Reese Kaplan -- Are the In-House IL Options Going to Help?

We’re into the final six weeks of the Mets 2024 season and no one knows exactly what will happen.  The pessimists feel that the Mets as a team played over their heads in most of June and July with August showing the world what they really are like.  The optimists say that the hot nearly two months made up for many things that had gone wrong earlier in the season and demonstrated what the club can do when firing on all cylinders.  The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Let’s take a glimpse at folks off the roster right now who may or may not be back during this stretch run.  Starting off is Kodai Senga and based upon David Stearns’ comments this past week it would appear he’s gone for 2024.  He’s not started throwing yet and there is no firm timeline for him to begin. 

It would seem that Christian Scott may be a little more likely to return, but he’s just starting to do soft tossing, not from the mound and not in a full windup.  You need to see the limits of his UCL strain and whether or not his body is ready for the every 5th day assignment to start a game.  Optimists have their fingers crossed while pessimists feel that if playoffs are not a near certainty it doesn’t make sense to risk further and lengthier injury recovery (and possible surgery) but forcing Scott back sooner than he’s prepared to do so.

The other one in the will he or won’t he return category is the recently shelved Sean Reid-Foley who has had his rehab interrupted just recently.  He’s never been a Sherman tank when it came to durability, but his pitching this season has been truly outstanding prior to the injury with a 23 game record sporting a 1.65 ERA.  Wow!  He’s also in the boat where they could use him back but also could use him in the future so caution may be the smarter approach.

In the more likely scenario is the reappearance of Starling Marte who has missed quite a bit of the season with injury despite hitting better than anyone would have expected and running with great success.  The fielding was a huge question mark, however, so much that people wondered if the club might be better using him at DH than out in the field.  Of course, J.D. Martinez may have some thoughts on that silly suggestion.

Dedniel Nunez is expected to begin his formal rehab this week and his return would be most welcome.  While he never put up the kind of numbers that would suggest the level of performance he showed in the majors this year, his health began to betray him and the output was more commensurate with what he had done in the minors which made him a rather old rookie.  Still, the combination of Jeremy Hefner and bullpen coach Jose Rosado seemed to have instilled some changes to his delivery that simply worked.

The most recent addition to the roster was Reed Garrett who never performed like a stellar pitcher prior to the first few months of 2024.  Then the wheels fell off and his ERA doubled seemingly overnight.  At age 31 it’s a little late to be finding what works, but sometimes it takes health, sometimes it takes coaching and sometimes it takes a change in the way you tackle your assignment.  With a career 5.50 ERA his inflated 3.89 is decidedly better but the earlier season iron man performances out of the pen are what people are remembering.  He’s a welcome addition back.  

Of course, if Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Alvarez, Luis Severino and a few others getting regular assignments play as they have shown capable of doing in the past then the October baseball dream would be a much easier sell to everyone.  For now, however, the return of the MIA players is a more likely fix than expecting 6 weeks of these players morphing into All Stars.