Mets Mail, part 1: How does this team stack up with last year's? Is a 6-man rotation coming? (2024)

Given that it’s been three months since I’ve expressed any thoughts or opinions on the state of the Mets, I figured the best way to jump back in is by answering the lingering questions you may have from a wild offseason for the franchise.

Today in Part 1, I’m answering questions about the major-league roster and general outlook for the 2023 Mets. Part 2 will run tomorrow with a look at some prospects and the World Baseball Classic, among other topics.

How do you rate this team against last year’s team? How optimistic or pessimistic are you that this team will outperform last year’s in terms of regular-season record (since the playoffs are a bit of a crapshoot)? —Farook A.

If you’re setting the over/under for regular-season wins at 101, I am taking the under. The Mets were one of the oldest teams in baseball last season (third-oldest average age of hitters and oldest average age of pitchers, according to Baseball-Reference), and they have gotten older (both via outside additions and, like all of us, via the general passage of time).

They were also remarkably healthy last year, especially within their position player group and the bullpen. James McCann and Starling Marte were the only regulars to spend more than 10 days on the injured list. Only Trevor May and Drew Smith missed significant time out of the pen. Maybe they have better health in the rotation — since Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer missed chunks of the season — but they’re also older there than even last year.

I wouldn’t bet on them being as healthy overall as they were last year, and that probably means they’re going to be worse.

Do Buck Showalter and the pitchers have a better plan to protect Mets hitters this season? Last year, the Mets set a record for batters hit by pitch. It finally caught up to them when Starling Marte got hurt. It probably cost the division and who knows what else. It simply cannot be allowed to happen. Crying to MLB didn’t work. I would like to see more toughness from the team. —Darren L.

As I said throughout last season, the Mets’ record-setting number of hits-by-pitch was a feature and not a bug of their offense. New York’s lineup already included multiple players with elevated HBP rates (Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso), and then the club added Mark Canha and Starling Marte, who each get hit a ton. From 2019 through 2021, the average major leaguer was hit in 1.13 percent of plate appearances. The nine Mets who ended up with 300-plus plate appearances last season were hit in 1.90 percent of their plate appearances from 2019 through 2021. Going into the season, you’d expect them to get hit a lot more than the average team.

And they were! But at almost the exact rate you’d expect: Those nine regulars were hit in 1.93 percent of plate appearances in 2022. That equates to a single extra hit-by-pitch over 162 games. (McNeil, Alonso and Marte were hit less than you’d expect; Canha, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo more.)

There’s a reason that Showalter never condemned a single HBP as being on purpose.

So you could advocate for “more toughness from the team,” which is essentially demanding your pitchers purposely hit other batters. Even if you’re fine with that from a moral or a sportsmanship perspective, you probably won’t be happy with the end results, which are more opposing hitters on base and more times your best players are targeted by opposing pitchers in an escalating, “an-eye-for-an-eye-leaves-the-whole-world-blind” beanball brouhaha.

Or you could accept that when you build a team with several players with a history of getting hit by pitches, they’re going to get hit by pitches, and take your base.

What did you think of the Mets’ choices in the rotation — Justin Verlander over Jacob deGrom, Kodai Senga over Chris Bassitt, José Quintana over Taijuan Walker — taking into consideration the contracts everyone got? —Evan D.

I think the rotation feels a little less certain than it would have had the Mets brought everyone back (which, of course, would have been more expensive). Quintana, at his age, is a higher-variance starter than Walker, Senga is a higher-variance starter than Bassitt, obviously. That means things could break really well, with Quintana repeating 2022 and Senga being a star right away. It could also mean Quintana repeats 2021’s six-plus ERA and Senga works better as a reliever. Verlander is the exception, since I’d wager on him making more starts than deGrom.

One thing that surprised me and that I think is smart is that the Mets are entering spring with neither David Peterson nor Tylor Megill in the rotation. That makes for better depth.

P.S. Really excited for your book coming out this week, Evan!

Can you see the Mets running with a six-man rotation? I know the older guys are pretty set on their routine working with a five-man rotation, but this would give them an opportunity to stay fresh while also keeping Senga on his schedule that he was in while playing overseas and also allows David Peterson to pitch rather than being wasted in the minors. —Matt N.

