Hoping for better things, this Mets rotation can leave your head spinning
Mets pitcher Luis Severino throws during the second inning of a baseball game against the Mariners on Sunday in Seattle. Credit: Liv Lyons
One minute, you’re debating who should be the Mets’ Game 1 starter for a wild-card playoff series, considering the egalitarian nature of the surprisingly effective group.
The next, it’s wondering if this rotation will even make it to October.
Such is the Six Flags thrill ride these Mets have become, careening from lofty emotional highs to sickening canyons of despair. So it’s only fitting that the newly-acquired Paul Blackburn would follow up his pair of post-deadline gems (1.50 ERA, 12 Ks in 12 innings) by throwing batting practice to his former team Tuesday night at Citi Field.
Two thoughts on Blackburn sabotaging the Mets by teeing up seven runs over four innings in a 9-4 loss to the A’s. Although it’s true Blackburn probably wouldn’t figure into a postseason rotation anyway, he needs to help the Mets get there first, and him lighting a match to their fourth straight defeat (dropping them to 1 1/2 games behind Atlanta) wasn’t being very useful in that regard.
“At the end of the day, I just didn’t get the job done,” Blackburn said.
Next up is David Peterson, who will try to stop the slide Wednesday, and then it’s back to Jose Quintana for Thursday’s series finale. Until this most recent turn through, the Mets’ rotation had been a strength this season, so manager Carlos Mendoza wasn’t about to overreact following Blackburn’s first-inning implosion.
“I just think it’s part of the 162, because they’ve been so good for us,” Mendoza said. “For quite a bit now, they’ve given us a chance every time they go out there. They’ve been pretty solid.”
The last time the Mets qualified for the postseason tournament in 2022, Buck Showalter could choose between a pair of multiple Cy Young winners in Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer, with Chris Bassitt being no slouch himself.
Obviously, it didn’t work out so great. Neither did adding Justin Verlander the next winter to make up for letting deGrom jump to the Rangers. We bring all this up now, however, to highlight the drastic rotation shift happening in Flushing this time around, with a starting corps fronted by Quintana, Luis Severino and Sean Manaea.
President of baseball operations David Stearns cobbled together this year’s starting staff on the fly and is squeezing more value from this group than the rosiest projections. If you remove the injured Kodai Senga -- whose contribution this season amounts to 5 1/3 innings in late July against Atlanta -- the 2025 price tag on the Mets’ current rotation is $45.6 million, or nearly $1 million less than the total Steve Cohen is paying Verlander and Max Scherzer to sit on the IL for both the Astros and Rangers, respectively.
Or look at this way: Stearns bought an entire wild-card contending rotation for right around what it cost to rent either Verlander or Scherzer for one season ($43.3 million). That’s called getting the most bang for the buck, and putting faith in this chip-on-the-shoulder gang has paid dividends to this point -- at least during the regular season.
Based on Stearns’ blueprint for his rookie season, of course he traded for a back-end starter like Blackburn, a high-upside arm with another year of team control. Stearns’ dice roll on this year’s rotation has yielded a surprisingly durable, if not dazzling, performance that had the Mets tied for seventh in the majors in average innings per start (5.38) -- tied with the Yankees, whose top two starters, Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon, make almost a half-billion dollars combined. Severino, Manaea and Quintana each have made 23 starts this season with some minor speedbumps but no significant breakdowns.
“They’re feeling good physically, which for me is the biggest thing,” Mendoza said before Tuesday night’s game.
Severino needs to be monitored the most, as his 133 innings are more than he’s pitched since 2018, along with leaking oil over the past four starts (8.00 ERA). On the positive side, his velocity was sturdy Sunday night in Seattle, and Severino was still generating plenty of swing-and-miss amid some hard luck in the five-inning loss, so the Mets aren’t concerned.
Manaea had a glitch of his own against Mariners (3 innings, 3 runs) after back-to-back seven-inning stunners with double-digit strikeouts. He’s almost certain to opt out of next year’s $14.5 million player option, cemented by the fact that Manaea has a 2.60 ERA over his last 11 starts dating to June 14, limiting opposing teams to a .192 average and .594 OPS. As for Quintana, who pitched just 75 2/3 innings a year ago after a tumor scare and rib removal, he’s right there with Manaea with a 2.76 ERA over his last 10 starts.
“Availability and consistency are key assets for a pitcher,” pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said, “and those guys have been consistent in that they’ve started all their games.”
Now this pieced-together, patched-up rotation has to get the Mets across the finish line and into October. Severino, Manaea and Quintana will be free agents after this season, leaving Stearns to assemble a rotation all over again this winter. But his track record has been pretty good so far.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
