Justin Verlander
If you blinked, you missed reports Carlos Correa was possibly going to the New York Mets. It would have simply been a stunning move for a franchise which already signed Justin Verlander and Brandon Nimmo to huge money as the Mets have been charging towards the $400 million payroll mark.
There was a report from Dan Hayes of The Athtletic. We also saw Steve Cohen out there liking tweets about the team going out and signing Correa. Normally, this would be unbelievable, but there was now belief this could actually happen:
Steve Cohen out here laughing at the luxury tax, liking tweets about signing Correa just to watch MLB burn. #LGM pic.twitter.com/GZlRHthCKB
— Metsmerized Online (@Metsmerized) December 13, 2022
Well, as we found out, it actually wasn’t to be. Correa went to the San Francisco Giants on a 13 year $350 million deal. For Correa, it was probably the better move, and as we know, the Giants had a far more desperate need for Correa than the Mets.
Certainly, it is possible Scott Boras was using the Mets for leverage. It’s also possible Cohen was having a little fun on Twitter.
However, one thing remains ostensibly clear – the New York Mets are not done looking for ways to improve the team. That means even if they have to continue to raise their payroll well above and beyond what anyone believes could be possible for a professional sports franchise.
Make no mistake, this is very good for baseball. Owners going out there and signing players to vastly improve their teams can only be viewed as good for the sport. We should actively celebrate and encourage teams trying to win.
Spending money on players is not a bad thing. Winning is not a bad thing. Believing those things are bad things is incredibly stupid.
Seriously, go as a New York Yankees fan if they regret winning the 2009 World Series after the team went out and signed Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett and trading for Nick Swisher. Go ask Pittsburgh Pirates fans what is is like to see their team never signing anyone of significance and watching beloved players just leave the franchise without winning anything.
As Mets fans, we know exactly what this is all like. We’ve been desperate for ownership to actually invest in winning. We were tired of the cheap moves. We wanted real action. After all, we watched it happen across town for over 20 years.
In the end, actively trying to win is good for the Mets, and it is good for baseball. It is as fan friendly as it gets, and keeping your fans happy is the best way to maintain and grow interest in the sport. Arguing otherwise is just plain stupid, and likely, it is sour grapes.
Right now, the New York Mets are rumored to be listening to offers for Carlos Carrasco. This makes sense because the Mets should listen to offers on all of their players and make deals if it improves the team. That should go without saying.
There is also the matter of clearing up payroll to permit the Mets to address their bullpen, outfield depth, and find a better solution than Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf at DH. Mostly, the Mets would be better served by having David Peterson in the rotation.
Peterson, 27, was the Mets 2017 first round pick (20th overall) out of the University of Oregon. At his age, this is exactly the time you would be expecting his career to take off, but frankly, to date, it has not gotten started. There are several reasons why that has happened.
After a promising 2020 rookie year in the pandemic shortened season, he predictably struggled in 2021 before succumbing to a shoulder injury. This would have the Mets under Steve Cohen bypass him as they looked to build an elite rotation designed to win the World Series. Despite that, Peterson would be needed, and he would have his moments.
Overall, as a starter, Peterson was 6-5 with a 3.86 ERA, 1.341 WHIP, 4.1 BB/9, and a 10.9 K/9. He would also average 4.2 innings per start. The caveat there was in two September starts, he threw four innings total over two horrific starts. This came at a time the Mets were working to move him to the bullpen for the postseason. Without those two starts, he averaged 5+ innings per start.
No, these aren’t earth shattering numbers, and yes, the walks/control were an issue. However, there are some caveats with these numbers. He was bounced back-and-forth from the rotation and bullpen AND between the majors and Triple-A. That takes its toll on a player. Notably, Peterson did perform better in the majors than in Triple-A.
