The Mets' challenge in assembling a playoff rotation

How will the veteran-lovers react if three rookies make the cut?

On July 10, there was an article published here called, “It’s time for the Mets to give young pitching prospects a shot.” My interest has nothing to do with being first. Rather, my goal is to be right. Without a doubt, others were calling for the young pitching prospects to get a shot before my article was published. But it was clear to me that the youngsters getting a legitimate shot needed to happen before the All-Star break. The Mets were way more conservative.

Nolan McLean made his first start for the Mets on August 16. Jonah Tong made his MLB debut on August 29. Now news has come out that Brandon Sproat will pitch for the big-league club on Sunday, September 7. McLean has been tremendous. Tong’s first start was encouraging. We’re all eager to see how Sproat, who entered the year as the club’s top pitching prospect and one who has put it together in his last 11 games in Triple-A, will fare.

Nothing is written in stone here the first week in September about how the Mets’ pitching rotation will shake out the rest of the regular season, much less the playoffs. But one of the potential outcomes is that the postseason rotation will include three rookies. That’s nothing short of amazing. And it’s also possible that’s the result the fans should be rooting for to take place. Which makes us wonder if we’d feel better about things if the club hadn’t been so conservative calling up the rookies in the first place.

Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga were supposed to be the team’s top two pitchers. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way. Both pitchers have been lousy since being activated from the IL. Senga’s overall numbers still look good but that’s because he was pitching great before getting hurt. Manaea opened the year on the IL and hasn’t given quantity or quality since the beginning of August.

Before the season started, my opinion was that the starting pitching for the club was going to be its weak point but it was going to be good enough. My expectations were that the hitting was going to be very good, the bullpen good and the starters good enough. Yet the first two months of the season, the starting pitching carried the club more so than the other two areas. Things were going better than expected until the wheels came off, with healthy starters getting injured and injured starters performing terribly upon their return from the IL.

Senga got hurt on June 12. Tylor Megill went down on June 14. Frankie Montas returned from the IL on June 24 and was terrible for seven starts before being busted to the pen and then lost for the season. Griffin Canning left after 2.2 innings on June 26. Paul Blackburn went back on the IL after June 28. The Mets responded with openers and second-tier prospects, with the highest-rated prospect being Blade Tidwell, who had a 5.00 ERA at Syracuse when he got the call to the majors. Tidwell had a 9.00 ERA in 15 IP with the Mets and was eventually dealt to the Giants in the Tyler Rogers deal. Then we had to wait until mid-August for a young pitching prospect to be given a shot.

Now, here we are on September 5 and the rotation, while not quite in shambles, is a giant question mark. David Peterson has been bad in three of his last five starts, fans want to bust Clay Holmes to the pen despite his recent results being better than anyone mentioned in this graph and neither Manaea nor Senga is inspiring any confidence whatsoever. It makes you wonder how they’re going to assemble their playoff rotation.

Last season, the Mets wound up using five different starting pitchers in the three-postseason series they played. Everything was fine in the Milwaukee series, as they used their main three starters. Senga was added for the Philadelphia series and he didn’t pitch well, either there or the next series. Peterson was added to the rotation for the Dodgers series and he wasn’t able to go long, in part because he was used in relief in the first two rounds. And the three pitchers used in all three series all hit the wall at some point.

So, how do the Mets take the knowledge of last season’s playoffs and apply it to this year, knowing what these pitchers have been thru?

In theory, it should have been set up nicely. Manaea, Montas and Senga all had time off at various points of the season and should have been fresh for the playoffs. Woops. Now there’s a lot of hope involved. We hope McLean can survive the most innings he’s ever thrown and he’s at 140 and counting right now. We hope Peterson can bounce back to be the pitcher he’s been most of the season. We hope Holmes can thrive as he barrels towards throwing as many innings this year as he has the past three seasons combined. And those are probably the best bets.

Will either Manaea or Senga get straightened out in time for the playoffs? Can Tong and/or Sproat show enough down the stretch to merit postseason starts? Will the pen be rested enough to mimic the Dodgers of a year ago, allowing the Mets to utilize openers on a regular basis?

There are seven pitchers listed in the last two graphs - probably should count Megill, too - and we hope that four of them emerge as viable playoff starters. But there’s still a catch. Can Holmes and Senga – perhaps the rookies, too - work on “regular” rest? Can they be effective if they’re rested for a series and then come back after a long layoff? There are just a bunch of questions without known, much less good, answers.

Perhaps the best answer is an offense that puts a lot of runs on the board, combined with an effective bullpen. We’ve seen the former here recently. Perhaps some better usage of the relievers will increase the pen’s effectiveness moving forward. Wouldn’t it be something if the Mets win the World Series not only with three rookie pitchers in the rotation but also the formula some of us expected at the beginning of the year – a very good offense, a good pen and starting pitchers just good enough?