While these last games of the season are primarily for securing the National League East division crown and playoff berth, and secondarily for fighting for home field advantage, there is clearly a third purpose – settling on a post season roster.
As the team stands right now, we have 38 active players and we can only carry 25 into the playoffs, so some tough decisions are going to need to be made by the front office. Who makes the rotation? How many relievers do we carry? What bench players make us the strongest?
11 or 12 Arms
Clearly, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz will be taking the hill against the Dodgers, but one of the latter two may do so out of the bullpen, particularly in the five-game division series. One of the veterans Bartolo Colon or Jon Niese will likely stick either as a fourth starter or long reliever. The other, presently looking like Niese, will likely be left off the post season roster. Crazy to consider this, as both are quality, experienced pitchers with sizable contracts, but what’s the alternative? To give the team its best chance of advancing in the playoffs, you have to go with the best arms, not necessarily the most experienced or most expensive. Barring injuries, Logan Verret has zero chance to pitch beyond October 4. Ditto for Tim Stauffer, who, if he’s lucky will see some mop-up duty at the end of the regular season.
As far as the bullpen, obviously Jeurys Familia, Tyler Clippard and Addison Reed continue on as the 7-8-9 trio. Despite some recent blips, they’re the best we’ve got. So, that leaves room for three or four more arms. Carlos Torres, assuming his calf is healed up, would seem a safe bet as he can toss multiple innings and is valuable in extra innings or in a blowout (do the Mets play in any of those anymore?). Knowing Sandy Alderson, there will be a spot saved for a lefty. The options include Sean Gilmartin, who has reverse splits and does better against righties than lefties, and Eric O’Flaherty, who is a true LOOGY, only Terry Collins insists on misusing him to the tune of an ERA that could be mistaken for the MPG of a Volkswagen. Dario Alvarez likely won’t be healthy enough and poor Alex Torres was never recalled.
Erik Goeddel and his strikeout splitter have been good for the most part and would seem a good candidate to secure the last spot on the staff. Hansel Robles, while awful at times, is mostly good and his big fastball might come in handy. If Alderson opts to go with a 12-man staff, Robles has a good shot to stick. Bobby Parnell, despite his experience and salary, has been mostly terrible and has still not regained his velocity or command on his steadfast comeback from Tommy John surgery. Sadly, this may be the last we see of him as Parnell’s contract is up and it’s hard to imagine the Mets bringing him back next year.
In the end, this writer predicts a rotation of deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard and Matz with Colon joining Familia, Clippard, Reed, Torres, Goeddel, and Gilmartin with Robles the wild card. Niese and Parnell are the most notable cuts.
13 or 14 Bats
The depth this team possesses since making the mid-summer trades affords Terry Collins the luxury of countering righty and lefty pitchers with a lot of opposite side hitters. David Wright, Yoenis Cespedes, Travis d’Arnaud, Daniel Murphy and Curtis Granderson will be in the lineup regardless of who is on the hill. Against righties we’ll see Lucas Duda, Michael Conforto and Kelly Johnson. Juan Uribe, Juan Lagares and Michael Cuddyer will primarily see time against lefties. As far as Ruben Tejada and Wilmer Flores, which one plays is more based on who’s pitching for the Mets as Tejada’s defense has added value when a ground ball pitcher is on the mound. Alternatively, Flores’ bat can offset his less glaring weakness on the field when a fly ball pitcher gets the ball. Regardless of who’s starting, this is possibly the deepest bench this team has ever had and it will serve us well in the post season.
If you’re keeping track, that’s 13 players already. Throw in a backup catcher – Kevin Plawecki is the obvious choice as Anthony Recker doesn’t hit enough and Johnny Monell only appears to hit in spring training. Versatile, but light hitting Eric Campbell has no shot at the post season, nor does speedy but otherwise useless Eric Young, Jr. or the not-quite-ready-for-primetime Dilson Herrera. Sadly, everyone’s favorite backup quarterback (seems like one, doesn’t he?) Kirk Nieuwenhuis is probably the odd man ou. The team has enough lefty bats and, while his defense and pinch hitting could certainly be of value, Nieuwenhuis will likely find himself on the short end of the numbers game. If they decide to go with only 13 bats, the additional cut would have to be either Johnson or Uribe.
If it’s any consolation to his fans, Nieuwenhuis, as well as Parnell, Niese and possibly Recker and Campbell will still get a championship ring and at least a partial World Series bonus check. Hopefully, we can assemble the right squad to get us there.
I’d swap out Gilmartin for Niese, otherwise you’re spot on.
I was thinking that also Charlie. After all, how much has Gilmartin pitched lately?
Further, I don’t see Torres making the post season roster as he hasn’t seen any action in a while.
Thankfully the position players don’t present any real tough choices. As for the pitchers, Bartolo has to be on the postseason roster. He’s the perfect “break glass in case of injured starter” option and can pitch an inning or two out of the pen if needed. I agree about Robles – he can provide shutdown relief or pitch you out of the game. In a short series, smart move is roll the dice and hope for Good Hansel, but keep him on a short leash. Would be nice to have Verrett on the postseason roster, but it’s tough to see how he makes it.
“Break glass” comment is spot on.
