According to Terry Collins, the Mets will not have any restrictive inning limits on their starters in 2016. However, the Mets will still be careful about their young arms due to the heavy work load they received during the postseason.
“We went into the second half of the season with pitching issues that had to be handled and had to be dealt with,” Collins said. “Hopefully next year, with what these guys have gone through this year, that won’t be the case. It might be, ‘Hey, look, we want to skip a guy here.’” (Adam Rubin, ESPN NY)
Collins also suggested that the pitching quartet of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz may not appear in Spring Training games for the first week of the Grapefruit League schedule, and they may be held to no more than six innings a start during the beginning of the regular season.
Harvey and deGrom both pitched 216 innings in 2015, which is a career high. Noah Syndergaard also exceeded his innings totals with 198 as well as Matz , who finished with 155.
“He should be able to get to 190-plus if he stays healthy,” Collins said about Matz.
The one exception of course is Zack Wheeler who is expected to return around the all-star break. Wheeler is recovering from Tommy John surgery and has not pitched more than 185 innings in a single season.
Thoughts from Joe D.
After all the bullshit and all the agita – most of it if not all media driven – give Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins credit for how they managed all the innings limits and got a very young rotation through this tedious situation without any trips to the disabled list.
Beginning in Spring Training, Collins and Alderson hammered out a sound plan to protect their pitchers and kept it fluid, making appropriate adjustments along the way. Harvey, deGrom and Syndergaard made it through a long season completely unscathed, and more importantly, they each performed solidly in the postseason with no loss in velocity.
Now I’m looking forward to 2016, knowing that our big three can go full throttle without limits and pitching fearlessly and deep into games. I think we’re all in store for some phenomenal pitching performances next season, from the best 1-2-3 starters in the league if not MLB.
Good job, guys…
