Full disclosure: The idea for this article was blatantly stolen from my co-writer on Mets360.com, Brian Joura. While he focused on the offensive side, let’s now take a look at the pitching side. It’s not easy to pull up exclusively late season promotions, so the criteria I used was pitchers age 23 or younger, making at least 5 starts and no more than 15 starts (also a minimum of 30 IP).
Here’s the list:
| Season | Name | W | L | SV | G | GS | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | LOB% | ERA | FIP | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Jason Isringhausen | 9 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 93 | 5.32 | 3 | 0.58 | 81.70% | 2.81 | 3.82 | 1.4 |
| 1979 | Neil Allen | 6 | 10 | 8 | 50 | 5 | 99 | 5.91 | 4.27 | 0.36 | 71.40% | 3.55 | 3.37 | 1.1 |
| 2012 | Matt Harvey | 3 | 5 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 59.1 | 10.62 | 3.94 | 0.76 | 81.30% | 2.73 | 3.3 | 1.1 |
| 1994 | Jason Jacome | 4 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 54 | 5 | 2.83 | 0.5 | 80.80% | 2.67 | 3.69 | 0.9 |
| 1984 | Sid Fernandez | 6 | 6 | 0 | 15 | 15 | 90 | 6.2 | 3.4 | 0.8 | 70.30% | 3.5 | 3.68 | 0.9 |
| 2001 | Dicky Gonzalez | 3 | 2 | 0 | 16 | 7 | 59 | 4.73 | 2.59 | 0.61 | 67.50% | 4.88 | 3.79 | 0.7 |
| 1983 | Ron Darling | 1 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 35.1 | 5.86 | 4.33 | 0 | 78.40% | 2.8 | 3.15 | 0.6 |
| 1976 | Nino Espinosa | 4 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 5 | 41.2 | 6.48 | 2.81 | 0.65 | 66.30% | 3.67 | 3.06 | 0.6 |
| 1971 | Jon Matlack | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 37 | 5.84 | 3.65 | 0.49 | 67.10% | 4.14 | 3.32 | 0.6 |
| 1993 | Bobby Jones | 2 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 9 | 61.2 | 5.11 | 3.21 | 0.88 | 65.30% | 3.65 | 4.29 | 0.6 |
| 1967 | Danny Frisella | 1 | 6 | 0 | 14 | 11 | 74 | 6.2 | 4.01 | 0.73 | 74.80% | 3.41 | 3.59 | 0.6 |
| 1964 | Dennis Ribant | 1 | 5 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 57.2 | 5.46 | 1.4 | 1.25 | 64.40% | 5.15 | 3.87 | 0.4 |
| 1991 | Pete Schourek | 5 | 4 | 2 | 35 | 8 | 86.1 | 6.98 | 4.48 | 0.73 | 66.60% | 4.27 | 3.92 | 0.4 |
| 2007 | Mike Pelfrey | 3 | 8 | 0 | 15 | 13 | 72.2 | 5.57 | 4.83 | 0.74 | 69.00% | 5.57 | 5.06 | 0.3 |
| 1982 | Brent Gaff | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 31.2 | 3.98 | 2.84 | 0.85 | 62.80% | 4.55 | 4.11 | 0.2 |
| 1971 | Charlie Williams | 5 | 6 | 0 | 31 | 9 | 90.1 | 5.28 | 4.08 | 0.7 | 65.20% | 4.78 | 3.68 | 0.2 |
| 1980 | John Pacella | 3 | 4 | 0 | 32 | 15 | 84 | 7.29 | 6.32 | 0.54 | 69.20% | 5.14 | 4.09 | 0.2 |
| 1974 | Craig Swan | 1 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 30.1 | 2.97 | 6.23 | 0.3 | 63.00% | 4.45 | 4.42 | 0 |
| 1965 | Tug McGraw | 2 | 7 | 1 | 37 | 9 | 97.2 | 5.25 | 4.42 | 0.74 | 72.80% | 3.32 | 4.1 | 0 |
| 1966 | Dick Selma | 4 | 6 | 1 | 30 | 7 | 80.2 | 6.47 | 4.35 | 1.23 | 71.70% | 4.24 | 4.49 | -0.4 |
| 1965 | Gary Kroll | 6 | 6 | 1 | 32 | 11 | 87 | 6.41 | 4.24 | 1.24 | 71.20% | 4.45 | 4.33 | -0.4 |
| 2014 | Rafael Montero | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 32.2 | 7.71 | 4.41 | 2.2 | 77.30% | 5.23 | 6.07 | -0.5 |
| 1967 | Bill Denehy | 1 | 7 | 0 | 15 | 8 | 53.2 | 5.87 | 4.86 | 1.34 | 64.20% | 4.7 | 5.13 | -0.5 |
| 1972 | Brent Strom | 0 | 3 | 0 | 11 | 5 | 30.1 | 5.93 | 4.45 | 2.08 | 62.20% | 6.82 | 5.66 | -0.6 |
This list is full of surprises. I definitely don’t remember Jason Isringhausen coming up and basically pulling a Matt Harvey.
Now we know enough to look at the peripheral numbers and get a more accurate picture. There was no possible way Isringhausen was going to go 9-2 in 14 starts again, not with that 5.32 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9.
Who is Jason Jacome and what was he doing in 1994? I had no idea who he was either. He was absolutely awful for the Mets in 1995, and the Mets promptly shipped him out to Kansas City for essentially nothing (in fact, one of those players was a guy named Geno Morones, who promptly disappeared off the face of the earth. He never threw a single pitch for the Mets or any other organization).
I had forgotten all about Dicky Gonzalez as well, although I don’t ever think we were very high on him, it’s just fun to get excited to watch a guy named Dicky. The Mets tried selling high on Dicky, shipping him away to Montreal before the next season, unfortunately what they got back in return was Phil Seibel, Scott Strickland, and Matt Watson. You’ll notice Harvey was the only pitcher on this list that really dominated during his short season. Only 3 out of 24 pitchers achieved a K/BB ratio over 2, Harvey, Dennis Ribant, and Nino Espinosa. I’m sure most of you have only heard of Harvey.
Only 24 pitchers over 50+ years of Mets history have earned short call ups. It’s not that common. If the Mets were in a playoff race, I would love to have seen him get called up in a bullpen role, just to get used to the pressure of pitching in the big leagues while also keeping a very tight leash on his innings count. But because the Mets are 8 games under .500, it’s not really worth it. The last 2 times the Mets did the late season call up was 2012 Matt Harvey when the Mets were still kind of in a playoff race (48-51 after a win in his debut, would go 26-37 to finish the season), and 2007 Mike Pelfrey, when the Mets were absolutely in a playoff race.
With the rotation being pretty full as it is, it’s easier and safer to keep Syndergaard down in AAA and let him build up his innings. As you can see, only Harvey has really dominated and if you want to keep Syndergaard’s trade value up, it’s better to keep him in the minors.