Just How Good Has the Mets’ Rotation Been?

Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

You know, baseball is a funny game. Heading into 2021, many of us were excited about the New York Mets’ rotation for a couple of reasons. First of all, there’s Jacob deGrom and the fact that he likely wouldn’t have to carry the staff all on his own because he’d be flanked by Marcus Stroman and Carlos Carrasco. And, yea, they got plenty of depth despite missing out on Trevor Bauer, but Noah Syndergaard would be back in June, so it’d all be cool.

As usual, almost none of that has gone as we thought it might. Carrasco and Syndergaard have yet to throw a pitch for the Mets this year, and David Peterson has struggled through some inconsistent performances after a strong rookie campaign. While deGrom has been insane and Stroman has shoved, it’s the late addition of Taijuan Walker that’s really made the difference over the season’s first two-plus months.

Their Place in Baseball and Recent Mets History

There is a countless number of pitching statistics to analyze when it comes to a rotation’s overall performance, but the two we’ll be focusing on today are ERA and fWAR. New York’s rotation has tossed just 301.2 innings so far this season because of all the cancellations, which ranks last in baseball. That hasn’t stopped them from putting together the league’s best ERA (2.69) and second-best fWAR (8.2), which is a huge change from 2020 (26th in ERA and 12th in fWAR).

There’s still plenty of season left, but I was curious as to how the current rotation is trending upon taking a peek at the season-long totals and rankings for ERA and fWAR since 2000.

So, by looking at this nifty table, we can see that the 2021 rotation’s fiercest competition when it comes to recent Mets history has essentially happened within the last decade. The lowest season-long rotation ERA settled in at 3.44 in 2015, while the highest rotation fWAR was 19.7 in 2019. With the starting staff’s current pace, both marks could potentially be surpassed when all is said and done.

Also, just for the sake of comparisons, the lowest rotation ERA and fWAR by any team between 2000 and 2020 is 2.86 and 27.0, respectively, which was accomplished by the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies. You remember that squad, boasting the likes of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt, and Vance Worley — none of which finished with an ERA above 3.69. Halladay, Lee, and Hamels all finished with an ERA below 2.80.

The Three-Headed Monster

Speaking of which, that’s the perfect segue into the Mets’ Big Three of deGrom, Stroman, and Walker. These three have just been outstanding, as their respective ERAs and fWARs would suggest. DeGrom is simply not human, as he boasts a 0.54 ERA and 4.0 fWAR in the middle of June (although the injury scares aren’t cool). Fresh off a career-high 12-strikeout performance, Walker now owns a 2.12 ERA and 2.0 fWAR, while Stroman is not far behind with a 2.32 ERA and 1.3 fWAR of his own.

If New York is going to challenge the 2011 Phillies in either rotation ERA or rotation fWAR, these three need to keep doing what they’re doing more days than not. Getting some reinforcements, like Carrasco eventually making his debut in July, would also be a big boost, but as we saw in Philadelphia’s numbers, there needs to be production up and down the entire staff. So, that means Peterson will need to build upon Monday night’s stellar six-inning performance, and Joey Lucchesi needs to continue pitching as he has been in his last four starts.

With all of deGrom, Walker, and Stroman sporting an ERA comfortably under 3.00, I wondered if the Mets have had a group of three starters finish a season below that benchmark while tossing at least 100 innings. I went all the way back to 2000 to see if it happened, and unsurprisingly, it hasn’t. New York did come close to doing so twice, though. In 2010, Johan Santana (2.98) and R.A. Dickey (2.86) finished with an ERA under 3.00, while deGrom (2.54) and Matt Harvey (2.71) both did it in 2015.

Again, it’ll be a tall order for all three to keep it up through the rest of this season, but they’ve put themselves in a position to at least have a chance of making it happen.

A Huge Contributor

One of the few things I’ve noticed when looking through all these stats is that the Mets’ rotation has found this success without huge strikeout numbers. Sure, as a group they’re striking out 28.8% of hitters, which actually ranks first in baseball, but hear me out. Without deGrom and his ridiculous 47.8% strikeout rate, the rest of them are good, but not in another stratosphere like their ace.

Walker (26.9%) and Lucchesi (26.7%) are second and third among Mets starters with at least 20 innings pitched this year, while Peterson (24.7%) and Stroman (21.5%) round things out at the bottom. Among qualified starters, deGrom easily leads the league in this statistic, but Walker is the only other Queens hurler within the top 25. New York’s 72.9% contact rate allowed as a team is among the league’s lowest numbers, but they’re also not dominating the quality-of-contact leaderboards as they have in previous years.

A huge contributor has been — yes, you guessed it — the defense. I mean, come on, this relay on Tuesday night was beautiful:

Love this… pic.twitter.com/rK1r5K00z8

— New York Mets (@Mets) June 16, 2021

This type of play hasn’t been an aberration, though. The Mets’ 30 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) as a team ranks within the top 10 in all of baseball. That’s an incredible shift from recent years. Here’s how the team’s DRS has ranked between 2015 and 2020:

So, yea, that’s a big difference. You also can’t talk about the Mets’ improved defense without at least mentioning how shifting has impacted it. Entering Wednesday’s game, New York has shifted at a 55.7% clip, which is the most in baseball. It’s a stark difference from years past, too. In 2020, the Mets were among one of the least shifted teams, doing it 21.4% of the time. That percentage was 14.1% in 2019 and 13.7% in 2018. So, this number has been moving in the right direction in recent seasons, but it’s been supercharged thus far in 2021, and the results speak for themselves.

Pitching and defense, defense and pitching. Those seem to be two huge factors to a winning team. Scoring runs and having a good offense is important, but when a squad can chuck it and catch it with the best of them, they don’t need to ask the lineup to score six, seven, or eight runs every night just to have a shot at winning. This formula has been working for New York, and we’ll see what kind of pace the rotation can keep up in the coming months as the calendar continues creeping closer to September.

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