With pitching prospect Steven Matz set to make his first major league start on Sunday, the Mets will once again go with a six-man rotation.
However this time, according to GM Sandy Alderson, it will be strictly adhered to for the forseeable future.
“We have to be fairly strict and disciplined about this, because we could get to the end of the season and some of our guys simply won’t have any capacity left in our reasonable judgment,” said Alderson.
Among other concerns, the Mets can’t have Matt Harvey exceeding 190-195 regular season innings pitched, especially during his first season back from Tommy John surgery.
“If we were to continue with a five-man rotation, given the fact that he’s pitched great — he’s pitched seven innings pretty regularly — those numbers get exceedingly high,” Alderson explained.
Jacob deGrom could also possibly have an innings limit although Alderson is not as concerned with him. DeGrom did have some shoulder stiffness last season so the Mets will still be mindful of that.
Alderson also suggested that Noah Syndergaard would not go more than 35 to 40 innings over last season’s total of 137 innings, putting his limit around 175 innings.
As for Matz, he pitched 157 innings last year in the minors so he has a little more flexibility than Syndergaard. Plus Alderson said they were preserving his innings and workload over the past month while with Las Vegas.
“So the combination of wanting to get Steven into the rotation and, primarily, dealing with some of the other limitations we face with some of our other starters, we’re going to go to a six-man rotation.”
“I expect that will continue for a period of time and then we’ll see where it goes,” said Alderson.
One important thing to note is that unlike the team’s first stab at a six-man rotation, this time all the pitchers are on board with the decision according to manager Terry Collins.
Thoughts from Joe D.
This is the right thing to do and the timing for it is spot on. One of my chief complaints with the first go at a six-man rotation was that they were doing it for the wrong reason. It was all about getting an inferior Dillon Gee into the rotation at the expense of taking starts away from our top pitchers.
This time around and with Matz now a fixture in the rotation, not only are you carefully and wisely protecting our top assets from a volume overload, but you now have a pitcher going every start that gives the team a very good chance to win.
All that’s left now is to get the offense in gear so that we can stop squandering anymore brilliant pitching performances.
Sandy says he’s willing to overpay to get that needed bat, but for now an ideal hitter has yet to emerge. I hope he wasn’t just giving us a line. We’ll see.
