The Mets’ pitching staff has never really been a serious issue for this team since Jacob deGrom started anchoring the staff back in 2014.
That being said, one issue that has persisted in the last five years since is the fact that nobody on the pitching staff nor any of the catchers, appear able to control the running game with teams running rampant on the Mets every chance they get.
In just the last two games alone, pitched by deGrom and Noah Syndergaard, the Reds and Rockies stole a combined nine times on the Mets.
Despite the fact that Wilson Ramos has been perfectly fine on the offensive side, the catcher has been dreadful at catching runners stealing with a 15% rate, which is 11 percentage points lower than league average. That is also a drop-off for Ramos from 2018 when he was actually above league-average at 29%.
And while Tomas Nido gets a lot of credit for his pitching calling and defense as a whole, justifiably so, the 25-year-old backstop is actually worse than Ramos when it comes to limiting opposing base stealers, catching a mere 7% of attempts.
Syndergaard (38), deGrom (24), Steven Matz (9), and Zack Wheeler (6) have combined to allow 77 stolen bases this season which is something that just can’t happen in the future. I will not include Marcus Stroman in this discussion given he’s been with the team for less than two months.
Matz appears to be making the adjustments needed to be made going from 28 stolen bases allowed in 2018 to nine in 2019, but deGrom and Syndergaard are actually both struggling more with this issue.
Luckily for the team, the two of them are the anchors of the staff and especially in deGrom’s case, there aren’t many baserunners usually on to even worry about.
That being said, having to worry about every runner that gets on base finding a way into scoring position could be deadly for the Mets if they don’t address it.
Having a situation like this can essentially turn a lead-off walk into a runner on third before the end of the next at-bat. In the playoffs, if the Mets are fortunate enough to get there this season, runs are much tougher to come by than in the regular season.
The bread-and-butter of this team is to lean on their starting pitching staff without a doubt and it is something that they have a significant advantage over the majority of the competition in.
If the team fails to address the stolen base issue even slightly, though, they could find themselves in some really messy situations that will not only potentially lead to more runs against these starting pitchers, but also more pitches.
More pitches mean shorter outings in today’s game, which in turns would leave the Mets no choice, but to turn to their bullpen sooner. That’s a concept I don’t think anyone wants to make a reality.
