Four Mets Players Hoping For Another Fast Start in 2022

As the New York Mets entered the 2021 All-Star break, many of us were excited to be watching a first-place team take the field each night. Their 48-40 first-half record was a direct result from a 17-9 performance in May. During the month of April, though? What they did was a lot less awe-inspiring.

Through the first month of the regular season, the Mets fought with a number of postponements on their way to compiling a 10-11 record. They were still just 0.5 games out of first place in the National League East, but it wasn’t the start many were hoping for.

There’s an old saying that championships can’t be won in April, but they sure can be lost. New York definitely lost any chance of making the postseason because of a horrendous second half, but maybe a stronger April would’ve helped them get on a more consistent roll. The following four players all began 2021 on the right foot, and they’ll be hoping to do so again in 2022.

Taijuan Walker

After pitching a total of 67 1/3 innings between 2018 and 2020, it wasn’t outrageous to be unsure how much Taijuan Walker would contribute throughout the year for New York. While his second half was rough, he put together a first half that was worthy of his first All-Star Game selection.

Walker tossed 25 2/3 innings through his first month with the Mets, and they were excellent. Although his walk rate was high (12.7%), he paired that with a 26.4% strikeout rate, a 1.29 WHIP, and a 2.81 ERA. Opposing hitters put together a 35.4% hard-hit rate during this time, but Walker kept the ball in the park by not allowing a single home run. He only lasted five-plus innings twice in April, but he turned this strong start into an even better May.

Through 28 innings the following month, Walker posted a 1.61 ERA with a 0.71 WHIP, 25.5% strikeout rate, and a much more palatable 4.9% walk rate. This also included four starts of at least five innings or more. Now that he’s got a full season’s worth of innings under his belt for the first time since 2017, let’s hope Walker can start strong once again and sustain it all the way through the end of September.

Miguel Castro

When comparing Miguel Castro‘s 2020 performance to what he did in 2021, there was some good stuff going on and some not-so-good stuff. His ERA went from 4.01 to 3.45, which is good. His strikeout rate went from 33.0% to 25.4%, which isn’t terrible, but his walk rate went from 11.3% to 14.2%. And although his fWAR dropping from 0.3 to 0.1 doesn’t seem like a huge deal, it’s a little more eye-opening when we remember he posted that 0.3 fWAR in just 24 2/3 innings. His 0.1 fWAR from this past year came in 70 1/3 frames.

But in April? He was one of manager Luis Rojas‘ best and most relied upon relievers. He actually outperformed his 2020 fWAR in just 11 April innings (0.4). The 11.1% walk rate Castro posted during this month feels high, but it was actually his best mark in a single month all season. The same could be said for his 37.8% strikeout rate, which was the only time he got this number above 30.0%.

Castro also induced ground balls at a 60.9% rate in April, which wasn’t far off what he did in other months — that number finished above 50.0% three other times in 2021 — but it was the lack of fly balls that was clutch. Opposing hitters mustered just a 17.4% fly-ball rate in April, as opposed to the 34.0% rate they produced during the rest of the year.

It’d also be helpful for the right-hander to get ahead early in counts more often. In April, he threw a first-pitch strike 62.2% of the time. From May through the end of the season, he did it at just a 51.2% clip.

Brandon Nimmo

Brandon Nimmo was one of the few consistent bright spots for the Mets’ offense, and the only problem with his 2021 campaign was that he wasn’t on the field enough. Let’s hope that changes since he hasn’t appeared in more than 100 games since 2018.

As a squad, New York slashed .236/.322/.361 with a 93 wRC+ and 1.2 fWAR during the first month of the season. In 81 plate appearances himself, Nimmo slashed .358/.463/.537, which led to a 178 wRC+ and 1.2 fWAR. So, yes, the 28-year-old’s personal fWAR for April matched what the entire team did.

While Nimmo’s start was strong, it was weird because of some peripheral stats. In this first month, he produced a 55.6% ground-ball rate with a 19.1% soft-hit rate and a 25.5% hard-hit rate. His quality-of-contact metrics mirrored what he did in 2020, but then he was able to correct those throughout the remainder of the season.

He finished with a season-long ground-ball rate of 47.3%, a soft-hit rate of 19.8%, and a hard-hit rate of 33.9%. He also posted a walk rate of at least 14.0% for the fifth straight year, and after cutting his strikeout rate down to a career-best 19.1% rate in 2020, that number checked in at 20.5% this past season.

Jacob deGrom

Every part of Jacob deGrom‘s shortened season was completely ridiculous, but none of it was more ridiculous than what he accomplished in April. DeGrom threw 35 innings in the season’s opening month, and proceeded to lead baseball in the following categories:

• Average Fastball Velocity (98.8 mph)
• ERA (0.51)
• Strikeout Rate (48.0%)

He also finished second in strikeout-to-walk rate (44.7%), seventh in walk rate (3.3%), second in SIERA (1.52), and second in fWAR (2.1). That huge strikeout rate was powered by three straight starts of at least 14 strikeouts for the right-hander, which was a number he’d hit once more before his season ended in July.

There are really no more words available to describe just how disgusting deGrom is on the mound. It wouldn’t necessarily be fair to expect this kind of start from him again in 2022, but at this point, nobody would be surprised if he did it. The biggest key will be to once again stay healthy from start to finish so he and Max Scherzer can do some special things for New York.