An Embarrassment of Pitchers

The Mets have a bit of a problem on their hands. Well, okay, it's not an actual problem, or at least it's not a problem as a net matter, but it will have some problematic aspects. They have too many good young pitchers. Too many good young starting pitchers, that is. By my count it's about six guys, not even counting a few players who seem like they might be able to be MLB-average inning-eater types like Dillon Gee. They've got Matt Harvey, 24, who just set a new Mets record for lowest ERA in his first 30 career starts. They've got Jon Niese, 26, a lefty whose career 4.09 ERA is probably quite a bit worse than he's actually pitched. They've got Zack Wheeler, 23, who's just made it to the majors and is off to a 4-1 start that's better than he's pitched but who has similar stuff to Harvey (read: 98-mph gas and wicked breaking balls). They've got Noah Syndergaard, 20, the centerpiece of the R.A. Dickey trade, who sports a career 2.54 minor league ERA with 298 strikeouts and just 77 walks in 269.2 career innings. They've got Rafael Montero, 22, with just 58 walks in 303.2 career minor league innings to go with 282 strikeouts. They've also got a bunch of exciting young arms like Domingo Tapia, 21, career 3.79 minor league ERA, and Gabriel Ynoa, 20, career 2.55 minor league ERA, who are further from the majors but at least a few of whom should be similarly situated to Montero and Syndergaard in another couple of years.

And then there's Jenrry Mejia, the Mets' original highly-touted pitching prospect of recent years. In fact, he was highly touted so long ago that he feels like a failed prospect at this point. After being misused throughout the 2010 season, bounced around between starting, relieving, the majors and the minors, he developed a need for Tommy John surgery after just five minor league starts in 2011. Upon his return from that surgery late last year, which was a pretty quick rehab anyway, he lost the natural cutting action on his fastball that had made him such an exciting prospect. He looked like he might, at best, end up as a competent middle reliever, but it seemed that neither quality starter nor dominant late-inning reliever were in his future anymore. Until today, his 2013 MLB debut in a spot-start role for a double-header. Apparently he's made some mechanical adjustments and the cut is back on his fastball. So far he's thrown 6 innings, during which time he's struck out 7, walked none, allowed 7 hits, and gotten 8 groundball outs. Oh, and all the hits were singles, of which only one or two were at all hard-hit. All on just 84 pitches. Oh, and he has yet to allow a run. He's not on track for a complete game or anything, and has allowed his fair share of hits, but this is a dominant outing so far.

And if he's back in the conversation as a potentially above-average starting pitcher, then the 2014 or 2015 rotation starts to look very crowded. Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, Mejia, Montero, Syndergaard. That's one too many. Oh, and you've got Dillon Gee on the outside looking in, which is perhaps appropriate given his career 4.06 ERA but he's shown, at times, that perhaps he can be better than that. So the Mets are seriously loaded with starting-pitching assets, and will need to figure out whom to trade and whom to slot into the rotation. This is how good Mets teams look, with a glut of good young pitching. It's pretty exciting.