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Howie Megdal takes his laptop to USA Today. With new readers in his audience, you know it won't be long into the piece before the "M" word appears.
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Young arms give Mets fans hope after six years of woe
Howard Megdal, Special for USA TODAY Sports 10:41 p.m. EST February 24, 2015
Putting all of your chips on young pitching might not be the safest bet.
Then again, we're talking about the New York Mets. Ownership's bet on Bernie Madoff is why they don't have enough chips to bet on much of anything these days.
So indulge Mets fans, if you don't mind, who have come through the wilderness of six consecutive losing seasons, and finally have a reason — well, reasons, really — to hope that all the suffering has been worth it.
We are in an era of pitching. And few teams have more front-end, high-ceiling starting pitching than the Mets.
Fans are fixated on Matt Harvey, and understandably so. A 2013 Mets team that went 74-88 with Harvey looked like a contender when he pitched and an overmatched group when he didn't. His 9-5 record was deceiving. Three of the losses came in games in which the Mets scored zero to two runs.
So it isn't hard to understand why Mets fans can dream that a returning Harvey — now beyond a year recovered from Tommy John elbow surgery — can lead this team to greater things, especially with an offense that looks to be improved from when Harvey left:
Those 2013 Mets had John Buck at catcher. These Mets have Travis d'Arnaud, darling of the projection systems.
Those Mets had disappointing Ike Davis at first base. These Mets have Lucas Duda, fresh off a 30-homer season.
Those Mets had Eric YoungJr. in left field. These Mets have Curtis Granderson, whose 2014 was better than many realize — a 105 on-base-plus-slugging percentage plus is decidedly decent, if below what the team hoped for.
Those Mets had no shortstop. These Mets — well, still no real shortstop. Such are the limitations when ownership needs to finance $250 million in debt against the team, more than $600 million against the network SNY and twice-annual debt payments on Citi Field that exceed $43 million annually. That's a payroll to account for before accounting for payroll.
And, eventually, the young pitching will get expensive. But not yet. So in the meantime, there's Harvey. And not just him.
There's Jacob deGrom, the reigning National League rookie of the year. Like Harvey, deGrom came out and exceeded his minor league numbers at the major league level, generally a rare accomplishment. It was as if the Mets needed a Harvey replacement in 2014 and astonishingly received one.
DeGrom's performance wasn't quite at Harvey's 2013 level — a 130 ERA+ is very good, but Harvey checked in at 157 the last time Mets fans saw him. But deGrom profiles as a No.2 starter, easily, if he does nothing more than consolidate last year's gains.
And then there's Zack Wheeler, who gets left behind in many of these discussions but showed signs of growing over the second half of 2014. Keep in mind, though, that it feels like he has been around as long or longer than Harvey and deGrom, Wheeler is younger than both — he will be 25 until the end of May. Harvey will be 26 at the end of March, and deGrom will be 27 in June.
Wheeler's ERA dropped almost a full run from the first to second half last year, along with a steadily diminishing walk rate.
On another team, he would be the great young hope. On the Mets, he only needs to be a No.3 or No.4 starter.
The team has veterans back to supplement these three elite arms in Jon Niese, Dillon Gee and ageless Bartolo Colon. But they also have several pitchers who could come up from the minors and render those veterans superfluous.
Noah Syndergaard, 22, won't have to be what Harvey was, or what deGrom was, the great hope of an organization in need of it. He's as highly regarded as Harvey, and vastly more so than deGrom was in the minor leagues — a huge arm and talent Mets fans are going to enjoy when he arrives.
But generally speaking, pitching prospects grow slowly and in non-linear ways. That's tolerable at the big-league level out of the back end of a rotation, and that's all Syndergaard will need to be.
Don't count out Steven Matz, either. Arm injuries delayed the 2009 top pick of the Mets out of Long Island, but I had the chance to see him in the Florida State League last spring. He's a fast riser, with a plus-plus fastball and command of his secondary pitches. Seeing that kind of velocity and movement out of a lefty is a rarity, and Matz, 23, has the potential to be the best of them all.
Now, the caveats.
Pitching is extremely fragile. The Mets have obviously found a pitching pipeline that produces results, and pitching coach Dan Warthen deserves much of the credit. But they also trail many organizations in injury prevention, and that shows, too: Harvey's Tommy John; deGrom's shoulder injuries last year; repeated problems for Niese and Gee.
So expecting everybody to stay healthy is asking perhaps more than the Mets, or even the profession of pitching at this level, can provide.
Hoping for it, however, is more feasible than looking for elite offense out of a Mets team that needs David Wright and Granderson to rediscover peak form, or an unexpected star turn from Wilmer Flores at shortstop and Juan Lagares in center field to be any better than league average at the plate.
And it sure beats waiting for the financially compromised owners to spend money.
So no, there's no guarantee that these high-octane arms will lead the Mets back to October, as any fan who lived through GenerationK of Bill Pulsipher, Jason Isringhausen and Paul Wilson can tell you. But there's reason for hope in Flushing, real reason, for the first time in years.
And looking forward to something more in springtime than shrugging Fred Wilpon explaining why he didn't invest in his own team again?
Well, that's worth more than anything money can buy. |
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ml ... /23975479/
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