Reese Kaplan -- An Under-the-Radar Good Change for the Mets

It seems these days all one can read about related to the Mets is who is gone, who should be coming and what has gone wrong during the forgettable and misspent 2023 season.  There are, however, some things that have been done that don't get as much wordplay but are just as important as Shohei Ohtani's impending health and its impact on his free agency pricing.  

Somewhat adrift in this past week's stories was the news that the Mets have opened a new pitching lab at their Port St. Lucie spring training headquarters.  What exactly is a pitching lab?  Well, we've heard a lot about the impact of metrics on player development and the path to contention.  Most of the time the data described concerned hitting such as launch angle, outgoing speed of batted balls and the impact of pitch selection for batters to improve their chances at making solid contact instead of swinging at what are clearly pitchers' out-of-the-strike-zone offerings.

Now the Mets are devoting the same science to how pitchers develop and prepare to face the opposing hitters using state-of-the-art imaging, exercising and instruction to give the club's pitchers (both current and future hurlers) the skill sets necessary to make the batters they face less capable of applying strong contact when they hit the balls thrown.  Right now the Mets starting pitchers are just below the halfway mark compared to the other 29 clubs when it comes to quality pitching and the relievers are at a lowly mark of 22nd out of 30.  Considering the deep history the club has had with top pitching these numbers are indeed something in great need of improvement.

Just as they have implemented force plates to help measure what hitters can do when in the box, a similar arrangement in the former Barwis Training Facility where the new lab is located provides the same force plates to measure the mechanics of what pitchers are doing on the mound.  For now the lab is getting ready for its inaugural use which will start during the offseason to help pitchers at all levels of the organization get more scientifically prepared to maximize their results.

The goal of the lab is to develop a depth and breadth of physical performance data on pitchers that will help them tailor a development plan for pitchers to help them understand what they are doing right and what they need to change to become more effective.  The new cameras operate at a much higher frame rate than the human eye can discern through visual observation and thus will help pinpoint what a pitcher's speed, spin rate and motions are contributing to success and failure.

Justin Verlander before he left, Jeremy Hefner and Steve Cohen all acknowledged that the Mets are woefully behind other clubs in how they analyze pitching metrics.  Cohen put a number on it of perhaps 8 years behind state-of-the-art clubs like Verlander's Houston Astros.  That lack of proper development is partially accountable for the team's middle and bottom of the pack numbers when it comes to overall mound performance.

As a sore point in pitching analysis current starting pitcher out of necessity, David Peterson, is ranked 68th among homegrown pitchers over the last several years in the Mets organization.  Not having solid internal options led the team to overspend on not one, not two, not three but four of its starting pitchers entering this season.  Gone are Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, but Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana are still here to help the club in 2024.  The free agency departure of Carlos Carrasco should still leave three openings in the starting rotation and it's clear finally to folks within the organization that Peterson, Tylor Megill and Jose Butto do not look like answers.  Right now they are likely on the fence about the future for Joey Lucchesi but there's definitely a need once again to bridge the gap until some of the kids are more ready to advance up the ladder to Citifield.

Of course getting all of the new pitching data is pointless without the correct analytical minds to interpret it and the proper coaching personnel to communicate it properly to the pitchers within the organization.  The lab opening is a great and long overdue step, but people expecting overnight success from all of the moving pieces are likely to be disappointed.  It is a long term solution that will require several years of operation until all data is understood and execution is changed dramatically to show an across the board improvement.  It's the kind of things that winning clubs do and it is refreshing to see Cohen step up on this investment during a lost season to help make the team better in the future.