By now anyone who watches baseball on TV knows Ron Darling is a straight shooter who detests hype only slightly less than he does the MLB replay system. So when the SNY analyst predicts nothing short of a spectacular bounce-back season from the Mets’ starting rotation, you take notice.
“I really expect a magical year out of those guys,” Darling said by phone on Friday. “We haven’t seen the full effect of five studs going out there every fifth day and doing their thing.
“I really think they’re going to give you a show like you haven’t seen in quite some time. I would be completely shocked if they didn’t.”
Having known Darling since his playing days, I thought his outlook would be considerably more cautious. But I think his own experience in coming back from injuries is telling him that all of Mets’ starters are young and talented enough to overcome their various injuries last season.
In the case of Jacob deGrom, in fact, Darling said he had a similar procedure done, doctors moving a nerve in his elbow, in November one year and was ready to start the next season without any issues. DeGrom, remember, had his surgery in September.
Mostly it’s about the supreme talent and the desire to be great that Darling says he has seen from deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler.
But there may also be a bit of a parallel taking shape between the current rotation and that of Darling’s in the 1980s. Somewhat like this group, the young 1987 starters suffered a bit of a World Series hangover from pitching career highs in innings in ’86, as Darling, Doc Gooden, Bob Ojeda, and Sid Fernandez all pitched to higher ERAs and/or dealt with injuries.
The next year, however, each of them rebounded to pitch more like their ’86 championship selves, fueling a 100-win season in ’88 that was derailed in stunning fashion by the Dodgers in the NLCS.
Of course, the emergence of a dominant David Cone that year was a major factor as well, but, in any case, Darling doesn’t discount the similarity between the two rotations. Nor does he undersell the excellence of his old staff; it’s just that he sees the same eye-popping potential in the current group that took the Mets to the World Series in 2015.
“You’re talking about guys whose stuff is among the very best in all of baseball,” Darling said. “I think you could see historical numbers, in terms of strikeouts and walks — or at least the ratio.
“You might have four guys with ERAs under 2.25. It’s easily possible.”
That would be historic, to be sure. And mind-boggling as well.
After all, aside from deGrom’s surgery to move a nerve, Harvey is coming back from surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, in which a rib was removed to increase blood flow to the arm; Matz had surgery to remove a bone chip in his elbow; and Wheeler has missed two full seasons due to Tommy John surgery.
With that in mind, Darling isn’t pretending the injuries can be ignored. For all of his optimism, he thinks it will be important to exercise caution in spring training, and perhaps beyond, especially in Wheeler’s case.
In fact, rather than limit his innings by using him as a reliever early in the season, which the Mets are considering, Darling suggests making him strictly a five-inning pitcher for perhaps half a season, planning on piggy-backing someone like Robert Gsellman or Seth Lugo in those starts to get to the late innings.
Having come back from arm injuries, Darling thinks it’s most important for Terry Collins and Dan Warthen to insist the starters ease their way through spring training, banning radar guns from the Port St. Lucie facility if possible in order to keep pitchers from worrying about their velocity.
Darling remembers throwing maybe 75% of maximum velocity in spring training, especially coming back from injury, and nobody cared or noticed because fans and media didn’t see radar-run readings.
“And we’d go pitch in the 10 o’clock (“B”) game to protect our arms, where nobody saw you pitch,” Darling said. “Now everybody’s always talking about velocity and it’s harder to go out there and throw a controlled 75-to-80%.
“But I really think that’s going to be the biggest issue. Be smart and ease into the season. Even for Syndergaard, who pushed it hard last year.
“I would consider spring training must-not-watch TV. I’m sure SNY will appreciate me saying that, but the point is, I think this will be the most important spring training for young arms that I’ve ever seen. How they’re handled will be very important.”
And then if they’re ready come April, well, one thing I know about Darling’s prediction for historic greatness: he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t believe it.
Mel Stottlemyre, has been battling cancer since 1999, had a recent scare over the holidays.
(Ken Goldfield)
MEL IS HOME
Mel Stottlemyre spent Christmas in a Seattle-area hospital, giving everyone a scare as he had a bad reaction to his chemotherapy medicine, but he’s home now and “getting closer to being back to normal,” his wife, Jean, told me Friday.
Stottlemyre’s five-day hospital stay brought much reaction from Yankee fans, after his son, Todd, wrote on Facebook that his dad was “fighting for his life.”
Jean says she was always hopeful because his illness wasn’t a sign that Stottlemyre’s cancer was worsening.
“It wasn’t the cancer that put him in the hospital,” she said. “It was the reaction to his medicine. But everyone was worried about an infection, which would have been bad.
“They gave him antibiotics and tons of fluid because they were having a hard time keeping his blood pressure up. At one point it was 58 over 35. It got scary. But he’s home and he’s improved a lot, especially the last couple of days.”
Stottlemyre, 75, the former Yankee ace, as well as pitching coach for the Mets in the 1980s and the Joe Torre-era Yankees, has outlived all medical projections since being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a deadly blood cancer, in 2000.
A stem-cell transplant helped put the cancer in remission as he coached through the 2005 season. The cancer returned in 2011 and Stottlemyre has been getting treatment of some form since then.
RUN STOPPING
If you’re looking for reasons why the Mets are having such trouble trading Jay Bruce, aside from the glut of free-agent sluggers still on the market, it’s at least partly because many GMs value run-prevention more than ever.
Consider what the Mariners did on Friday.
They traded Seth Smith, a lefthanded-hitting outfielder with some power, to the Orioles for Yovani Gallardo, allowing them to then deal pitcher Nate Karns to the Royals for speedy outfielder Jarrod Dyson.
As a result, the Mariners are expected to play Dyson in left field, Leonys Martin in center, and Mitch Haniger in right, with ex-Yankee prospect Ben Gamel and Guillermo Heredia as backups.
Very little power but plenty of speed and defense.
“We now feel we have five legitimate center fielders,” Mariners’ GM Jerry DiPoto said Friday.
The M’s think they can win with such a light-hitting outfield largely because DH Nelson Cruz, 2B Robbie Cano and 3B Kyle Seager combined for 112 home runs last season.
HIGH BAR FOR GLEYBER
The raves keep coming for Gleyber Torres, the Yankees’ shortstop prospect who earned MVP honors in the Arizona Fall League.
MLBPipeline.com recently polled 20 major-league GMs and scouting executives, asking their opinion on the top minor-league prospect in baseball going into the 2017 season.
Torres got two votes, no small feat for a player who hasn’t played above Class A in the minors yet. Especially considering that the other three vote-getters have all played in the big leagues already.
In fact, Andrew Benintendi and Dansby Swanson barely maintained their rookie status after playing big chunks of the season with the Red Sox and Braves, respectively. But that qualified them for the poll.
Benintendi got the most votes, with 10; Yoan Moncada, traded from the Red Sox for Chris Sale in December, was second with five votes, and Swanson got three votes.
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Source: NY Daily News Headlines Sports News
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