Now adjusted to New York, Chris Bassitt is among Mets' 2023 rotation questions
Mets pitcher Chris Bassitt answers questions during a press conference before Game 2 of a National League wild-card baseball playoff series against the San Diego Padres, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, in New York. Credit: AP/Frank Franklin II
When he had to upheave his personal life at a moment’s notice, traded by the Athletics to the Mets early in spring training in March, he was nervous.
About playing in New York.
“It was like an, OK, here we go,” Chris Bassitt, an Ohio native, said Saturday. “There isn't a harder city in our country to play a sport. New York is an absolute just gauntlet every night. I thought I was mentally tough enough to handle New York, but I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be playing for a team like the Mets, just because I've kind of proven to myself, OK, you can handle it. You can handle the scrutiny. You can handle the boos. You can handle all that stuff.
“Looking back at it, I'm thankful for that. Mentally it's toughened me up a lot.”
Bassitt’s fear-turned-embrace is relevant in the context of the Mets’ 2023 rotation, which is full of questions.
The Mets are looking at potentially four of five starters becoming free agents after the season: Bassitt, Jacob deGrom, Taijuan Walker and Carlos Carrasco. They all have some form of contract option for next year but seem likely to hit the open market. That leaves the Mets with only Max Scherzer, plus depth starters David Peterson and Tylor Megill, definitively on the depth chart heading into the offseason.
But with Bassitt acclimated to the market, which is often a question when a New York club considers adding certain players, perhaps his value to them is greater than, say, a similar caliber starting pitcher who has not proven it under the bright lights of the big city.
What is Bassitt’s degree of interest in re-signing?
“Not to make it short, but this group's very special to me. I like it a lot,” said Bassitt, who was set to pitch Game 3 of the NL Wild Card Series against the Padres on Sunday if the Mets won Saturday. “But I'm not focused even one bit on free agency. I'll deal with that when we're done. Hopefully we're not done for a while.
“I really haven't put a ton of thought in it just because so much of that is out of my control. No matter what team I love or want to go to, they've got to mutually do the same. So, yeah, we haven't thought or worried one bit about free agency. We're worrying about today. We're worrying about tomorrow, and that's it.”
But for the first time in Bassitt’s career, he’ll have a say about who he works for. He didn’t when the White Sox drafted him or traded him to the A’s or when the A’s traded him to the Mets.
“No doubt,” he said. “But, again, both sides got to want each other kind of thing.”
Over the course of a season in which Bassitt posted a 3.42 ERA and 1.15 WHIP and led the Mets in starts (30) and innings (181 2/3), a stable No. 3 behind aces Scherzer and deGrom, Bassitt won a fan in the form of manager Buck Showalter.
Showalter’s work on Bassitt began around the time the Mets acquired him, when he called Bob Melvin — Bassitt’s manager in Oakland, now the Padres’ manager against the Mets this weekend — to see what he had to say. Melvin likewise wanted to know what Showalter thought of San Diego third baseman Manny Machado, his former Baltimore star, so they traded intel.
“Everything he said was truth,” Showalter said. Among that which he learned: Bassitt had a steady personality, the kind Showalter would want to hang out with if he wasn’t his boss. He was not a late bloomer but a “late arriver” in in the majors, Showalter said. And he is convicted in what he wants, maybe stubborn.
“That’s why you see sometimes, he ain’t going to throw a pitch he doesn’t want to throw,” Showalter said. “He doesn’t care how long it takes. He’s not going to throw it. He’s convicted.”
And now he is convicted about New York, which isn’t all that bad — even if, as he said, “we lose two or three games and holy crap, the world's burning down.”
“Looking back at the trade, looking back at the year, I'm so proud of this group,” he said. “I mean, with everything that we've gone through with Jake early, Max throughout the year, and still being in this position, like I said, I'm very thankful to be a part of this group.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
