PORT ST. LUCIE — It’s telling of how precipitously the Mets starting rotation plummeted last year that if the team reached the postseason, three rookies with a combined 17 major league appearances would have been scheduled to start in the wild-card round.
Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong were those pitchers.
The Mets dropped their season finale in Miami, rendering the point moot after losing a tiebreaker to the Reds in the race for the NL’s third and final wild card.
It left president of baseball operations David Stearns to also focus on the rotation as he was overhauling the lineup this winter.
Mission may have been accomplished with the January trade that brought Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers from the Brewers for Sproat and Jett Williams.
In Peralta, the Mets appear to finally have the true ace they lacked as their season was spiraling last August and September.
Peralta, 29, pitched to a 2.70 ERA in 33 starts for the Brewers last season, in which he logged 176 ²/₃ innings.
Twice an All-Star, he finished fifth in last year’s National League Cy Young Award voting.
But was Peralta’s addition alone enough to transform a rotation that cratered down the stretch last season?
Kodai Senga struggled enough that he agreed to accept a minor league assignment in early September and finished his season with Triple-A Syracuse.
Sean Manaea strained an oblique in spring training and didn’t pitch for the Mets until July, and then hardly resembled the dominant force he was a year earlier.
The left-hander pitched to a 5.64 ERA in 15 appearances, raising questions about the decision to give him a three-year contract worth $75 million before last season.
And then there was David Peterson, selected to the NL All-Star team before pitching to a 6.34 ERA over 12 starts in the second half.
As pitchers and catchers report this week for spring training, there might not be a larger question surrounding the team than whether the Mets have fixed their fatal flaw.
“We like our rotation,” Stearns said. “I think adding Freddy as somewhat of a stabilizing force to help lead our rotation probably gives a little bit of space to some of our younger pitchers and keeps the opportunity to get real bounce-back seasons from guys like Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga — who we are still going to rely upon and still believe are going to give us some real quality innings this year — so we like where our rotation is. I think it’s got a nice combination of youth and established major league veterans.”
There is McLean, who dazzled in his eight starts — all the while maintaining his rookie status as he pitched to a 2.06 ERA over 48 innings.
Sproat’s subtraction perhaps can be offset by Christian Scott’s return from Tommy John surgery, and Tong (who like Scott figures to begin the season at Triple-A Syracuse) completes the talented young trifecta.
Clay Holmes was the one veteran starter on whom the Mets could rely in last season’s second half.
In his transition from reliever to starter, the right-hander pitched to a 3.53 ERA over a career-high 165 ²/₃ innings.
For insurance, the Mets acquired the swingman Myers, who started six games for the Brewers last season.
Peralta alone might be enough to change perceptions, but can he change results?
That will likely depend on the other “aces” in house.
“We have got multiple starters in our rotation who at various points in their career have pitched as a No. 1 starter and certainly Freddy qualifies as that,” Stearns said. “We saw Nolan flash potential as a No. 1 starter last year. We have seen Sean Manaea pitch as an ace. Before I got here Kodai Senga pitched as an ace. We have multiple pitchers in our rotation right now that have pitched as an ace, and I would certainly put Freddy in that category.”