Bartolo Colon’s dominance overshadows historic pace of Mets staff

At 42 years old, Bartolo Colon’s career is in its third act. Act one featured a young flamethrower with the Cleveland Indians, the Montreal Expos, the Chicago White Sox and the Anaheim-then-Los Angeles Angels. It was in this opening act that Colon was crowned the American League Cy Young Award winner in 2005 after going 21-8 for the Angels.

Act two was more melodramatic. Colon was often injured, and ineffective when healthy. After making 29 appearances over two years with the Angels following the Cy Young season, he moved on to a seven-game stint with the Boston Red Sox in 2008, and tossed 12 games for the White Sox in 2009.  He was all but finished as he was out of baseball for the 2010 season.

Act three began in the Bronx in 2011, when Colon resurfaced with the New York Yankees, pitching well enough to make 29 appearances (26 starts) and posting a FIP under 4.00 for the first time in a half-dozen years.  He had notably gained weight in his absence from the game, and had reportedly undergone a stem cell treatment in his rotator cuff and elbow.  That procedure was deemed permissible by Major League Baseball.

A pair of one-year contracts with the Oakland Athletics led Colon to upping with the Mets for two years prior to the 2014 season.  Now at an age where most pitchers have already hung up the cleats, Colon only seems to be getting stronger.  After registering his fifth win of the season against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday, Colon deservedly began to garner national attention for his performance.

What most of those reports failed to mention, was that it is not only Colon posting staggering numbers this season – it is the entire Mets pitching staff. Without a doubt, the Mets have had the best pitching staff in baseball so far. In fact, with a team history so rich in terrific pitching, this year’s staff is performing at a level rarely seen in baseball history.

Much of the praise directed at Colon centers around his incredible 34 strikeout-to-walk ratio, which would smash the record currently held by Phil Hughes of the Minnesota Twins who had an 11.67 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 2014.

As a team in 2014, the Mets staff has the fewest number of walks in all of baseball, issuing just 52 free passes through 28 games.  The team’s 1.91 walks-per-nine is the best in baseball with the Chicago Cubs staff in a distant second place at 2.19 walks-per-nine.  The team-wide 4.23 strikeout-to-walk ratio is once again the best, with the Cubs again being in second with 3.89.

Both the team walks-per-nine and strikeout-to-walk ratios would smash team records, set in 1988 at 2.53 and 1990 at 2.74, respectively. In the live ball era, only four teams have had better walks-per-nine numbers: the 1933 Cincinnati Reds (1.70), the 1920 Pittsburgh Pirates (1.78), the 1932 Cincinnati Reds (1.78), and the 1920 New York Giants (1.90).

Major League baseball teams have recorded better strikeout-to-walk ratios 19 times, all coming from 1877-1884.  In those days it took eight (!) balls to walk a batter, although in 1884 the National League reduced that number to six.

In all likelihood, the Mets pitchers are not going to continue on this other-worldly trajectory for the duration of the season. It is intriguing, though, given that strikeout and walk rates are the quickest statistics to normalize. Going into the season, the pitching was said to be the Mets strong point, but nobody quite could’ve expected this.

Joe Vasile is the Assistant General Manager and Voice of the Fayetteville SwampDogs.