Reese Kaplan -- The Port St. Lucie Pitching Free-For-All

As Spring Training progresses, people begin to make their annual inaccurate predictions about who will come north with the team, who will go further north to Syracuse and who will find himself on the unemployment line altogether. We've all been guilty of predicting great things for guys who never made it, just as we have often overlooked players who on the surface didn't show much at all but turned out to be productive contributors.

Yesterday we took a look at the opportunities available to the offensive players in light of the concurrent World Baseball Classic taking a great many of them away from Port St. Lucie. Today it's a combined effort at looking at pitchers and making some educated guesses as to who has an inside track to make it to Citifield.

During the offseason the Mets added a great many pitchers to their organization's roster, though where they fit and even why they were brought in sometimes seemed imponderable.

Now obviously the starting pitchers are known and the best guess is that a recovered David Peterson will substitute for Jose Quintana until his rib injury heals. We all know the roles in mind for Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Carlos Carrasco and Kodai Senga.

On the bullpen side there are a a number of easily defined roles as well. Starting with closer Edwin Diaz, you then have veteran setup men David Robertson and Adam Ottavino, younger setup man Drew Smith, as well as free agent import Brooks Raley. That's five relievers right off the bat without blinking an eye.

After that it become s a bit more difficult to predict who makes the club and who is pitching for his major league life. One pitcher with a great inside track is already familiar to Mets fans in Stephen Nogosek. He was part of the pack of quantity over quality that arrived when the Mets traded away people a few years back and he's never really clicked as a dead set member of the northbound roster. Since he no longer has options left and the now 28 year old pitched to the tune of a 2.45 ERA for Buck Showalter last season, he's certainly expected to be part of the opening bullpen crew.

The next name with a front seat until proven otherwise is the Rule V draft pick from the Yankees, Zack Greene. The 26 year old has worked his way up the ladder for the Bronx Bombers without ever touching the majors since age 22. During that journey he's gone 14-8 with a 3.08 ERA while averaging 13 strikeouts per 9 IP, they're not exactly numbers to sneeze at, but the Yankees obviously felt they could risk losing him and they did. Since he is required to be on the Mets big league roster all year lest he be offered back to the cross town rivals for half price, he's highly likely to come north.

After that the final spot on the likely 8-man bullpen squad is a but murkier to predict. Many feel that GM Billy Eppler will want to put his eggs into the basket of trade acquisitions Elieser Hernandez or Jeff Brigham who came to the Mets from the Marlins. Herandez has never done much of anything facing major league hitters with a career 10-21 record and an ERA over 5.00. That's not exactly screaming "Promote me!"

Brigham didn't crack the majors until already 26 years of age. His major league stat sheet isn't much better with a record of 3-7 and an ERA of 4.52 spread over 53 games across parts of four seasons. The man has a chance being on the 40-man roster, but no one is betting he would be all that much better than his former Marlins' teammate.

On the elder arms front, the Mets have a pair in John Curtiss and Sam Coonrod. Both have fought injuries throughout their long and undistinguished careers, though being left handed would put Curtiss slightly ahead of Coonrod. Curtiss has pitched in 76 major league games with 69 of them coming out of the pen. He has a favorable 6-2 record with a somewhat misleading ERA of 3.68. Throw away his first and last segments and you see dramatically better quality.

Coonrod is a year older with 105 major league games, 103 of which were as a reliever. His strikeout capacity is average at best and his control is well below average. A major league career ERA of 5.27 makes him most definitely a head scratcher as to why they signed him betting that over age 30 he would finally put his mind and arm into a winning mode. As a minor league hurler he was still below .500 but the ERA was markedly better at 3.77.

Another young veteran is Stephen Ridings. He's another injury rehab gamble whose only major league experience is a 2021 arrival with the New York Yankees when he tallied a 1.80 ERA over 5 games with over 12 strikeouts per 9 IP. What he needs to prove now is that he's healthy and as such he's likely ticketed to Syracuse rather than Queens.

There are some other familiar hurlers like Joey Lucchesi, Tylor Megill and last year's rookie entrant Jose Butto, but they are all likely slated to pitch as starting pitchers in Syracuse as the club has some veterans who are at risk of injury and they need arms ready to go. The likelihood of any of them coming north with the club is slim at best, though southpaw Lucchesi might have a slight edge in this race.

Finally, there's Tom Brennan's perennial favorite, big Bryce Montes de Oca. Yes, the man can easily break the century mark in velocity and in 71 minor league appearances as a reliever the 6'7" righty has a record of 4-6 with a mediocre 4.43 ERA. Where he does stand out is in his ability to record strikeouts, averaging over 13 per 9 IP but he's giving back over half that number in free passes. Control is a necessity for success and not to rain on my partner's enthusiasm, I think he'll be in Syracuse again hoping to corral his problem with walks before they could lean on him to be the next best hope in support of the starters.

So in summary I would expect Greene and Nogosek as sure things. My bet would be that Hernandez or Brigham are the next likely ones to get the nod, though I'd be happier if Curtiss could become a second lefty out there to help Raley when needed. Lucchesi could be up for the same reason, but again he needs regularly scheduled innings as he works his way back from injury and that workload would be readily available in a blustery April in Syracuse. All of the above will get plenty of chances to pitch during these next few weeks to help make or break their chances of suiting up at Citifield.