Mike's Mets - The Pitching Question

 

By Mike Steffanos

There was a time when the Mets were known for developing young pitching. What happened?

When I became a Mets fan in 1969, the franchise became known for its excellent starting pitching. Besides future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, the Mets rotation that season included southpaw Jerry Koosman, rookie Gary Gentry, veteran Don Cardwell, and Jim McAndrew. The Amazins also received starts from a young, wild righty named Nolan Ryan and young lefty Tug McGraw, who would become more famous in future years for finishing games. Koosman was always in Seaver's shadow, but he won 222 MLB games in his own right, 140 of them with the Mets. Gentry was a talented kid who, unfortunately, ruined his arm at a young age. He was out of baseball by age 28. Cardwell had a journeyman career, amassing a lifetime 102-138 record with 5 clubs while pitching over 2,000 innings. However, he was excellent for the Mets in 1969, pitching as a starter and a reliever.

The Mets teams of my youth were never great offensive teams. Usually, they weren't even very good. 3 runs felt like an offensive explosion. But man, you took it for granted that the starting pitching would be great. Southpaw Jon Matlack pitched a few games for the 1971 Mets as a 21-year-old and failed to pick up a win. A year later, in 1972, he won 15 games, pitched to a 2.32 ERA over 244 innings, and was picked as Rookie of the Year. The next great Mets pitcher had arrived.

By the late 1970s, the Mets went through some lean years. Seaver, Koosman, and Matlack were all gone. The team's best pitcher of that era, righty Craig Swan, just couldn't stay healthy. But, as the seventies gave way to the eighties, the Mets produced some great starting pitching again. The other-worldly Doc Gooden was drafted and developed by the Mets. GM Frank Cashen traded for Walt Terrell, Ron Darling, and Sid Fernandez as prospects. Darling and Fernandez would combine to win 197 games for the Mets (both falling just short of 100 wins), while Terrell was eventually dealt for Howard Johnson. These pitchers formed the foundation of the 80s dynasty, the only time in the Mets' history when they sustained winning for more than a couple of years.

Developing pitching didn't always work out for the Mets. The 1990s featured Generation K — kids the Mets chose to build their marketing around, mainly because they had little else. Bill Pulsipher, Jason Isringhausen, and Paul Wilson were all very talented, but young pitchers often fail to live up to their promise due to injuries. Such was the fate of the young, overhyped Mets hurlers. Only Isringhausen enjoyed a notable MLB career, and it was as a reliever after he left the Mets.

Fast forward a couple of decades. The 2015 club that made it to the World Series featured great young pitching. Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard were important contributors to that club, as was Steven Matz, who came up late and contributed in the postseason. Rafael Montero made a small contribution to the club, while Zack Wheeler missed the season due to Tommy John surgery. Homegrown southpaw Jon Neise also started 29 games for that club, although his star was fading, and he would be out of baseball after the 2016 season. The closer, Jeurys Familia, who saved 43 games for that club, was signed and developed by the Mets.

These few paragraphs are not an attempt on my part to write a comprehensive history of Mets starting pitching. My point is that while there were periods without much homegrown young pitching of note, there were several eras where the Mets were synonymous with dynamic young starting pitching. That's certainly not the case currently. When Jacob deGrom chose to sign with the Rangers this winter, it marked the departure of the final member of that remarkable group of young pitchers around which the 2015 club was built. As the Mets try to construct the framework of a sustainable contender, they do it without any consensus great young pitching prospects.

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