The concept is always so beautiful. If you’re a sports fan, perfect opportunities come first. The dreams. They all come before the games. before reality.
Think about how you would be a Nets fan the day they won James Harden last season. They began to calculate what this would all look like over a longer period of time. The offensive to the top. The fiendish decisions opponents would have to make in cover. The scoreboard hums relentlessly.
There were 16 games. It turned out to be 365 minutes total as injuries and COVID restrictions and eventually Harden’s trade that year to Philly completely wiped out the dream scenarios.
Now here we are with the Mets. There was that day just before the lockout when the Mets pushed Steve Cohen’s dollars ahead of Max Scherzer — making him the richest player of all time year-on-year, and not by a penny or a dollar. That was the first time you could imagine deGrom and Scherzer, Scherzer and deGrom. It was the first time you could think about a three-game streak and what an opponent might think looking at two starters and five Cy Youngs and one of the dirtiest things on record.
They were there over two weeks ago. Side by side on the training hills just outside the peloton at Clover Park. Both in Mets uniform. It was no longer a theory. Showalter announced that deGrom would win the Nationals in the April 7 opener, with Scherzer going up against his old roster in Game 2. The biggest concern at the time was figuring out how to watch Scherzer’s performance on Apple TV+.
Until that wasn’t the biggest problem.
Jacob de Grom, Corey Sipkin
DeGrom reported a strain in his shoulder on Thursday. On Friday he went for an MRI scan. The result, the Mets announced, was a stress reaction on his shoulder blade. DeGrom is now scheduled not to pick up a baseball for up to four weeks. The sunniest forecast therefore puts it back on rotation around Memorial Day.
This was revealed on April Fool’s Day, but this wasn’t a Sidd Finch-level prank. Non-fictional Mets fireballer deGrom would be sidelined once again. He stopped pitching after July 7 of last season due to an elbow injury, cutting short one of the best pitching seasons in history.
How much the Mets could get out of deGrom and Scherzer was the key question for the 2022 Mets. DeGrom had the worrying arm. Scherzer ended last season with what he called a fatigued arm, unable to start NLCS Game 6 for the Dodgers. The Mets still signed him for $130 million over three years. Scherzer turns 37 in June, and deGrom 34. In the fantasy world, the Mets would get 60 starts from the duo and — if they did — it would be hard to imagine the team not being one of six NL playoff teams
But like the Nets this year, as games slipped off the schedule without their Big 3 getting together much, the uptrend began to fade, at least for the regular season. What are the Mets if the duo only makes 50 starts, or 45, or 40…?
Largely because rotational depth was a concern of the new division of baseball operations. It’s one reason the Mets won Chris Bassitt, who now feels he’s out of heaven. Steve Cohen is sensitive about becoming the first team with a payroll of over $300 million, so authorizing a trade now is not impossible, but difficult. It’s also not like the market is teeming with appetizers less than a week before the season opens.
So the first step is to get Scherzer into the season opener. Bassitt, Carlos Carrasco and Taijuan Walker will be the next three in order. Either Tylor Megill, David Peterson or Trevor Williams will take fifth place. The Mets liked what they saw in spring training from Jose Butto and Connor Gray and they’re hoping to continue to impress their minors for further depth.
Jacob deGrom pitches during a Mets spring training game. Corey Sipkin
But there’s just no substitute for deGrom, who is the best pitcher in the world at the right moment – even better than Scherzer, which is saying something. But not getting it right is having an impact beyond the Mets chances for deGrom this season. He can drop out after the 2022 campaign, but will he walk out the two years with $63 million left if he’s not healthy for at least the last four or so months of the season?
In addition, each missed start will further impair a Hall of Fame candidacy that would already be weighed down by under-starts, under-innings, and under-wins. Scherzer, a near shoo-in for Cooperstown, begins this season with 200 more regular-season career starts as deGrom.
This difference will now grow. There will be no dynamic Mets duo to open this season. Perhaps new signings of Scherzer and Bassitt will cover for the Mets, but with a lockout-induced spring shortened, every team braces for pitching injuries, especially early on, especially in cold weather. So the Mets’ need to avoid further rotational injuries became increasingly important.
That’s where the Mets are now. These wonderful winter dreams have just smashed into reality.