The latest on Starling Marte, early season rotation plans, and managing workloads for the veteran starting rotation

Starling Marte underwent core muscle surgery in the off-season

Michael Baron

Feb 15, 2023

What’s Up with the Mets? 🌴

Starling Marte (recovery from core surgery) is on-track to start the season on-time, Buck Showalter told reporters on Tuesday
Edwin Díaz reported to Port St. Lucie this week and said he plans to change nothing heading into 2023 (New York Post)
Showalter said one of Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander will start opening day in Miami, with the other getting the start for the home opener on April 6
The Mets are bringing Khalil Lee back into the organization after being designated for assignment last week. He is under investigation for a domestic violence incident (Newsday)

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The Mets have to manage stamina, workloads and health in their aging rotation… ✍🏻

Pitchers and catchers have indeed reported to Port St. Lucie, some pitchers and some catchers have already informally thrown inside the Mets complex at Clover Park, and today marks the first official workout for the group as they embark on their road of high expectations with hopes of meeting them on the last day of the year in baseball.

In between, the Mets will be challenged with finding the necessary innings from their starting rotation, that which has an average age of 35 1/2 and contains one starting pitcher who will have to adjust and get used to the longer season and daily routines of life in the big leagues.

Simply put, the Mets are going to go as far as Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander take them in 2023. Yes, the offense needs to hit, yes the bullpen needs to shorten games. But given their current roster construction, betting on that to happen is the safest bet one can make, even with the lineup being essentially the same as that in the last game they played. You know, that one against the Padres.

But even with that bipolar offense in the end, the Mets fate was largely decided a week or ten days prior in Atlanta when both Scherzer and Chris Bassitt tossed up stink bombs in the process of being swept out of Atlanta and out of a division title.

So again, where the Mets go in 2023 will be guided by the top of their rotation yet again.

The biggest challenge in front of them with Scherzer and Verlander specifically won’t be their performance as much as its finding at least 50 starts between them and piecing together the other ten. Realistically, it’s fair to expect a healthy Scherzer to deliver between 150-170 innings in his age-38 season, and a similar number from Verlander in his age-40 season. And again, keeping the two healthy in those 300-340 innings is paramount. The Mets will need to piece together the other 10+ starts between the likes of David Peterson, Tylor Megill, and perhaps Joey Lucchesi - who hasn’t pitched in almost two years - and others on the Syracuse Express who have yet to be identified.

But that would just fill the gap between the top of the rotation in an ideal world. And that ideal world assumes Megill’s stuff returns to that which he showed at the beginning of the 2022 season, Peterson continues to evolve and throws more strikes with his slider and change-up, and Lucchesi can simply re-establish himself as an effective big league pitcher. All of that glue will need to stick to fill similar gaps with José Quintana and Carlos Carrasco who probably both fit into that 150 inning-ish projection as well.

Then of course there’s Kodai Senga who has thrown as many as 180 innings once in his professional career.

Of course, the era of the 200 inning pitcher is dwindling. Of the 45 pitchers who qualified for the ERA title in 2022 in both the American and National League, eight reached or exceeded the 200 inning plateau and none reached the 229 inning mark.

But this isn’t so much about finding the innings for the Mets as it is finding healthy innings for their primary starters and quality/effective innings for their secondary starters. The Mets are certainly better positioned in their bullpen to weather the storm right now although they could still use another big league left-handed reliever to complete the puzzle. And the Mets will certainly be relying on their bullpen to get 12 outs or more in games on a regular basis in that same effort to balance their health and stamina challenge in their aging rotation.

Time will tell if that formula is sustainable.

Around the League ⚾️

The Padres have signed RHP Michael Wacha to a four-year contract (Athletic)
MLB plans to strictly enforce balk rules in 2023 (ESPN)
Rockies OF Randal Grichuk recently underwent surgery for a sports hernia, and will miss at least six weeks (MLB.com)