Reese Kaplan -- We Need Pitching as Much as Hitting

On a lazy Friday stuck in the house while awaiting some work to be finished by a group of carpenters, I found a 2023 baseball game on Youtube that was an end-of-season matchup between current injured Mets pitcher Tylor Megill and former Mets pitcher Taijuan Walker on the hill for the Phillies.  To be fair, it was a B and C grade lineup the Phillies were using as they were resting their All Star caliber players in anticipation of October baseball, but I have to admit that Megill actually looked like a starting caliber major league pitcher.

Through a partial entry into the 8th inning he had given up just a handful of baserunners and had most of the Phillies AAAA lineup off kilter with location and velocity.  The announcers pointed out that as was typical of Megill as the game progressed his velocity wound down.  As such, it was in that 8th inning where he gave up multiple baserunners with a pair of hits to right before he got lifted for Brooks Raley and was eventually charged with a run with Danny Mendick for some reason manning left field poorly. 

In a way Megill is reminding me of David Peterson.  You see there’s stuff there, there’s grit there and there’s ability there, but the health and the consistency are never what you can rely upon every fifth day.  

It reminds me of the old riddle about a outdoors man asking some greenhorns would they cross a river that averaged 4 feet deep.  To a man they all said they would as it was not a volume of water likely to induce drowning.  The problem is that the greenhorns don’t understand that an average of 4 feet could mean at times the depth is over 20 feet and other times it’s mere inches.  They also didn’t express concern about current nor what dangers might lurk in the river waters.  That’s how you have to consider these not-quite-there pitchers that have hung around far long enough to establish themselves but never have.

Do you dispute this conclusion?  Well, for his career Peterson has spent four years compiling an 18-23 record with a 4.51 ERA...not awful but certainly not that great.  Megill is in the same ballpark with a 17-17 record thus far with a 4.68 ERA.  For a second division team there’s room for these kinds of pitchers in a 4th or 5th starter role, but for a team with alleged aspirations to play October baseball it’s not a single season that was bad — it is now 4 attempts and it’s not getting any better.

This week the Mets made an unsigned free agent acquisition in Julio Teheran who at one time was deemed an All Star caliber pitcher.  Back in his Atlanta Braves heyday he played for the NL’s squad in July.  Since leaving Atlanta, however, it’s been a rough road with an aggregate record of 4-9 with a 5.92 ERA.  Still, even with the 2020 through 2024 beer league output, he’s still a 3.83 ERA pitcher for his 12 year career — nearly a full run better than the Mets’ latest IL occupant.  While I don’t expect to see All Star appearances from Teheran in the near future, his record suggests he is indeed a better level of pitcher than Peterson or Megill. 

Of course, this week also showed the 9 strikeout performance by Christian Scott, but until the Mets know the durations projected for Kodai Senga and Tylor Megill they are not yet ready to burn an option on a newcomer to AAA based upon one hot game.  Peterson and Megill are what they are — filler.  They should not be part of a regular five-man rotation in New York.