.  For this season he's 1-2 with a 6.32 ERA and he's given up 67 hits in 57 IP.  About the only thing that's gone right for him is his control but at this age and his piddling AA/AAA stats the last few years he's not likely going to be an answer.

Now rookie Mike Vasil had gotten a lot of folks excited the way he pitched in the lower minors.  Over a cumulative three years advancing steadily he's pitched 160 innings during which he's struck out 190 with nearly a 4:1 strikeout to walk ratio.  That's the good news.  The bad news is his Syracuse shellacking.  Thus far he is 1-1 with a 6.68 ERA and terrible control.  Then again, he's still just age 23 so it's possible he will outgrow these pitching pains against higher competition.

No, it doesn't appear that in-house the options are there to help propel the 2023 nor 2024 teams into the upper echelon of the division standings.  There is some hope below this level of the minors, but unless there's a Dwight Gooden jump from nowhere to the majors in the cards, it would appear that trades and free agency are going to be the reinforcing routes the club must take to address the gap caused by next season no longer having Scherzer, Verlander nor Carrasco as part of the starting rotation.  David Peterson is probably pitching for his baseball life right about now.