The Mets play on Sunday Night Baseball later tonight and David Peterson will pitch for them. This will be Peterson’s fifth start of the year and the third time he matches up against the Phillies. His first start of the season was in Philadelphia – like tonight’s matchup – and was easily his worst start of the year. Peterson gave up 6 ER, including 2 HR, in 4 IP and took the loss. His second start of the year was also against the Phillies and was easily his best start of the season, as he had 10 Ks in 6 IP and allowed just 1 ER.
So far in 2021, Peterson is 1-3 with a 5.59 ERA. You can say that either of those previous starts against the Phillies is unduly influencing his overall line. If you ignore the first start, Peterson has a 3.52 ERA. But, if you ignore the second start, he has a 7.43 ERA. Furthermore, without that second start, this is Peterson’s line on the year: 13.1 IP, 11 ER, 6 BB, 11 Ks and 3 HR.
That 10-K performance on 4/14 is hard to take at face value. By itself, it’s not really a big deal, with all of the strikeouts that occur in the game these days. But Peterson is not what you consider a strikeout pitcher. Instead, he has games where everything is clicking and the strikeouts come in bunches. In nine starts last year, he had two big strikeout games. In a satisfying way, both of these came against the Braves.
Peterson’s first start last year against the Braves he produced 8 Ks in 6 IP and in his second start, he had 10 Ks in 6 IP. If you combine those two outings with his second start against the Phillies this season, you have 18 IP and 28 Ks. In his other 12 games in the majors, Peterson has 51 IP and 33 Ks. That’s a 5.8 K/9 which is a low mark to try and succeed with in MLB.
Eliminating those three high-strikeout games from Peterson’s ledger, you have a pitcher with a 5.29 ERA. Now, no pitcher looks good when you take out his best games. But this is what a pitcher with a 5.8 K/9 looks like in the 2020s. People love to throw out compliments about his poise and maturity on the mound. Certainly, you’d prefer a pitcher with poise and maturity over one who lacks those qualities. But just as sure, you’d prefer a guy who had a K/9 in double figures.
If you’re not going to have good strikeout numbers, you better do two things very well. We can look to Marcus Stroman for an example. Stroman has a 7.06 K/9 but has a 1.84 ERA because he keeps the ball on the ground and when batters do hit it in the air, they hit it out of the park at a lower-than-average rate. Stroman has a 60.0 GB% and 6.3 HR/FB mark while it’s a 43.5 and 13.5 rate, respectively, in MLB so far this year.
Peterson succeeds in one of these marks but not the other. This year he has a 56.9 GB%, which is excellent. However, the less said about his HR rate, the better. Last year he notched a 10.2 HR/FB rate, which is probably close to the maximum he can allow and be effective. This year, Peterson’s HR rate checks in at a whopping 36.4%, which is a problem.
Of course, that number is unsustainable, one way or another. Either he gets better or he loses his spot in the rotation. But even if he cut it in half, it would still be an issue. In our last full season in 2019, only eight out of 61 pitchers who qualified for the leaderboards had a HR/FB rate of 18.0 or greater and six of them had at least a 9.05 K/9.
The good news for Peterson is he still has time on his side, at least a little bit. Carlos Carrasco is expected back in two weeks and Noah Syndergaard in about five. Peterson’s spot in the rotation is guaranteed even when Carrasco returns. But when Syndergaard is ready is when it gets real. There hasn’t been any serious discussion about the Mets going to a six-man rotation and they certainly won’t to accommodate a second-year guy with a 5.59 ERA.
But Jacob deGrom has already asked twice for an extra day of rest between starts and Taijuan Walker hasn’t reached 54 IP in a season since 2017. With a productive Peterson, it wouldn’t be hard to argue for a six-man rotation for the Mets. The last time deGrom went with the extra day off, he threw a two-hit shutout with 15 Ks. Matt Harvey, who upped his record to 3-1 yesterday, was very vocal about not wanting an extra day off between starts when he was on the Mets. But what if deGrom prefers it?
My personal preference would be for teams to go back to a four-man rotation. But if you have six better-than-average starters and your ace prefers the extra day of rest, well, it’s an easy decision.
But the six-man rotation is a long way off. Peterson has to make the case that he deserves to be a starter. His raw ERA made that case in 2020. But that ERA was not supported by his peripherals, which gave him a 4.52 FIP and a 5.11 xFIP last year. More often than not, when a pitcher’s FIP exceeds his ERA, that pitcher’s ERA will go up the following season.
So far, that’s exactly what we’ve seen with Peterson. The silver lining is that right now, Peterson’s FIP is below his ERA. Ideally, it would be with one better than the 4.70 FIP he has currently. He’s got to do a better job of limiting the gopher ball. And that’s a task made easier if Peterson can limit the contact other teams make.
Here’s hoping Peterson can toss another 6 IP, 10 K outing tonight.
Although not a big Peterson believer, we must remember this pitcher skipped AAA completely and has only 13 MLB starts under his belt. Inconsistency will be expected, but better to see flashes than nothing. Too, his walk rate is way down this year which may be a bad thing in that hitters are more comfortable facing pitches from a pitcher that has allowed more hits than innings in both A+ and AA and wasn’t too effective at either level.
Coming out of Oregon, Peterson had big strikeout numbers but not a great ERA which tells us that at his best, he still won’t be an ace. His ERA as a junior in Oregon was 2.51 with 140 strikeouts in 100 innings, and his three year ERA in college was 3.47. When you consider the PAC-12 is a pretty weak baseball conference, that’s disappointing. In fact, while the Mets talked up his “deception on the mound”, others talked up his willingness to sign under slot.
All of this is just background info, but the two things that remain with me are:
– I wrote that after that 10K start against Philly, John Smoltz did a pretty detailed breakdown on MLBN of how Peterson telegraphs the off speed stuff by slowing down his delivery. I couldn’t tell, but I don’t wear a yellow jacket either. Smoltz was convinced that Peterson didn’t realize it and it appears the Mets don’t either, but I can’t question Smoltz. And Girardi – while not good enough to manage the Mets – has gotten acclaim all his life on how he handles pitchers, so he may see this. But as they say in baseball, you may even know it’s coming but if it’s a perfect pitch, you’re not going to touch it anyway…
– The second thing that stands out to me regarding Peterson is he is almost 26 years old. The Mets are pushing him because they lack better options, and he wouldn’t be the first late bloomer, but if they had other options he would probably be in AAA. I worry that Peterson will get his clock cleaned tonight but Lugo may have his rotation spot in a few weeks if he can’t be more consistent as the bullpen has been pretty good.
I think Peterson will only get better. The more they use him, the better he will perform. Not good that the Phillies have seen him twice already, but he will certainly do better among the teams that are less familiar with him.
He is capable of quality starts, and the Mets need the LH starter.
Peterson is what he is, a bottom of the rotation starter. He needs to better because he was league average FIP going into the season and he slipped slightly this year. When Syndergaard returns he will lose his rotation spot. Until then, he has to perform credibly because Lucchesi is waiting in the wings. The Mets shouldn’t never use a six man rotation. Peterson (and Lucchesi and Yamamoto) are a good in fit for the Mets as a controllable players that can spot start in future years.