Former Mets pitcher and current YES and MLB Network analyst, Al Leiter, had some pretty kind words to say about the current young Mets pitching staff. In fact, Leiter believes that there is truly no real comparison to what these young arms have been doing, especially in the postseason.
“If you’re talking about the combination of pure stuff and successful results,” says Leiter, “I have not seen this in my life.”
The combination that Leiter is referring to is one of both power and precision, a killer one-two punch that not all pitchers possess, especially as young as the ones the Mets have.
“Those guys (Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz), have started all nine of the Mets postseason games, posting an ERA of just 2.65. They were also a huge part of why the Chicago Cubs posted just a .164 batting average in the NLCS, the lowest ever.”
Leiter, who has been a part of and seen his fair share of dominant pitching staffs, recently conducted a breakdown segment of deGrom, Harvey, and Syndergaard. Even though those three would be considered power pitchers, Leiter was surprised to find that their fastballs only account for 61-62 percent of pitches thrown per game.
“To have guys throw that hard, from 95-100 mph,” said Leiter, “yet be able to use their off-speed stuff that frequently and command it the way they do, I just marvel at it.”
Leiter says that there have been dominant 1-2 guys, like Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling of the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, but that those teams lacked that third starter.
“And that’s why I say there have not been three like that on the same team like this. People said to me, “What about Maddux, Smoltz, and Glavine with the Braves?’ And obviously they are all Hall of Famers, but as a group they didn’t have the pure stuff these guys do.”
Even Ron Darling, who of course was a part of one of the best Mets pitching staffs ever assembled during the 80’s, put this young group ahead of their’s.
“I’m not diminishing what we did,” said Darling. “We were as good as there was back then, but this staff is going places that we as a staff couldn’t match.”
