Why have Mets' pitchers returning from the IL pitched so poorly?

No one can accuse David Stearns of not having principles and deep-held beliefs with roster construction.

Unfortunately, those beliefs are biting him and Mets fans in the part that hops over the fence last, as the starting pitching lets down the team day after day after day. One of my criticisms of former GM Sandy Alderson was that he had a good Plan A but if, for whatever reason, that didn’t work out – there was never a good Plan B. Now, you don’t want to discard a perfectly good plan at the first sight of trouble. But there comes a time when reality has to trump theory.

Stearns’ theory was that the Mets had enough pitching depth. He had eight starters ready to go at the start of the season and several top prospects knocking at the door who should be ready at some point during the season. It was a reasonable theory.

Yet that theory got tested immediately. Injuries hit in Spring Training and have continued throughout the year. Let’s check in on the eight starters who the organization expected to do the heavy lifting in the rotation.

Paul Blackburn – Started the year on the IL, was lousy for six games and then was sidelined again.
Griffin Canning – Started off great, hit a rough spot and then had a season-ending injury.
Clay Holmes – Started off great, hit a rough spot and everyone thinks he’s hit a wall, while the club insists that he’s recovering well from starts.
Sean Manaea – Started the year on the IL and has yet to pitch more than 5.2 IP
Tylor Megill – Was having a typical Megill year, great at times, lousy at others, before winding up on the IL.
Frankie Montas – Started the year on the IL and has been more bad than good in seven starts since being activated.
David Peterson – The bright spot of the rotation.
Kodai Senga – Was great until he went on the IL and has been awful since his return.

With all of the injuries that hit the rotation, there have been eight starts made by pitchers besides the above-listed hurlers. With no real point of reference, that feels like more than should have been anticipated if the team experienced normal health with its starters.

The injuries have been bad enough. But to make matters worse is how poorly these starters have performed since returning from the IL. Here’s how the four pitchers have done since being activated:

Blackburn – 18.2 IP, 7.71 ERA
Manaea – 23 IP, 3.52 ERA
Montas – 33.2 IP, 6.68 ERA
Senga – 16 IP, 6.19 ERA

That quartet has combined for 91.1 IP and 61 ER for a 6.01 ERA. The point that absolutely no one is making is that what’s killing the Mets is not the plethora of injuries to their starters but rather how poorly those starters have performed once they return from the IL. Instead of questioning Stearns for his pitching plan coming into Spring Training, we should be asking why these pitchers were completely unprepared to be anything remotely like themselves when they returned to action.

It’s my opinion that none of these four were rushed back to action from a time off point of view. Yet it seems more than fair to wonder if their rehab schedule adequately prepared them to face MLB hitters.

We all want to do whatever we can to keep pitchers healthy. The problem is that what’s been touted as best practice – a slavish devotion to pitch counts – isn’t working. We’ve seen that for years now with pitchers continuing to break down despite the kid-gloves treatment. The question today is: Has this same pitch-count approach hindered the Mets’ recovering pitchers, too?

It’s easy to misinterpret what was proposed in the last graph. No one should consider this as a call to throw out pitch counts completely. There’s absolutely no reason for asking starters to throw 150 or more pitches in an outing. Just as clear, we shouldn’t ask guys coming back from injury to throw 100 pitches in their first appearance, either.

Yet there needs to be an understanding that not all pitches are created equally. There are times when a starter can throw 125 pitches and it’s not abuse. And there are times when a pitcher has thrown 70 and he absolutely should not return for the next inning. Unfortunately, taking out pitchers who are cruising because they’re nearing the 100-pitch boogeyman has necessitated using relief pitchers much more often than teams should. Which means when a pitcher doesn’t have it, he’s asked to go back out there, in order to save the pen.

We don’t have any examples of the former with the Mets here recently. Yet we absolutely have an example of the latter. Montas gets knocked around for four runs in the third inning but is sent back out for the fourth. After giving up three more runs in that frame – he’s brought back for the fifth. That was madness!

With Manaea, Montas and Senga all struggling since being activated and with Holmes hitting a wall (or whatever may be his issue) – Carlos Mendoza simply cannot push his starters. His hands are tied until pitchers who have a history of pitching six or more innings effectively actually start to do that again.

This feels sort of hollow – identifying a problem without having a potential solution. Yet my hope is that whatever they’ve done while these pitchers were on the shelf gets examined and overhauled with Blackburn and Megill before they return from the IL. Here’s the pitch counts for the four injured pitchers during their rehab:

Blackburn – 38, 41, 54, 60, 73, 87, 84
Manaea – 36, 46, 56, 62, 61, 73
Montas – 37, 49, 61, 76, 53, 80
Senga – 68

The first three had lengthier rehab stints because they missed most or all of Spring Training. It’s fair to wonder why Manaea didn’t throw more pitches before he was recalled, why Montas was recalled despite his massive struggles in Triple-A and why Senga, who missed a month, was recalled after just one rehab appearance.

The easy answers to those questions are that they were recalled because there was a need at the MLB level. And that need existed because Stearns refused to give his top minor league guys a shot. Yes, he gave the ball to Blake Tidwell. Unfortunately, Tidwell – at best – was the club’s fourth-best minor league pitcher. But it was the path of least resistance, as Tidwell was already on the 40-man.

There was another option available to Stearns in that he could have traded for a starter. It was likely the correct decision to go with the current group when the Spring Training injuries hit. But it was far, far from certain that it was the correct decision at the trade deadline, when there was more than a couple of bad outings from starters fresh in everyone’s mind.

We haven’t seen much deviation from the original plan for the starters from Stearns. Now there’s one fewer option available, as they can no longer trade for an external option. So, there are two choices left. The Mets can either hope their current starters can start pitching like what was expected or they can give a shot to Triple-A youngsters and hope for better results than they received from the since-traded Tidwell.

If you administered truth serum to me, my answer would be that neither one seems like a good choice right now. Yet my confidence in Montas has completely disappeared and it might be the same thing with Holmes depending on how tonight’s start goes. Blackburn’s going to get a shot, likely in relief, at least initially. But if he fails there – are the Mets prepared to move on?

There have been plenty of people calling for the Mets to DFA Montas but given the money he has left on his contract, there seems to be very little chance of that happening. But a DFA of Ryne Stanek wouldn’t be anywhere near as expensive. And that might be the path for both Blackburn and one of the Triple-A starters to advance to the majors.

The rotation needs a jolt. Maybe that’s a current non-Peterson starter going seven innings. Or perhaps it’s Blackburn piggybacking with Montas. It could even be a top prospect getting a chance and running with it. All that’s certain is that we can’t exclusively blame the offense when the pitchers allow 48 runs in the past seven games and the team goes 1-6. And IL returnees Manaea, Montas and Senga have made five of those seven starts.