Another factor is Peterson did not get to really work with Jeremy Hefner the way the rest of the Mets pitching staff did. Notably, we did see Hefner help hone pitchers mechanics and work on their control. This was most notable with the work Hefner did with Edwin Díaz to get him to repeat his landing spot on the mound. As a result, we not only saw the best we’ve seen from the closer, but we also saw Díaz go from a 4.9 BB/9 in 2020 to a 2.6 last season.
Arguably, if Peterson is going to take that next step, he is going to need Major League coaching, be surrounded by pitchers like Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander for a full season, and really, he is going to need a chance.
Looking at the data, he is worth that chance. Per Baseball Savant, Peterson generates excellent extension, and he has a very good whiff%. That is shown with Peterson striking out 27.8% of the batters he faced last season, which is excellent. Part of the reason for that is despite lower fastball velocity and spin (which should be expected with a sinker) is Peterson’s excellent slider numbers.
Highest single-season slider whiff% by a lefty pitcher in the Statcast era (min. 250 sliders swung at):
Andrew Miller: 54.7% ('15)
Amir Garrett: 53.7% ('19)
Patrick Corbin: 53.1% ('18)
Corbin: 51.4% ('19)
Robbie Ray: 49.5% ('17)
Corbin: 49% ('16)
DAVID PETERSON: 47.9% ('22) pic.twitter.com/vSAd5nAdLQ— Mathew Brownstein (@MBrownstein89) December 1, 2022
It is genuinely a strikeout pitch. Batters whiffed 47.9% of the time against the pitch. In and of itself, it is worth investing in that pitch to see what more the Mets could be getting out of Peterson. That slider is a hidden gem on this Mets staff, and they need to see it in the majors instead of Triple-A.
Put another way, Peterson still has a lot of upside. In many ways, he is still raw and needs more coaching and opportunities. For an older Mets rotation, they actually need Peterson’s upside. They need the younger starter who can surprise and have a good year. Somehow, some way, the Mets just need to get Peterson into the rotation and watch him take that next step because that next step could help the Mets win the World Series.
Looking at the New York Mets rotation, it wasn’t just that it felt they needed another starter. They really needed to add a starter with upside.
Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are both Hall of Famers still pitching like aces. However, they are still towards the end of their careers.
Josè Quintana is a guy who takes it every fifth day and gives you five innings. We saw Carlos Carrasco has become a bit of a Jekyll/Hyde routine between the age and coming back from all the injuries.
Arguably, the Mets would have been fine with one of Tylor Megill or David Peterson. However, the team needs to manufacture pitching depth, and a team who is all-in on winning the World Series needed better.
Ideally, they needed a pitcher who has real upside. Someone who could give them something they didn’t quite have. Well, the Mets found the right guy with Koudai Senga.
Senga signed with the Mets partially because he said he wanted to win now. He’s also well versed in analytics and wants a team who can help him further understand and grow. Mostly, he signed with the Mets because they are now THE destination team in Major League Baseball.
The Mets wanted Senga because he’s been a great pitcher with great stuff. He can hit 102 MPH on the gun and has a pitched dubbed the ghost forkball.
Senga, 29, pitched last season foe the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of the Japan Pacific League. Over 22 starts, he pitched 144.0 innings (6.2 innings per start). He was 11-6 with a 1.94 RRA, 1.056 WHIP, 3.1 BB/9, and a 9.8 K/9.
He completely dominated the Japanese Leagues. He’s one of their best pitchers ever, and we saw a record setting pitcher there.
If you want a downside, people can and will point you to the theory Japanese pitchers don’t translate well to the majors. Of course, that’s complete nonsense.
Sure, a pitcher like Daisuke Matsuzaka was disappointing. There are other examples including the times when the Mets grabbed pitchers like Satoru Komiyama and dubbed him and his ERA always hovering around 4.00 as the Japanese Greg Maddux.
As an aside, how did the Wilpons ever get away with stuff like that.
While the disappointments have been highlighted and discussed ad nauseum, there have been success stories. Hideo Nomo was a good Major League, a Rookie of the Year, an All-Star, and threw to no-hitters. Masahiro Tanaka was a big game pitcher for the New York Yankees.