Best would be to have both Niese and Colon as the Mets will need a piggyback pitcher for Harvey who can give them three innings. I think if the Mets clinch in the next few days they should try Niese out in this situation. He’d know that he’ll be entering the game in the 6th inning so he’ll have plenty of time to warm up, and it won’t be unexpected. It should be just like a start for him.
I trust that Colon as a long man much more than Torres, despite the fact that Colon has only been a starter for the Mets. I’m thinking that the guy is unflappable and has a rubber arm so he should be able to handle it.
I know it won’t happen, but if I was up to me I’d start Bartolo Colon in the first or second game of the playoffs. Why? For the same reason he started on opening day – he’s a money pitcher who rises to the occasion. Because he probably knows this is his last chance at a ring, I think he would pitch the game of his life, setting the table for the youngsters to follow. On the flip side, Steve Matz has a terrific career ahead of him, but do the Mets really want to rely on a guy who’s pitched 6 games in the majors?
Mets Maven, you make a great point, but look at the numbers. This is not Cy Young prime Bart, this is the 42-year-old version who can still throw strikes and shut down the bottom feeders but often gets clobbered by the better teams. Matz, unlike the other three young arms who all look tired or are facing innings limits, is at full strength. Since most of the Dodgers top hitters are lefty (Gonzalez, Ethier, Pederson, Crawford, Seager, Utley) it would behoove us to start a lefty against them.
Colon also has a 2.74 ERA over his last 10 starts. True, only one of those starts was against a 500+ team, but in that start he gave up 1 run to the Pirates over 7 innings. In addition, it makes me nervous that the entire rotation won’t have one inning of playoff experience.
As long as EY Jr (and Eric Campbell) are off the post season roster I can live with most of the others. OK, better add Parnell and O’Flaherty to that list too.
The NLDS playoff schedule is: Fri-Sat, Mon-Tues, and Thursday.
This means that in every close game, Reed-Clippard-Familia can pitch and only 11 pitchers are needed. If the game is tied you can follow with Robles ,who seems to be the pitcher of choice by TC when the big 3 aren’t used in high leverage situations. The worst scenario is that you don’t have enough pitching to cover the innings. This is why Niese, Matz and Torres make the roster. It insures that in a lost blowout game you have an innings eater and in a tie game you have good pitching to cover the innings. If the playoffs could be scripted, the Mets would like to only pitch the starter and Reed-Clippard-Familia. The other relievers would not be used. That is why Goedell and Gilmartin don’t make the roster.
I agree on the 14 position players.
Metsense, we haven’t see Torres in weeks. Not to mention, his pitches flatten out on back to back outings.
Torres has one week to prove he is healthy otherwise it will be a choice between Goedell and Gilmartin. My educated guess is that it will be Goedell.
Look at the days off in the playoff schedule and realize that it would be real unusual circumstances to have Torres go back to back days. In fact, if things go anywhere near as planned he would never have to leave the bullpen.
If O’Flaherty’s name appears on the post season roster I think we’ll all flip out.
Lagares has sort of played hurt all season… I don’t think he’s done enough to separate himself from Kirk even if he were 100%. Kirk can play defense, throw runners out, and run faster. And while you could argue Lagares torches lefties, I’d say Cuddyer can do it even better. Plus, the lefty-righty ratio is 2:3 rather than 1:4 if you use Newy. Also, I love him.
I’m going to have to disagree about some of the relievers mentioned. Jon Niese’s potential bullpen role on a postseason role depends on whether or not he can be viewed as a viable LOOGY option. At best, a below average one. But to carry O’Flaherty given his overall ERA, is pitiful. Collins doesn’t manage the bullpen well enough to only use him against lefty’s. But to say he could even be average against lefty’s given how he has performed is an overstatement. And whether or not Alveraz is healthy, he just isn’t good enough. As a long/middle reliever, though not a loogy, Gilmartin has proven his value. But is he the only lefty we will carry?
Next, why would you want Carlos Torres on the postseason roster? I’m even assuming he is 100%, which even if he appears to be close to be, a calf injury is a nagging type of injury that may make you hold back. More importantly, his ERA is 4.88 and that was with a good calf. Not to say having an innings eating mop up man isn’t good, but what can he do that Verrett can’t? Verrett has made several quality spot starts down the stretch and he has a 2.70 ERA. If Torres were given that chance, he would have been lit up in at least half his starts. Just like how Plawecki superseded Recker as a better back up catcher, Verrett has done that with Torres. Verrett or Montero probably ends up the long man on next season’s roster with Torres non-tendered.
The Torres vs Verrett debate may be irrelevant though if Colon is carried as the long man. Gilmartin can go multiple innings too and shouldn’t be used as a LOOGY, anyway. If they go with 12 pitchers, and Colon + Gilmartin and the 7-8-9 are there, with Parnell and Stauffer hopefully being the obvious no’s, the last 2 spots come down to Robles, Niese, Goeddel and Verrett.
Robles is one obvious choice because he throws hard and he has done really well in the second half. Plus, who doesn’t love that effective quick pitch in a critical situation that seems to stun and irritate almost everyone he does it to?
The other choice depending on Juan Uribe’s health should be either Goedell or Niese. This last week could be a good test trial to see Niese as a LOOGY. Or they may go with neither and carry a bench of six. If Uribe is healthy, there is no obvious player to not carry out of Johnson, Uribe, Tejada, Lagares and Cuddyer.