The one precedent of a team using a six-man rotation for a large stretch

As the guy who for many years has stumped for clubs to return to a 4-man rotation, in one way it’s a bit tough for me to stomach that the Mets are going to run a 6-man rotation for long stretches of the 2025 season, assuming Kodai Senga is healthy. The presence of Senga – and to a lesser extent Clay Holmes – makes utilizing an extra starter understandable. Still, that means asking four other starters to engage in a usage pattern that may be less than ideal.

And another thing that makes this tough to blindly accept is that there’s not much precedent for it. Now, lack of precedent shouldn’t preclude teams from trying something new. But when outside observers are trying to determine how successful something might be, it’s always nice to have 30 or more examples to consider.

It’s not uncommon here in the 21^st Century to find teams that utilized a 6-man rotation a time or two to help get them past the rough spots in the schedule, ones with limited time off, or perhaps a couple of doubleheaders. But there is one team that played extensively with the extra man in the rotation and that’s the 2022 Angels. It was not a good team – the Angels went 73-89 that season – but that had much more to do with the offense than the pitching. That year, the Angels finished 22^nd in the majors with 10.9 fWAR among their hitters. They finished 12^th with a 16.5 fWAR from their pitchers.

Much like with the 2025 Mets, the reason the Angels utilized a 6-man rotation was because of the presence of a starter from Japan. Shohei Ohtani was the ace of the 2022 Angles, as he led the team with 28 starts and a 5.6 fWAR from the mound. Health, trades and performance issues led to the Angels using 16 different starters that season. Here are the final starts and innings for their six-most-used SP:

28 – Ohtani (166 IP)
27 – Patrick Sandoval (148.2 IP)
25 – Reid Detmers (129 IP)
20 – Jose Suarez (109 IP)
18 – Michael Lorenzen (97.2 IP)
15 – Noah Syndergaard (80 IP)

These six pitchers combined to make 133 starts and posted 730.1 IP. Last season, the five pitchers who began the year in the rotation for the Mets combined for 116 starts. The five pitchers who wound up with the most starts tallied a combined 130 starts and 733 IP. And it was a good year for SP for the Mets, as they finished fifth in the majors in innings pitched among starters.

Some may think it’s not fair to compare the results of five starters to the results of six starters. But if a team is committed to using the 6-man rotation, it shouldn’t be held against them that they didn’t have the same number of starts available as were to those performing in a 5-man circuit.

A few days ago, a 10-inning, step-down approach was posited for what the innings might look like for a 6-man rotation for the Mets this year, starting with 150 IP and ending up with 100 IP. That would result in 750 IP. The 2022 Angels came pretty close to that total, even with two of their starters failing to reach 100 IP.

So, just how committed were the 2022 Angels to the 6-man rotation? Here was how they began the year:

Right from the jump, the 2022 Angels used a 6-man rotation, a cycle they used into June. And when they had a doubleheader in mid-May, they didn’t go on a traditional 4-days rest on a one-time basis. Instead, they added another pitcher to keep on their preferred schedule. Also, the next turn thru the rotation after what’s detailed above, the Angels used a 7-man rotation starting on 6/6.

For the remainder of the year, the Angels did not have the stability that they did the first two months. Instead, they bounced around, using 5-man, 6-man and 7-man rotations for the rest of 2022.

It would be very surprising if the Mets utilized a 6-man rotation right away in 2025, even more so now with Frankie Montas likely to miss the first two months of the season. With off days on 3/30, 4/3 and 4/10 – the Mets would be able to use five starters on five days of rest until 4/19. The club could go on “short” rest that turn and with another off day on 4/24 they wouldn’t need to use a sixth starter until 4/30.

The Mets probably don’t know right now if they’ll use a sixth starter on 4/19 or wait until 4/30. There are just too many variables to have a plan locked down. Hopefully, no more starters get hurt, which will make the decision a little easier.

Perhaps the only thing we know for sure is that the people who were freaking out about the rotation before the Montas injury have now upped their worry level. For those who feel that way, perhaps you could try to take a step back and look for some perspective. The pitcher they lost had a 4.84 ERA a season ago and the year before that, he pitched in just one game. It’s not like they lost a Cy Young Award candidate – or even someone who would place among the top three in their rotation.

And those who want to point to the improvements Montas made after the trade to the Brewers, you can make the same improvement claims for how Tylor Megill pitched in his final seven games - including one relief appearance - of the year. After posting a 5.20 ERA in his first nine games with the Mets, Megill closed with a 2.45 ERA in his final 33 IP. And he did it with a normal .306 BABIP. He succeeded thanks to a 3.45 K/BB ratio, while allowing just two homers in that span. He seems like a reasonable replacement for Montas. And no one will ever confuse me for a big Megill fan.

David Stearns has made it clear that the Montas injury doesn’t really change things for the Mets. They assembled SP depth for just this reason and they’re going to use that depth instead of making a trade for another starter. It may not be what you want to hear. But it’s further proof that the thoughts on who would get how many starts on 1/1 was always unlikely to be the case once the season ended.

If you thought Montas was going to get 25 starts when the calendar turned from 2024 to 2025, you’ll have to adjust that total. Maybe he only gets 15 now. Shoot, maybe he only gets 10. When the Angels signed Syndergaard as a free agent for 2022, they probably expected him to get 25-plus starts, too. Things are always going to go wrong and you have to be prepared for that. And whether you agree with him or not, Stearns feels like he and the Mets were prepared.

But let’s finish with a focus on the 6-man rotation and use the 2022 Angels as a guide. Here’s one way the final number of starts might end up for the 2025 Mets:

28 – Sean Manaea
27 – Senga
25 – David Peterson
20 – Holmes
18 – Megill
15 – Montas

Or maybe we’d be better off picking names out of the hat to set the order. Regardless, my focus right now is more on the depth starters. The 2022 Angels used 10 starters beyond the ones who finished in the top six in starts. My hope is that the Mets can use half that many. Certainly, the last thing any of us should want to see is a repeat of the circus surrounding Julio Teheran last year.

Including Teheran, the Mets used 12 pitchers to start a game in 2024. They faced the health issues of Paul Blackburn, Christian Scott and Senga, along with the lousiness of Adrian Houser, Joey Lucchesi and Teheran. Those latter three combined for 10 starts and an 8.10 ERA, thanks to allowing 42 ER in 46.2 IP. Can this year’s Mets only have three SP with an IL stint? Can they avoid 10 disastrous starts by three pitchers?

My hope is that Blackburn can pitch to a sub-5.00 ERA in however many starts he makes. Ditto for Griffin Canning. It sure would be nice if Brandon Sproat overcame his Syracuse issues and was able to make a contribution to the 2025 Mets. And we can add Dom Hamel and Blade Tidwell to that list, too.

And the thing is – there are always performances that happen that we aren’t prepared for over the full season. Who thought Mark Vientos was going to hit 27 HR for the Mets last year? Who thought Jose Iglesias was going to bat .337? Who thought Peterson would go 10-3 with a 2.90 ERA? Who thought Dedniel Nunez would have a 6.0 K/BB ratio?

Sure, you can say we shouldn’t plan on things like that – and if we were on TV, you’d see me nodding in agreement. But the Mets headed to Spring Training with eight starters in line, without counting any of the prospects. It feels a little crazy to demand that the club should have a third non-prospect replacement ready from the jump. But if you absolutely feel that they should – well, just consider Jose Butto as that guy.