Where would this team be without Matt Harvey?
Is it safe to say that as of this moment, the only proven and legit core player under the age of 30 this team has is The Dark Knight of Gotham?
I like Jon Niese a lot, but is he a core player? Or just an number three pitcher who plays the role of an ace on a very bad team?
I quickly threw some numbers into a spreadsheet and I can’t believe how appalling the numbers are once you take Harvey out of the equation.
Two of our top three starters have ERA’s of 5.93 for Jon Niese and 6.13 for Dillon Gee. Our number four starter, Jeremy Hefner has got them both beat with a 4.28 ERA. You may recall me saying back in January that he would be a sleeper and best choice for fifth starter? (Hey Alex68, remember this? Underrated????? SMH!!!)
Then you have the pitcher who was supposed to help replace R.A. Dickey‘s innings in Shaun Marcum. The Mets gave marcum a guaranteed $4 million dollars and in return he’s already missed one month and since his debut is averaging 4.1 innings in three starts and has a team worst 8.31 ERA.
Mets pitchers are now officially the worst in the National League and second worst in the Major Leagues. And that’s with Matt Harvey who is in the top five in over a half dozen pitching categories.
That’s kind of embarrassing, wouldn’t you say?
Gee has been the latest starter to deliver an abysmal performance after allowing six runs and nine hits against the Cardinals last night in 4.0 innings.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t even know what to say, really. I didn’t feel all that bad tonight”, said Gee after the game. “Physically I feel great. There’s nothing going on there. I don’t know. I’m kind of lost.”
You don’t say?
Gee and Co. is partly why the Mets bullpen has been as abysmal as it has. They are burning through arms at an unprecedented rate. Six weeks in and already eight transactions related to the bullpen alone. And it’s not as if it was a great bullpen to begin with. It was put together with sticks and Krazy Glue.
So while everyone is piling on when it comes to the Mets offense, the truth of the matter is that this team is quite atrocious on all fronts. Take a look at the evidence:
METS PITCHING RANKINGS
METS HITTING RANKINGS
That stinks to high heaven. It’s a shock to the system to even look at those awful, awful numbers.
I can tell you right now that Zack Wheeler and Travis d’Arnaud alone are not going to fix that. In fact I think it’s a sin that those two are being setup for an unfair amount of undue pressure, as if trying to stick in the majors wasn’t already challenging enough.
On Wednesday, Sandy Alderson seemed concerned that Wheeler is being looked upon as some sort of savior and he admitted to Mike Francesa that he wasn’t. But the fact that both he and d’Arnaud will be walking into this disaster is going to be something to behold and I don’t mean that in a good way. I wonder how they will handle it, and God forbid if they don’t produce immediate results and hit the ground running.
The other day on Twitter I tossed out the suggestion of just letting both of them stay at Triple-A and don’t bring them up unless this team turns it around. Losing is contagious. I know you all know that. If this is what those two kids are going to walk into, I’d rather wait and call them up in September.
At least in September they can come up without the pressure of having to carry a team that was poorly constructed. It’s bad enough that Matt Harvey has had to deal with this. I totally feel sorry for that kid. On any other team, but the Mets, Harvey would probably be 8-0 right now.
I don’t know if this is rock bottom, but heaven help us if it isn’t and it continues to get worse.
