The book on the New York Mets’ 2020 campaign is officially closed. It was a frustrating and inconsistent short season, but with new ownership on the horizon, it’s much easier to feel hopeful about what lies ahead.
Despite this year ultimately being a failure because New York didn’t qualify for October despite an expanded field, there were things to get excited about. Like finally seeing a breakout performance from Michael Conforto, watching Dominic Smith become one of baseball’s best hitters, and Edwin Diaz looking like the reliever the Mets traded for in the first place.
With the positive comes the negative, though. Such is life for a team that finished 26-34. One of the biggest disappointments lies within the rotation. Outside of Jacob deGrom doing what he normally does, there wasn’t a ton to get overly excited about for this area of the roster. However, I’d be lying if I said it was all bad.
Before I touch on the greatest disappointment, let’s talk about the rotation’s most pleasant surprise in 2020.
David Peterson’s Emergence
Way back in February and March, which feels like 84 years ago at this point, the idea of David Peterson making big league starts every fifth day was just a twinkle in many eyes of Mets fans. After all, New York has the “deepest rotation in baseball” after signing Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha to one-year deals.
Then Noah Syndergaard needed Tommy John surgery. Then Marcus Stroman opted out. Then everyone not named deGrom struggled to achieve any kind of consistency when toeing the slab.
That’s when Peterson’s music was played, and he rose to the occasion. Outside of spending a small portion of the season in the bullpen, the rookie was one of the organization’s few bright spots. He led the team with six victories while posting a 3.44 ERA, 19.5% strikeout rate, 11.7% walk rate, and 0.5 fWAR through 49.2 innings of work.
Of course, for a hurler with that high of a walk rate who doesn’t throw all that hard (92.1 mph average fastball velocity), some advanced metrics weren’t be overly kind. His 5.11 xFIP and 5.25 SIERA obviously paint a more grim picture for his first taste of big-league action.
He managed this very well, though, by stranding 76.8% of runners on base and limiting hard contact to a 31.2% clip.
The rotation is entering this offseason with many questions beyond deGrom. Porcello, Wacha, and Stroman are all free agents, and we don’t know exactly how Thor will bounce back from surgery or if Seth Lugo will remain a starter moving forward. Despite some concerning peripherals, Peterson has earned the opportunity to be viewed as a legit rotation option for 2021.
A Lost Year For Steven Matz
This was finally going to be the year Steven Matz showed us what he’s capable of! For me, this was a couple years in the making. New pitching coach Jeremy Hefner allowed the lefty to view analytics in a way he hadn’t viewed them before, and manager Luis Rojas was pumped to see the southpaw’s velocity take a considerable jump.
With all the rotation injuries and absences, Matz was awarded the honor of pitching in the starting staff’s second spot, right behind deGrom. His first outing of the year against the Atlanta Braves went great, as he allowed just one earned run on two hits, one walk, and seven strikeouts in six innings.
Unfortunately, it was the only quality start he’d register and the most hitters he’d strikeout in a single appearance all season. In 30.2 innings overall, Matz struggled to a 9.68 ERA and -0.7 fWAR.
While there was hope for some sort of a breakout campaign in 2020, it’s not as if he was expected to suddenly thrust himself into the Cy Young conversation. Performing slightly better than he had in the previous two seasons would’ve been more than enough. Instead, that fWAR finished as the second-worst mark in baseball among hurlers with at least 30 innings of work (Julio Teheran took the dubious crown here with -0.9 fWAR).
Even if we weren’t expecting much from Matz, we were hoping for at least a little more than that. I mean, I was.
With the uncertainty that new ownership brings — and an impending front-office shakeup — it may be anyone’s guess as to what happens to the 29-year-old prior to Opening Day on 2021. After earning a prorated salary of $5 million this year, his lackluster performance won’t make him overly expensive to keep on the roster during his final season of team control. But where would he fit? If not in the rotation, it’s not as if he’s shown any signs of becoming an effective reliever, but then again, who the heck knows.
The only thing we know for sure here is that the left-hander certainly hasn’t done any favors to his own stock as he approaches his platform year prior to hitting free agency.
There may be a ton of unknowns regarding the Mets’ rotation heading into this winter, but there’s at least one thing we can all take solace in: for the first time in forever, we won’t be watching the same dog-and-pony show with the Wilpons in charge. And for that, we’re all grateful.
