As pitchers and catchers get going in Arizona and Florida, reporters no longer have to ink their annual rankings for teams and positions. Now they can focus on seeing if their prognostication will come true.
When it comes to pitching, just about everyone: ESPN’s Buster Onley, Paul Casella of MLB.com, Grant Brisbee of SB Nation and Ted Berg of For The Win, has weighed in with the obvious – the Mets have a great rotation.
I don’t think it’s necessary to add up all the different rankings and calculate the mean…everyone has the Mets with one of the best rotations in all of baseball.
While most articles focus on the starting pitchers, Anthony Castrovince of Sports on Earth took it one step further – his rankings were for the entire staff, from the No. 1 starter to the man assigned to close the door in the ninth and everyone in between.
But while that’s interesting in the moment, few seem to focus on the actual order of the proposed best rotation. Noah Syndergaard has already stated to Adam Rubin of ESPN New York that he wants to pitch in one of the first two games of the season against Kansas City.
“Of course. I think everybody would want to pitch in one of those two games,” Syndergaard said. “I think it’s going to be a little bit different — very intense. I’m not really sure what to expect. But it’s going to be fun. And I’m looking forward to it.”
Everyone, including Aaron Dodson of the Washington Post, gave Terry Collins credit when he “tactically planned his starting rotation for his team’s next two opponents” coming out of the All-Star break. In that same light, Nationals manager Matt Williams was criticized at the time by Jim Meyerriecks of Federal Baseball for doing exactly the opposite – not setting up his best pitchers to face the surging Mets.
That’s one of the reasons Williams is no longer in DC.
The actual order of the rotation is obviously important, but surprisingly isn’t discusses as much as one would think. More articles focus on the entire rotation, but not the subtlety of following a fastball pitcher with someone who relies on off-speed stuff.
Maybe it’s more obvious when you have someone like R.A. Dickey, a knuckleballer who usually requires a personal catcher like Josh Thole. It would seem obvious that a manager would want to bookend a Dickey start with fastball-reliant throwers to make his knuckleball look slower and the subsequent fastball appear faster.
Or does it not matter at all?
Is it important to mix up Syndergaard’s fastball with the somewhat slower fastball of Colon? How about Steven Matz’s left-handed delivery – should he be followed by Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom? Add to all this the possibility of using a sixth starter early in the season and Collins and Dan Warthen have some things to plan out.
Personally, I think deGrom should start Game 1, Syndergaard in Game 2 and Harvey in the home opener. After that, the Mets play five more at Citi Field before an off-day. In fact, there are a total of six off-days in April which allows for plenty of rest between starts…especially since there’s only two off-days in May.
It’s important for this team to get off to a good start. To expect another 13-3 start is asking a bit much, but regardless the bulk of the heavy lifting on this team is likely to come from the pitching staff. So how do you think Collins should set them up for April?
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