Last year, Ben Zobrist was one of the driving forces for a Royals team that beat the Mets in the World Series. This year, he was more of the same for a Cubs team that is on the verge of winning their first World Series since 1908. As luck would have it, Zobrist was one of the many “what if” decisions from the 2015 offseason that leads us to where the Mets are today.
Zobrist choosing the Cubs over the Mets led to a series of dominos falling. It led to the Mets trading Jon Niese for Neil Walker instead of looking to re-sign Daniel Murphy. That, coupled with Brandon Phillips rejecting a trade, led Murphy to the Washington Nationals. Murphy would go on to have an MVP caliber season. Hid season was more than enough to compensate for Bryce Harper having a down year, by his standards, and for Stephen Strasburg having yet another injury plagued year.
There were strange decisions along the way like the Mets initially passing on Yoenis Cespedes and signing Alejandro De Aza to platoon in center field with Juan Lagares. There was the multi-year deal with Antonio Bastardo that ended up being a big time flop. But despite all of that, Cespedes re-signed, and the Mets once again looked like they were primed to return to the World Series in 2016.
Even with Cespedes’ return, the real hope was with the pitching. No one could compete with a rotation of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard. And if Steven Matz could develop as another exciting young arm all the better. Even with this embarrassment of riches, the Mets still had Zack Wheeler returning from Tommy John surgery. By the way, waiting to close out those games was Jeurys Familia, who had already established himself as a top tier closer. If pitching wins championships, the Mets had pitching in spades.
Early in the season, it worked out. Even with Harvey struggling, deGrom’s velocity not returning, and Wheeler’s return getting pushed back, the Mets were winning. Part of the reason why was Syndergaard taking the next step in his incredible progression, Matz proving he belonged in the ace discussion, and deGrom adapting well with a lower velocity.
In April, the Mets took two out of three from the Indians in Cleveland. In a re-match of the NLCS, with a hot Cubs team looking for revenge, the Mets swept them out of Citi Field. Against this year’s World Series teams, the Mets were 7-3. This showed the Mets, with their pitching staff in tow, could compete with and beat the best of the best.
As we all know, the pitching staff never did stay intact and things soon unraveled. Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman performed better than anyone could’ve anticipated and the Mets clawed their way into the Wild Card game. In reality, the Mets lost that game because Madison Bumgarner was able to go deeper into that game than Syndergaard was.
As we saw in the NLDS, the Giants put a scare into the Cubs by almost sending it back to Wrigley Field for a Game 5. With the Mets having Addison Reed and Familia, who knows if a Mets-Cubs series would have gone much differently.
Really, that is one of many questions from the 2016 season that was just disappointing to Mets fans who were dreaming of a World Series this year. As we saw last year, this Mets pitching staff can beat anybody. In fact, this Mets pitching staff can defeat even the best offensive clubs.
Team doctors are now saying that Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Matt Harvey should all be 100 percent healthy at the start of next season, according to Buster Olney of ESPN. That’s huge.
The biggest concern according to Olney, will be Matt Harvey who is returning from July surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS). However, Harvey’s agent, Scott Boras, enthusiastically said the former Mets ace will be fully healthy by spring training.
There is still hope and optimism for the 2017 season. Barring any setbacks, the Mets can expect, Syndergaard, deGrom, Harvey, and Matz in the Opening Day rotation. There’s no team in baseball that can match that. And with youngsters Gsellman and Lugo waiting in the wings at Triple-A Las Vegas and a good chance they bring back Bartolo Colon, the Mets have the pitching and depth to win big in 2017. Hopefully, that thought will keep you warm throughout the winter.
