On Reed Garrett, Carlos Mendoza, a 6-man rotation and the Mets’ long-term outlook

Below is a transcript of an email conversation with Chris Flanders while we wait for the Mets to start a series against the Marlins, White Sox, Angels, Rockies – ok, fine, the 22-12 Braves.

Brian: The Mets are 18-18 or about what we would have thought at the start of the season, when most people viewed the 2024 team as a .500 club. But it’s safe to say that the team didn’t get there the way we might have thought. First, the schedule has been front-loaded with good teams and the club has been without its best pitcher the entire way and without Francisco Alvarez since April 19. The biggest positive surprise for me has been the performance of the bullpen from top to bottom, specifically Reed Garrett. Obviously, his velocity makes him a likely contributor from the pen. But this new mix of pitches has been amazing. His performance has been so good that it’s not crazy to think that at some point he could be converted into a starting pitcher, even if sometime is 2025 or later. What’s stood out to you in a good way so far?

Chris: So, I think everyone needs to celebrate the bullpen. And like you said, Garrett has been particularly fun to watch, as has Adam Ottavino until the last couple labored outings. On a .500 team that gets there by simultaneously looking great and looking atrocious, finding things that overall seem good can be challenging. With that in mind, I am gonna go with Carlos Mendoza. About this time in a season a lot of the naysayers are already out in droves against managers, but I look around and see a guy that has let pitchers go longer than maybe he wanted, managing a pretty tough set of roster-playing-time considerations, managing the pen, and dealing with an on-again off-again team with class. He has had to make some very hard decisions (Mark Vientos option, Harrison Bader benching, Pete Alonso benching etc.) and was able to do them without having a huge problem erupt. To me that says the players are with him, and that can only be good.

Although this could be viewed as shooting fish in a barrel, let’s look at the other side of this coin. What has surprisingly gone not good in your way? For me the real surprise has been the absolute lack of capacity to control runners. Maye I’ve lost my mind, but my sense was that in Spring Training Alvarez, in particular, was gunning down folks like mad and had elite pop times to his credit. We seem to just be giving bases away, and no matter what metric you use to rank the quality of a team, bases really matter. We need to face that every single is effectively a double, and to me that is bad, surprisingly bad.

Brian: Agree that Mendoza has generally been good. There are always things to nitpick – Bader playing too much and Michael Tonkin being used in high-leverage spots – but nothing egregious and it’s entirely possible that Bader’s playing time was forced on him from above.

As for what’s been surprisingly not good, it has to be the starters racking up big pitch counts early, in large part because of ugly walk numbers. Sean Manaea has a lifetime 2.4 BB/9 prior to this season and this year it’s 4.84; Jose Quintana had a lifetime 2.6 BB/9 heading into 2024 and now it’s a 4.0 mark. Adrian Houser‘s 6.28 mark helped him get pulled from the rotation. When Luis Severino‘s 3.83 mark is the best among the pitchers who’ve made more than one start, that’s not a good thing.

Certainly, the starts for Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo weren’t good but you expect a couple of guys to come out of the gates slow and it was just their turn. It seems very likely that when the season is over, their numbers will be fine.

We’ve heard conflicting information about the Mets and their intentions to run a 6-man rotation. First, they were, then they weren’t and now they are again. If you don’t like the answer, just wait a few days. Regardless, with the starters not going deep in games, it just seems a little crazy to me to take away a reliever to run a 6-man rotation. It’s one thing to bring up a guy from the minors to take a start and then option him the next day. But how does it work if you keep that sixth starter in the majors? So, do you see them going to a full 6-man rotation or more like they did last year, when they looked to give Kodai Senga extra rest whenever there was no day off in the schedule? The latter seems doable, with Jose Butto, Joey Lucchesi, Tylor Megill and Christian Scott to move up and down as needed. And David Peterson soon to join their ranks.

Chris: I hear ya with the major pitch counts leading to 15 out starts is a real problem. In my eye it is only a minor surprise, perhaps the depth of the issue, but I’ve been worried about this for years as the slide to shorter starts grows. When I see 70 pitches in the third inning, my eyes just roll back. It does bring me to concern about vast quantities of foul balls and extended ABs.

Oh, the fixed n-person starting rotation discussion, huh? Ok!! So, I suppose the answer to my mind, which under a time stress means I have not “mathed” this out, I wonder just how fixed the value really is. I’m perfectly fine with a six-man rotation, but in the big picture, I really wonder if the answer to your question is that the rotation is naturally more granular than stating a fixed plan. By the time you add in injuries, postponed games, stretches continuous games, optioning players, etc. I think there is not a really “fixed” number. I’m sure it will work out as near five, but given all the variables, I don’t think you can put a fixed number on n as a stringent plan.

So, here we are 36 games in, with 126 games remaining, and I can’t help but wonder if the amount of data to you is shaping the team we are likely to see, say until the All-Star Break, after which things could change dramatically. Does this look like a long term .500 team to you or are you seeing information in the peripheral data to make you think the team is considerably better (say, 10 over) or worse (10 under) than what we are looking at? At the start of the season, I put my money on something like 81-83 wins for the end of the season. I pretty much think the same today. But wow, I see the Mets really falling off as an NL East contender. I don’t see how Steve Cohen overcomes the Phillies and Braves any time soon.

Brian: I’m unsure if you’re asking specifically about 2024 or say the next two-to-three years. My opinion coming into this season was that the Mets were roughly an 80-win team. Right now, it seems they’re better than that. Is it enough to get to the playoffs? Maybe. It does seem more likely in the second week of May than it did the second week of March. And that’s encouraging to me.

They seemingly were right on Severino. They were right on enough relievers. They were flexible enough to pivot to J.D. Martinez even though it messed with one of the youngsters they were looking to develop. It just seems to me that Mendoza and David Stearns have both earned some rope, both for the remainder of this season, as well as the next couple of years, too.

A primary thought of mine is that both the Mets and their fans would be much better off if they looked at putting together the best team they can, rather than how they’re situated versus any team that you care to mention. If the Braves win 101 games, the Mets don’t have to win 102. They have to win enough games to make the playoffs and then let the chips fall where they may. The Mariners won 116 games and didn’t make the World Series. There are no guarantees anywhere.

This past offseason was all about maintaining future payroll flexibility while assembling a team that could compete for the playoffs. And it feels like they did exactly that. Now will it be another year of payroll flexibility in 2025 or will it change to assembling a team with a 99% shot of making the playoffs? The latter isn’t as easy as it sounds, even with Cohen’s money.

Obviously, they’ll have to be right on which of their own free agents to retain, a list that will include at least Alonso, Manaea and Severino. But they’ll have to be right on players under team control, too. Is Brett Baty an MLB regular? Is Butto a good option for 30 starts? Same thing for Scott. And it extends to guys in the minors, too. Do you put rotation hopes on Blade Tidwell or Joander Suarez or Jonah Tong?

There were so many people complaining that they didn’t get any pitching prospects with last year’s deadline deals. And now the pitchers look at least as promising as the hitters, if not more so. What if none of the hitters they acquired for the old pitchers even amounts to an average MLB player, much less an All-Star?

There are a boatload of moving parts and they won’t be correct with every decision or assumption. Will they be right on enough of them to move towards perennial contention? It’s too soon for me to have a definitive answer to that. But it doesn’t feel helpless. And right now, that will have to do.

Chris: I was thinking more about 2024 than going forward, but it’s worth thinking about the going forward with the continuation of payroll flexibility and what feels like austerity, despite the actual payroll.

For the first time in a while, I’m increasingly excited about the pitching pipeline even though the hitting is clearly lagging behind. This opens up the issues surrounding Alonso’s future even though his peripherals are tailing and then what to do about really expanding payroll with a player like Juan Soto who is terrific, but will cost $500 million or more. It will be interesting to see how Cohen and Stearns roll out the future!