Last week, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that the Mets are interested in adding a starting pitcher such as Lance Lynn or Alex Cobb if their prices drop.
With pitchers and catchers right around the corner, and both free agents, New York might be able to snatch one up on a team-friendly deal.
While I believe adding another infielder is on the top of their list, we saw last year just how previous pitching is. Yes, the Mets have a lot of options, but you can never have too much pitching.
If the Mets could add just one of Lynn or Cobb, it would give them a much needed boost. Not just buy lengthening their rotation, but giving them another reliable arm that could leave a positive impact on the team.
Let’s take a look at how each pitcher stacks up. Let’s starter with the former, Lance Lynn.
Despite Lynn’s Tommy John Surgery in 2015, he has proven to be one of the more effective and durable pitchers in the game to date.
Since converting to a full-time starting pitcher in 2012, Lynn has registered 175 innings or more in every season except for 2016, which he missed recovering from the previous years’ surgery.
In fact, he pitched 186.1 innings this season in his first season back from the procedure and was very effective in that time.
The 30-year old went 11-8 with a 3.43 ERA, 1.229 WHIP, 4.82 FIP and 153 strikeouts last season. While he clearly is not a strikeout pitcher, which could be concerning, he has been this type of pitcher his entire career.
He has only recorded 919 strikeouts in his 977.2 innings, which suggests that, while this trend might unfortunately not change, it might not really matter as he has shown he can be very effective without blowing guys away.
However, it could be alarming to the Mets and many teams that he allowed almost double his career high in home runs in 2017. He allowed 27 home runs, with a previous career-high of 16 allowed in a season. This seems to be a trend around baseball, though, as Major League hitters set a new single season home run record this past year.
In this market, that could depress his value significantly and make him very affordable for the Mets. Maybe he even settles for a one-year deal so he could test the waters again next year.
Now let’s talk about Cobb.
Cobb was actually reportedly offered a three-year deal in the $42 million range by the Chicago Cubs earlier this offseason, which he turned down, according to David Kaplan of NBC Sports.
With the market as slow moving as it has been and owners largely refusing to bend, I wonder if Cobb wishes he could turn back time.
I digress. Cobb finished last season with a 12-10 record, 3.66 ERA, 1.221 WHIP, 4.16 FIP, and 128 strikeouts in 179 1/3 innings pitched over the course of 29 starts.
While his career 3.50 ERA is appealing, Cobb has failed to ever accumulate 200 innings pitched in a season and has already had Tommy John Surgery, which could be concerning to a team.
However, he did log 179.0 innings last season, which would have been second only to Jacob deGrom on the team. If the pitching can stay healthy mostly, Cobb, like Lynn, could provide the team a nice piece to lengthen the rotation and give them a quality No. 3 guy.
What is another appealing aspect to me about Cobb is that in his four full big league seasons, he has notched at least 10 wins every year.
Either player would be a solid get for the Mets. Couple one of them with signing someone like Todd Frazier and I think fans will feel a whole lot better about this offseason overall.
If you had the choice, who would you like to see New York sign, Lynn or Cobb?
