Is it too early to fall in love with Luis Severino's upside?

Plus, Mark Vientos goes yard as the Mets lose to the Cardinals

What’s up with the Mets? 🍎

• The Mets fell 3-2 to the Cardinals at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium on Friday (Box)

• Mark Vientos hit his first home run of spring training with a solo blast to right center field

• Nick Morabito scored on a Tomás Nido single to give the Mets their only other run of the game

• RHP Luis Severino excelled in his first outing as a Met, throwing two scoreless innings and clocking 98 mph on his fastball on his final pitch

• Prospect Blade Tidwell gave up a couple of runs in his outing, but he did strike out Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman and Nolan Arenado swinging

• Brandon Nimmo played in an intrasquad game in the backfields at Port St. Lucie on Friday

• Jeff Deline has departed his role as chief revenue officer of the Mets (Sportico)

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Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (4-3) @ Marlins (1-3)

Where: Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium - Jupiter, FL

Starters: LHP Sean Manaea (spring debut) vs. RHP Eury Pérez (0-0, 5.40 ERA)

When: 1:10 PM EST

Where To Watch: N/A

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The intoxicating upside of Luis Severino - & the scary downside ✍️

It wasn’t all that long ago Luis Severino was considered one of the best pitchers in all of baseball.

Heck, it wasn’t even that long ago that every sports talk show in New York was dedicating hours to debating the fruitless topic of whether Severino or Jacob deGrom was the best starting pitcher in the city (and baseball).

Yes, that was a very real conversation that actually took place on the airwaves and on SNY.

A lot.

A hell of a lot can change over a five or six year spell. Especially in baseball.

Looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, a slew of stats and the eye test, it seems crazy Severino even entered the same rarified air as deGrom. After all, deGrom was doing magical things on the mound prior to suffering a flurry of injuries towards the end of his time in Queens. The kind of breathtaking greatness we’d never seen before.

And that isn’t hyperbole.

That just paints a picture as to how great Severino once was in his own right, however. Because, believe it or not, a time did exist where the righty was a real challenger to deGrom’s crown.

Over the 2017 and 2018 seasons, Severino was absolutely dominant as he began to earn the right to be crowned the ace of the Yankees for the next decade or so. He pitched to a 2.98 ERA with 230 strikeouts in 2017, before finishing 2018 with 220 strikeouts and a 3.39 ERA. Severino made the All-Star Game in both years. Furthermore, only three pitchers won more games than him over that stretch (Corey Kluber - 38, Max Scherzer - 34, Carlos Carrasco - 34). Severino ranked eighth in strikeouts (450).

Oh, and among pitchers with at least 300 innings combined across both 2017 and 2018, only eight had a lower WHIP and just 10 pitched to a lower ERA.

The stats hammer home just how dominant Severino was early on in his career. If you need further proof, go and dial up old clips from those seasons on YouTube and you will see with your own eyes just how elite the righty was when he was pitching at the very peak of his powers. You’ll have a lot of fun doing so, too.

However, the reason we are referring to Severino’s greatness in past tense is because he very quickly fell off a cliff. And he hasn’t been able to truly scratch and claw his way back up the rock face. Not yet, anyway.

After the 2018 season, injuries began to hit, including a torn ulnar collateral ligament that required Tommy John Surgery. Severino pitched a total of just 18 innings from 2019-21 and, even when he did pitch, the results were anything but great. To be more precise, they were pretty ugly at times.

Not counting a 1.50 ERA in just three games in 2019 and a more than okay half-season in 2022, Severino looked like he forgot how to pitch for the most part. He was a hot mess for all of the 2023 season, pitching to a bloated 6.65 ERA in 19 starts. The former two-time All-Star was unable to stay healthy too.

Having failed to make 20 or more starts since 2018, coupled with the fact that he just didn’t have it anymore, Severino’s once rapidly rising star had crashed back down to earth and wiped out what could have been a Hall of Fame trajectory.

Once thought of as the next great hope in the Bronx, Severino had to instead watch as Gerrit Cole took over that mantle. After being jettisoned by the Yankees, Severino took what he could get by signing a one-year, $13 million deal with the cross-town Mets this past offseason.

All the talk at the time of the deal being announced was that it could be a bargain depending on what version of Severino the Mets were going to get in 2024. The general consensus was that it was only going to be boom or bust.

Well, on the evidence of just one spring training game, the boom could be absolutely spectacular.

Severino was dealing in his first game as a Met, throwing two scoreless innings with one strikeout against the Cardinals. More importantly, against a lineup that featured plenty of established major league bats, Severino had his best stuff with his fastball averaging 96 mph and finishing with his fastball dialed up to 97 and 98 mph, respectively.

The fact his lethal four-seamer - the pitch that once made him a rising star in the big leagues - topped out at 98 mph is hugely encouraging. The fact that was his final pitch thrown offers even yet more lofty hope. Severino routinely went to his fastball to torment the Cardinals lineup and, at times, it was like watching vintage Luis Severino.

It was mesmerizing.

Of course, to get carried away after two brief innings of a spring training game would be foolish at best, and absolute moronic at worst. Severino has a plethora of hurdles to clear before we can start really investing in him and buying up all the Luis Severino stock we can get our hands on.

But, and that’s a big but, we saw in those two innings alone just how high Severino’s ceiling could be when fully healthy. His fastball will wreak absolute havoc against any lineup in the major leagues, and his newly-added sinker carries a lot of hope too. If he can stay on the mound, if he can make more than 20 or more starts for the first time since 2018, if he can maximize his entire arsenal, and if he can squeeze out every last drop of potential he has left, then there is a world in which Severino could morph into a very good No. 2 starter for this team and provide a potentially great three-man punch atop the rotation alongside Kodai Senga and José Quintana.

On the flipside, however, if the 30-year-old continues to get beaten down by injuries, if his filthy stuff does its best Harry Houdini act and vanishes, and if he can’t find any kind of consistency, then the floor will just bottom out and this entire rotation could crash and burn along with Severino.

Put simply; if Severino rediscovers some of his potential and dominates, then this rotation will exceed expectations. If he doesn’t, then there is going to be some tough sledding ahead for a group that have the odds stacked against them already.

It is beyond stupid, and even boneheaded, to fall in love with just two innings of work in a meaningless spring training game on March 1, yet the tantalizing upside of Severino is beyond intoxicating and it offers a boatload of hope for a fun 2024 season that could surpass some pretty low expectations if everything clicks and falls into place. But we must also be wary of the very real and very scary downside that is more than likely to rear its ugly head with Severino if recent history is a reliable indicator.

Buckle up, because the true Luis Severino experience is about to get underway.

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Around the League 🚩

• The Giants are signing 3B Matt Chapman to a three-year, $54 million deal (New York Post)

• Former Met Robinson Canó has signed with The Diablos Rojos of the Mexican League. He will get the chance to play another of his former teams in the Yankees when the Bronx Bombers head to Mexico City for an exhibition series later this month (MLB Trade Rumors)

• Minnesota Twins INF Royce Lewis continues to prove that he has the need for power. And brute power at that. The slugger blasted a monster 425-foot homer in Minnesota’s 5-3 win over the Red Sox on Friday

• Braves superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. will undergo further evaluation on his right knee after experiencing soreness. He was scratched from the lineup on March 1 as a precaution (MLB.com)

• The Red Sox signed 1B C.J. Cron to a minor league deal (MassLive.com)

• The MLB uniform debacle goes from worst to way worst. Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin refused to take any accountability for the dumpster fire, instead heaping all of the blame on to Nike. This is not a good look for anyone (The Athletic)