Naturally we all want baseball, and normalcy of all kinds, to return as soon as possible as long as it doesn’t further compromise our parents’ and grandparents’ collective health. If you’re a Mets fan with an agenda, though? Suddenly, a severely reduced schedule doesn’t sound so awful. This club’s pitching depth, already suspect out of …
Naturally we all want baseball, and normalcy of all kinds, to return as soon as possible as long as it doesn’t further compromise our parents’ and grandparents’ collective health.
If you’re a Mets fan with an agenda, though? Suddenly, a severely reduced schedule doesn’t sound so awful. This club’s pitching depth, already suspect out of the chute, is now officially on alert.
The Mets dropped a bombshell Tuesday with the announcement that Noah Syndergaard, having torn the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, will undergo Tommy John surgery on Thursday, what was supposed to be Opening Day, with team medical director David Altchek performing the procedure. That this occurred during the coronavirus shutdown simultaneously makes it a current non-issue — honestly, would it shock you if there was no 2020 baseball season at all? — while creating further questions.
Most prominent, has Syndergaard thrown his final pitch in a Mets uniform? The right-hander is scheduled to be a free agent after next season. We likely can’t know whether that will actually occur, Thor’s rehabilitation calendar notwithstanding, until we flatten the curve and acquire a clearer view of the game’s future. Somewhere amidst that process, Major League Baseball and the Players Association must hammer out an agreement on how service time from this uniquely awful period will be calculated. For Syndergaard’s purposes, will he have to wait an additional campaign to attain his freedom?
Those answers require time. We need no time, however, to know this: The Mets had best not suffer any more significant injuries, be they during this shutdown or after it ends, if they want to make a real championship run with this roster.
Two-time reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom remains the ace, and with Syndergaard out for the year, Marcus Stroman jumps to No. 2. Then you have holdover Steven Matz joining new guys Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha, the intramural competitions that gave us plenty of content earlier this month now less relevant than a Manhattan hair salon. The latter trio possess upside and perhaps even more reliability than you might first think — Matz surpassed the 150-innings mark each of the prior two seasons — yet this quintet hardly inspires comparisons to Sandy Alderson’s 2015-2018 fab five in which Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler held the spots of Porcello and Wacha.
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That group never matched its hype because the components couldn’t stay healthy all together, and it probably hit you upon hearing Tuesday’s news that all five will be members of the Tommy John club once Syndergaard’s operation ends. Building a team around high-end starting pitching can be delightful when things click as they did for the ’15 Mets, even with Wheeler down. When they don’t, it can be considerably less delightful.
The 2020 Mets’ sixth starter might be young lefty David Peterson, who hasn’t pitched above Double-A. The notion of using Seth Lugo or Robert Gsellman to start and provide bulk innings, as opposed to occasionally opening, always has seemed more fanciful than feasible given the overall questions surrounding the bullpen.
The shorter this 2020 season, of course, the less roster depth teams will require to get through the mitigated grind. So maybe that can work to the Mets’ advantage.
Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen said in the press release, “We have no doubt that Noah will be able to return to full strength and continue to be an integral part of our Championship pursuits in the future.” Eh. Maybe there should be doubt. The return from TJ surgery varies considerably; remember, Wheeler missed two full seasons after his. And really, everything in our world should be in doubt until we get this pandemic under control, an endeavor that doesn’t appear to be going too great at the moment.
All we know for certain is that we won’t see Syndergaard and his blazing fastball (and terrific secondary stuff) on the mound for a while. And that the Mets, if we’re fortunate enough to get any sort of 2020 season, can’t afford much more bad news like this.
