The New York Mets have somehow managed to get within a half game of the Wild Card entering Thursday, and they have the ability to make a deep run in the postseason.
A month ago there was a two week stretch for the Mets where manager Mickey Callaway called a reporter an expletive, Jason Vargas tried to fight that reporter, the team said two members of the 1969 team were dead when they weren’t and general manager Brodie Van Wagenen threw a chair during a meeting with coaches.
Fast forward to August, and that same team that almost completely imploded is now only a half game out of the wild card, and are the last team anybody will want to see in the postseason.
The primary reason you don’t want to play the Mets in the postseason is because of their pitching staff. They have probably the best rotation in all of baseball, and you’d be hard pressed to find a team outside of the Dodgers or Nationals with a starting staff as good or better than what the Mets have.
A rotation of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, Marcus Stroman and Steven Matz is not a rotation to be taken lightly. DeGrom, Syndergaard and Matz all have World Series experience and Stroman has won a Wild Card game and pitched in the ALCS. The only one with no postseason experience is Wheeler, and that’s because he missed all of 2015 and 2016 due to injury.
Since the All-Star break the Mets pitching staff is second in baseball in ERA, tied for first in FIP, third in WHIP, first in soft hit percentage and second in hard hit percentage. deGrom has five starts since the break and he’s given up a grand total of four runs in 33 innings which equates to a 1.09 ERA.
If not for his first five starts deGrom would be having a season that would rival his Cy Young season last year. Since May 1 he has a 2.31 ERA with 139 strikeouts in 117 innings.
The Mets decided to hold on to Syndergaard and Wheeler at the deadline, and it’s already payed dividends for them. With the addition of Stroman they’ve put together a staff that is arguably better than the Dodgers.
Now all of a sudden a Mets vs. Dodgers NLDS sounds like a ton of fun.