Japanese pitchers can and will succeed in the majors. There’s no reason to believe with the Mets infrastructure and pitching coach like Jeremy Hefner that Senga won’t succeed.
The Mets needed a pitcher like Senga to take them to the next level. They got him, and now, their chances of winning the World Series have increased exponentially.
One of the challenges the New York Mets have this offseason is rebuilding their rotation to match the one they had which carried them to 101 wins in 2021. That was going to be a challenge with the Mets needing to address four-fifths of the rotation; well, three-fifths after they picked up Carlos Carrasco‘s option.
The rotation was never really going to look the same, but it had to be as good. Arguably, it had to be better with the Mets losing in the Wild Card Series despite their top three starters lined up. The team did take a bit of a step back losing Jacob deGrom, but they responded quickly and perfectly by adding Justin Verlander.
You can say the same about the team signing José Quintana after Taijuan Walker signed with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Walker was a good and surprisingly durable pitcher for the Mets over the past two seasons. He showed flashes of being a top of the rotation starter, but he did have his struggles. Ultimately, he was a number three starter who pitched at the back end of the rotation. He was a very good Met, and the Mets will certainly miss him.
However, the team did rebound with Quintana. Keep in mind with the age of Max Scherzer, Verlander, and Carrasco, Quintana is “only” going to be 34 next season. He has pitched in the majors for 11 years, and the only time he did not make at least 22 starts was 2020 – 2021. One year was the pandemic (he did have an injury that season), and the other he dealt with shoulder issues.
Whatever concerns you may have after that two year stretch were abated when Quintana made 32 starts last season. The downside was he only pitched 165.2 innings meaning he averaged only five innings per start.
Part of that could be related to his coming back from two injury plagued years. He was in the bullpen in 2021, and he was moved back to the rotation. That does require some ease. Another issue is the Pirates are not very analytically advanced limiting their ability to get the most from their starters.
To a certain extent, we saw that play out when Quintana went to the St. Louis Cardinals at the trade deadline. Yes, he only averaged five innings per start, but that was skewed by a few short outings. To be fair, those happened.
Putting all of that aside for a moment, that does not change the fact Quintana took the ball every fifth day. Much like he has the vast majority of his career, he promises to do the same next season. That gives the Mets some certainty with an older rotation as they also seek to manufacture pitching depth this offseason.
With respect to the stuff, well, Quintana doesn’t wow you in any sense. He doesn’t have velocity or great spin. What he does have is the ability to locate and generate weak contact. He also generates a high number of ground balls. Even without the shift, he should be aided by having Francisco Lindor and one of Jeff McNeil or Luis Guillorme up the middle.
In the end, Quintana’s skill-set is enhanced by the defense behind him. The Mets infielders will make him seem a better pitcher, and maybe then, he can go a little deeper into games. Even if he doesn’t, he is going to take the ball every fifth day and give the Mets five solid innings. There is immense value in that, especially for an older rotation, and the Mets will benefit greatly from having signed Quintana.
After Jacob deGrom left the New York Mets to sign with the Texas Rangers, the team pivoted to sign Justin Verlander. The signing reunites Verlander with Max Scherzer.
The pair of aces were teammates on the Detroit Tigers from 2010 – 2014. It was a time of personal and team accomplishments.
Verlander was the 2011 AL Cy Young and MVP. Scherzer won the 2013 AL Cy Young. The Tigers won the 2012 pennant and were in four straight postseasons.
Whatever the dynamic between Verlander and Scherzer was, it worked. The Mets are reuniting them because of how well that dynamic once worked.
Just because the dynamic worked, it doesn’t mean they were friends. As former Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski told Tim Healey of Newsday, “Let’s say they butted heads.”
Now, like anything else, this deserves context. Dombrowski said this was a direct result of their competitiveness and need to one up the other. As noted above, that lead to each having outstanding seasons and success for the Tigers team.
