The New York Mets have a surplus of arms, to put it mildly. They could dip into it to address their needs on offense. Or they could double down and defend their National League crown with a young, burgeoning super rotation.
There is no bad choice. Recently, yours truly posited a trade that would send right-hander Zack Wheeler to the Chicago Cubs for outfielder Jorge Soler. And Matt Harvey's name has been churning through the rumor mill for months.
But the notion of keeping these pitchers together—for one more season at least—might be too tantalizing to pass up.
We'll get back to New York's offensive question marks in a moment, but first let's examine how this rotation stacks up.
After winning NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2014, Jacob deGrom laughed in the face of a sophomore slump and established himself as the ostensible staff ace, posting a 2.54 ERA with 205 strikeouts in 191 innings.
Harvey, returning from Tommy John surgery, was dinged by a controversy surrounding his innings limit, but ultimately eclipsed 200 frames between the regular season and playoffs, and flashed the same dominant stuff that made him an All-Star and top-five Cy Young Award vote-getter before his elbow gave out.
Bolt-throwing, flowing-haired Noah "Thor" Syndergaard lived up to his godly nickname by striking out 166 batters in 150 regular-season innings and then punched out 26 more in 19 postseason frames.
Another rookie, Steven Matz, didn't get the same hype as New York's big three, but he put up a 2.27 ERA with 34 strikeouts in 35.2 innings.
Jon Niese, the lone left-hander in the group, saw his ERA climb north of 4.00 and was moved to the bullpen down the stretch and through the World Series. But he's got the stuff to be a solid back-of-the-rotation arm.
Wheeler is the wild card. The former first-round pick posted a 3.50 ERA with 271 strikeouts in 285.1 innings between 2013 and 2014, but he hasn't pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery in March. Recently, Wheeler told MLB Network Radio he's aiming for a June return. With the list of pitchers who've successfully returned from the procedure growing by the year, there's plenty of reason for optimism.
That's as deep and dangerous a starting corps as you'll find in the game. And Niese, at age 29, is the resident senior citizen, meaning there's room for growth. Syndergaard, Matz and Wheeler, in particular, might just be getting started.
That's a chilling thought for opposing lineups, considering that last season, with Wheeler sidelined, Mets starters posted the fourth-best ERA and racked up the fifth-most strikeouts in baseball.
In the midst of the Mets' playoff run, outfielder Curtis Granderson expounded on his teammates' emerging greatness, per USA Today's Ted Berg:
As I'm facing other teams, getting to first base and getting to second base and hearing great-hitting first basemen, great-hitting second basemen and shortstops talk about it: These guys throw strikes, their secondary stuff is good, and not only that, they throw hard. It's one thing to believe in your own teammates, but when the opposition’s saying that, you start to realize that you've got some pretty good guys on the mound.
Speaking of lineups, the Mets will have a couple of glaring holes in theirs if second baseman Daniel Murphy and slugging outfielder Yoenis Cespedes—two key cogs in last year's October run—walk via free agency.
Hence the temptation to leverage New York's cache of arms into a bat. But there are other options.
If the Mets don't re-up Murphy or Cespedes, they can throw their cash at one of the premier hitters on the market. New York inquired about outfielder Justin Upton at the July trade deadline but found the San Diego Padres' asking price to be too steep, as CBS Sports' Jon Heyman reported. Now, the 28-year-old three-time All-Star is ripe for the signing.
Another, somewhat less expensive option is Ben Zobrist, who can capably play second base and the outfield. The Mets might make a strong push for the super-utility veteran, according to MLB's Network's Tom Verducci (h/t Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal).
Whatever route they go, the point stands: If the Amazins are willing to open their wallet, they don't have to part with pitching to field a serviceable-to-strong offense.
And boy, imagine how far that pitching could carry them. Yes, there are examples of so-called super rotations flaming out, including the 2015 Washington Nationals, who saw their supposedly invincible starting corps wobble as the Mets whizzed past them in the NL East.
On the other hand, consider the San Francisco Giants, who rode their stable of homegrown studs—Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner—to a trio of Commissioner's Trophies between 2010 and 2014.
Yes, the Mets nearly shipped Wheeler to the Milwaukee Brewers at the deadline for Carlos Gomez before the deal fell through because of concerns about Gomez's hip. Their mindset has shifted, however, as ESPN's Adam Rubin outlined:
Now, the Mets reason that Wheeler is so close to returning from Tommy John surgery, the attractiveness of trading him has diminished. And even though the Mets have five other starting pitchers (Harvey, deGrom, Syndergaard and Matz, plus Jonathon Niese), there is a recognition that the club likely will need an extra arm by the summer because someone inevitably will get injured.
That's a fair point. Bumps and bruises, or worse, inevitably strike. Heck, two of these young arms have already hit the Tommy John wall.
Mostly, though, New York has an opportunity to bring the first championship to Queens in three decades. There are many paths to that lofty goal, but the best and straightest could be through a literal and overwhelming strength of arms.
They say you can never have too much pitching, and the Mets should strongly consider putting that theory to the ultimate test.
All statistics current as of Nov. 27 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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