I’ve wondered about the possibility of a six-man since they signed Senga, who worked in one in Japan. (Longer term, a six-man would also be appealing to, oh, one of the top trade targets/impending free agents who plays in Anaheim.) It would ease the transition for Senga and would in theory keep the Mets’ best arms fresher and maybe even healthier.

The typically stated downside is that a six-man would disrupt the established routine of the other major-league veterans in New York’s rotation, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander chief among them. However, Verlander made just five of his 28 regular-season starts last season on four days of rest. Scherzer made just nine of his 23 on four days of rest. They were both outstanding regardless of their days of rest in 2022.

So, while the Mets might not roll out a formal six-man rotation, it would not surprise me in the least if they pretty routinely sprinkled in a sixth starter during their stretches without scheduled days off. From April 25 to May 21, the Mets play 26 games in 27 days. From Sept. 8 to Sept. 24, they play 17 straight days — the inverse of all the extra days off they had late last season. In both of those instances (and in other 10-plus game stretches without an off-day), I’d expect to see a sixth starter.

Why don’t the Mets ever sign Andrew Chafin? Also, what’s the deal with the Metrospective podcast? How can we help Ted Berg get a new gig?
—Sandy B.

The Mets do not think as much of Andrew Chafin’s pitching talent as much as I do, OBVIOUSLY.

And as Ted announced on Twitter in December, The Metrospective was canceled at the end of the season. We were one of the last local baseball podcasts at The Athletic, and as a company we’ve put more of our energy into national podcasts. It’s a bummer. I had a blast working not only with Ted, but with Pete McCarthy for two seasons and with three different producers: Adam Gracia, Marissa Morris and Tim McMaster. We had the Panic Citi Meter, we somehow did weekly shows through the COVID-19 shutdown that were pretty good, we incorporated live shows last season. I’m proud of the work we did on the show, and my college friend who came up with “The Metrospective” is crushed.

You should all subscribe to Ted’s substack in case he starts writing there.

Tim, in a division where the perennial rival fuels its roster with youth every year, why does the Mets media continue to minimize the potential for value from David Peterson and Tylor Megill, both of whom have developed to warrant more use as starters, as well as Brett Baty and Francisco Álvarez. Is the press, if not the team itself, all in on veterans to the point that these young potential future stars will bear their fruit elsewhere, or die on the vine?
—Barry S.

Mike Puma’s decision to sign José Quintana surprised me, and I didn’t expect Tim Healey to go that aggressively for Omar Narváez — thereby blocking Peterson, Megill and Álvarez from more meaningful playing time at the start of the season.

Oh wait, that was Billy Eppler and the Mets organization that did that, not members of the media (as you’re getting around to by the end of your question). The press does not set organizational strategy; it reports and comments on it, and it does so individually and not as a monolith. (My thoughts about individual moves are probably different from Healey’s or Puma’s or even Will Sammon’s!)

It’s the organization that, at this moment, prefers established veterans over less established youth, be it in signing Quintana rather than handing the fifth spot to Peterson or Megill or in bringing in Narváez rather than rolling with Tomás Nido and Álvarez. I’m not inherently against making those kinds of moves in the offseason; I’ve covered a team undone by its confidence in upcoming prospects. What will be worth watching is how willing the Mets are to give their younger players larger roles if the play dictates it. If Peterson is lights out as an occasional sixth starter, does he bump someone from the rotation that isn’t performing as well? If Álvarez or Baty is on fire in Triple A, do they get a shot to replace a struggling bat in the majors?

I was critical last season of the Mets’ unwillingness to do just that: They waited into September to give looks to Mark Vientos and Álvarez, by which point it was too late to get a meaningful evaluation of their readiness (either for the 2022 postseason or for early 2023). Let’s see if that changes at all this time around.

Does your return devalue the autograph of yours that I have? (My younger cousin got it at the Boston BBWAA dinner years ago.)
—Kevin M.

You can’t further devalue something that was already worthless.

(Photo of Max Scherzer: Darren Yamash*ta / USA Today)

Tim Britton is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the New York Mets. He has covered Major League Baseball since 2009 and the Mets since 2018. Prior to joining The Athletic, he spent seven seasons on the Red Sox beat for the Providence Journal. He has also contributed to Baseball Prospectus, NBC Sports Boston, MLB.com and Yahoo Sports. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBritton