Reese Kaplan -- More Great Moments on the Field for the Mets

Initially when I sat down to write the topic on my mind was who the club was going to choose to fill Jeff McNeil’s roster spot.  Obviously Jose Iglesias is getting the starts at 2B but the club already has another infielder in Pablo Reyes who was mysteriously promoted and getting the Claude Rains treatment as he’s not been seen.  At this point another infielder is not a must and it is open to bringing in a third catcher or another unused outfielder.  Of course, by the time you’re reading this piece it will be Monday morning and that decision will have happened on Sunday, so the timing for discussion and speculation is a bit off.

The other no longer timely discussion would be about the Mets suddenly being not only ahead of the Braves in the wild card race but also in striking distance of the Diamondbacks and Padres to get the top billing going into October.  Now no one expects the club to threaten the all-time 26 game winning streak delivered by the 1916 New York Giants who started off the feat beating the Brooklyn Robins and ending it with a September 30th loss to the Boston Braves en route to an 86-66 season record.  What is interesting is the parallel in that the major league mark was not held by some 100+ win team trouncing everyone in sight, but instead by a better than average club who might or might not have made the wild card position in the playoffs.  Sounds familiar, huh?

For the moment let us assume that the good times outweigh the bad and that the Met will indeed be playing baseball in October.  What decisions need to be made to gear up for what hopefully is not a one and done playoff appearance?

The pitching rotation in the postseason is often an abbreviated affair with off-days being one factor and the need to repeat the best of what you can offer as often as possible being another.  For the Mets obviously David Peterson, Sean Manaea and Luis Severino are going to start their first three games in any series.  Carlos Mendoza may insert Peterson between the two righties to give a different look one game after the next. 

The question then becomes who is the fourth starter assuming they will not go to a full five-man rotation?  The two obvious candidates are newly crowned 100th win Jose Quintana and tonight’s projected starter Paul Blackburn.  Of the two you have the opportunity to do that lefty/righty alternation again by going Manaea/Peterson/Severino/Quintana.  Blackburn being a righty doesn’t factor in if that strategy is important to the club. 

The flip side is leaning on Blackburn who can certainly be a part of the 2025 rotation whereas Quintana is a pending free agent.  Is it worth seeing how counting on someone when needed the most is brave or foolish?  For his career Quintana’s numbers are superior to what you’d get from Blackburn whose career ERA is actually higher than what you’ve endured with Tylor Megill.

Postseason decisions tend to favor the veterans and with Quintana for his career more than a full run better than Blackburn in addition to being a southpaw, it would seem that decision is the way to go.

For the infield, you’re pretty much set with what you see trotted out there nearly every day with Pete Alonso, now Jose Iglesias, Francisco Lindor, Mark Vientos and Francisco Alvarez.  No one on the bench is likely getting a starting assignment unless an injury occurs.

The outfield has been a smorgasbord of various players rotating in and out of the starting lineup.  You would have to figure that Brandon Nimmo is starting each game, but after that the available entities include Jesse Winker, Starling Marte, Harrison Bader and Tyrone Taylor.  Jeff McNeil also would have been in the mix had he not gotten his injury. For now I’m thinking that Marte and Winker will be part of the starting rotation with Bader in CF for his defense.  That leaves Tyrone Taylor available for his speed and defense from the bench. 

Aside from the wannabe MVP numbers from Lindor, the power of Alonso and the nobody-saw-this-coming season of Mark Vientos, the Mets have a good but not All Star type of lineup.  Several people are under performing and you have to see if they can provide their more typical output when it’s all or nothing in October baseball.