Their two catchers shared the sentiment. Alex Avila said they were both Type A personalities. Gerald Laird said how their conflicts drove each other to greatness even if it came along with constant bickering.
If we fast-forward to the present, here is what we know. While both were driven by each other to greatness with the Tigers, they were great apart from one another.
Verlander went on to win the 2019 and 2022 Cy Youngs. He won the World Series in 2017 and 2022. Scherzer won the 2016 and 2017 Cy Young and won the 2019 World Series (over Verlander’s Houston Astros team).
When deGrom left, they made the decision to pivot to Verlander. Certainly, the team would have checked in with Scherzer to get background and see if it’s a good idea. It’s fair to presume Scherzer raised no real objections.
As for Verlander, he opted to sign with the Mets knowing Scherzer was there. To a certain extent, he signed with the Mets probably knowing this is more Scherzer’s team than his.
All told, Scherzer and Verlander opted to reunite on the Mets. Certainly, whatever their prior relationship was didn’t cause Scherzer to want to interfere, or for Verlander to look to sign elsewhere.
Scherzer and Verlander are also older and more mature people now. They’re locks for the Hall of Fame. All they’re playing for now is legacy, another ring, and yes, another big payday.
To accomplish those goals, they’re reuniting on the Mets, which means they’re bringing back that same dynamic from the Tigers. They wanted this. The Mets wanted this. We all wanted this.
As a result, their prior relationship is irrelevant. Whatever it was, they want to do it again, and for that, Mets fans should be ecstatic.
Based on how everything transpired, we can question whether the New York Mets Plan A was Jacob deGrom or Justin Verlander. In the end, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is the Mets needed to get at least one of them, and they did that. They signed the future Hall of Famer and reigning American League Cy Young winner.
An interest note here is there are three pitchers in Major League history to win the Rookie of the Year and two Cy Youngs – Tom Seaver, deGrom, and Velander. Seaver and Verlander have three Cy Youngs, and deGrom won the award in consecutive seasons.
All three are Mets.
This is just a bizarre place to be as a Mets fan. We’re not even five years removed from the Mets “replacing” Zack Wheeler with Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha.
The fact the Mets followed deGrom by giving Verlander the highest AAV for a player is something that didn’t happen here. The fact it came the year after the Mets did the same with Max Scherzer never would’ve been contemplated.
Keep in mind, this is who the Mets are now. They already made Francisco Lindor the highest paid shortstop, and Edwin Díaz the highest paid reliever.
The only objective is winning, and the Mets will now spend to do it. Verlander epitomizes who the franchise is now.
Verlander returned from Tommy John and was Verlander. He led the AL in wins, ERA, WHIP, ERA+, and hits per nine. That’s why he won a Cy Young.
Yes, the strikeouts were down and was the velocity. However, the spin is still there, and he’s still limiting hard contact and barrels.
In some ways, that answers the question we always had about Verlander. What would he be when his velocity dipped? The answer is the best pitcher in the AL.
The next questions doesn’t have an easy answer. How will he handle the 2022 workload? Also, how will he be in his age 40 season?
Looking at Scherzer, he was great, but he was also more injury prone. To some degree, that might’ve cost him and the Mets the World Series.
Then again, just having Scherzer made the Mets a great team who won 101 games. Verlander promises to do the same for this team in 2023. That goes double with the Mets having Scherzer and Verlander.
As an interesting aside, Scherzer and Verlander were in the same rotation for the Detroit Tigers from 2010 – 2014. They Ron the division four straight years winning a pennant.
This is in play for the Mets. They have co-aces who can help the Mets take the next step. Last year, it was the Wild Card Series. Next year, we will see how far they can go.
This is possible because the Mets pivoted after losing deGrom to sign Verlander. They replaced one future Hall of Famer with another. They showed they will continue to do what is necessary to win.
The Mets needed Verlander and signed him. It’s a great day to be a Mets fan.