The New York Mets enter the 2023 off-season with a few glaring holes in their rotation. Only two starters are under contract with guaranteed contracts for the 2024 season: Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana.
The Mets have multiple internal options, who all ended the 2023 campaign with solid MLB success: David Peterson, Tylor Megill, Joey Lucchesi, and Jose Butto. Beyond those four, prospects such as Christian Scott, Blade Tidwell, Dominic Hamel, and Mike Vasil are knocking on the door of Queens.
Despite all of that, the Mets are expected to be heavy in the starting pitching market this winter, whether it be by trade or free agency. Luckily for the Mets, the starting pitching market is deep with solid talent and a bevy of arms who could slot into and strengthen the Mets’ rotation. Let’s take a look at a few:
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RHP Sonny Gray
Sonny Gray is on the heels of a very strong season for the Twins, putting up a 2.79 ERA in 184 innings pitched across 32 starts. Gray has been with the Twins since being traded from the Reds to the Twins in the off-season before the 2022 season, and Gray has turned in some of the best pitching of his professional career.
2023 was probably the best year of Gray’s career since he broke onto the scene in 2015 with the A’s, posting a season with a sub-3 ERA and over 180 innings for the first time since that aforementioned 2015 campaign. Gray earned his third All-Star nod and is a legitimate Cy Young candidate as he is about to hit the open market for the first time in a while.
Gray makes a ton of sense for plenty of reasons. For one, the Mets should value veteran pitching, especially dependable veteran pitching. Since his debut in mid-2013, Gray has thrown 1,571 innings to the tune of a 3.47 ERA. Gray figures to place in Cy Young voting for the third time in his career and still has years left in the tank. Gray is a dependable, consistent, veteran starter who could easily slot into the Mets’ rotation behind Kodai Senga.
LHP Martín Pérez
Pérez’s 2023 campaign was a clear step back from his all-star season in 2022, but the lefty is still a viable option to bring up the back end of the Mets’ rotation or slot into a Trevor Williams-type role for the team. Pérez has spent most all of his career in Texas, aside from one year with the Twins and two with Boston. Pérez saw his ERA regress from 2.89 in 2022 to 4.45 in 2023, but the lefty could still be a strong candidate for the Mets.
The big problem for Pérez was his strikeouts dropping off by around 2 per every nine innings from 2022 to 2023, which is a substantial drop considering Pérez averaged 7.7 strikeouts in 2022 to begin with. However, Pérez can offer the Mets a swing reliever and spot starter that they believed they were missing in 2023. Pérez made 20 starts and 15 relief appearances in 2023, a sharp contrast from his 32 starts in 2022.
Pérez throws at least six different pitches, all tracked and differentiated by Baseball Savant: a curveball, a cutter, a sinker, a changeup, a four-seam fastball, and a slider. Pérez throws all six pitches at varying levels of effectiveness, but it would give the Mets a bevy of different options to try and fine-tune his game and return him to 2022 form.
RHP Lucas Giolito
Lucas Giolito has struggled his last two seasons, but the big righty still boasts immense talent and could be an interesting candidate for the Mets rotation in 2024. Giolito is hitting the free agent market after an interesting 2023: being dealt from the White Sox to the Angels at the trading deadline, just to be claimed off waivers by the Guardians down the stretch.
Before being moved at the deadline, Giolito had posted a 3.79 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP, and a 1.5 HR/9. As Giolito hit different destinations in the second half of the year, those numbers only continued to balloon, ending his season with a 4.88 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, and a 2.0 HR/9.
Giolito is still only 29 and should still have strong years ahead of him. The Mets could look at Giolito for a cheap but incentive-loaded deal to put more upside in the back of their rotation. If Giolito can tap into some unlocked potential, the Mets could have a bargain and a middle-of-the-rotation starter on their hands.
