Photo by Ed Delany/MMO
According to Ken Davidoff and Mike Puma of the New York Post, the New York Yankees — whose starting rotation is currently decimated due to injury and disciplinary reasons — have shown interest in trading for New York Mets left-hander Steven Matz.
Having parted ways with right-hander Zack Wheeler — a solid no. 3 starter — in free agency this offseason, the Mets were faced with a decision on how to replenish their fabled Flushing Five.
Clearly, in the financial shape this franchise is in and the purgatory they find themselves in regarding their potential sale, they weren’t adding Gerrit Cole, Madison Bumgarner, or anyone else from the upper crust of available starters.
Moving Marcus Stroman — acquired from Toronto at the trade deadline last season — into the three-hole and filling out the back end of the rotation with newcomers Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha, both of whom signed one-year contracts with the Mets this offseason ($10 million for Porcello; $3 million base plus incentives for Wacha), was the route the Mets chose to take.
Whether any of us agreed with it or not, the Mets stuck to their offseason plans and are still being pegged as favorites to win the NL East by many. Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Stroman are a fearsome trio at the top of this staff. Porcello, Matz, and Wacha anchoring the back-end — in any fashion — is a plus.
There have never been too many good arms on a team, ever. The rotational depth of this ball club is one of their strengths. Subtracting from that seems like a less-than-ideal course of action.
This rotation already appears to have taken a step back this winter. Why on earth would this front office dip into their well-stocked reserves to help fill the needs of another team? When he’s pitching his game, Steven Matz is a weapon. Why negate that advantage?
As Matz’s confidence builds, so does his effectiveness. We saw it first hand over the second half of last season. Despite being tagged for 13 earned runs over two consecutive starts in late-September, the 28-year-old pitched to a 3.49 ERA over his last 10 starts (56.2 IP) with 56 strikeouts, 20 walks, and a .233/.307/.409 slash line against. That will most certainly play as a fourth-or-fifth-or-whatever starter.
And forget that seeing Matz succeed across town would drive us bonkers and make the folks upstairs at 41 Seaver Way look foolish — everyone in that equation is used to those respective feelings by now. This is a homegrown, hometown left-hander who has shown he can be an efficient major league starter and is under affordable team control through 2022. None of that says, “trade me”.
If the Mets are good enough to compete in arguably the toughest division in baseball and keep pace in the National League — which Wayne Randazzo of WCBS noted over the weekend “doesn’t have too many tomato cans” — they shouldn’t be in sell mode. They should be focusing on the task at hand and moving forward.
