Mets clinch first NL East Title in Nine Years

By Steven Inman

It has happened. After two collapses and six seasons of just pitiful baseball, the Mets are heading back to the postseason. The club has been dominant since Sandy Alderson upgraded the club’s offense back in late July. The Nationals had a golden opportunity to put the Mets away in the first half of the season but never played consistent enough to get on any kind of win streak. Once the Mets added thump to the lineup, they zoomed past the underachieving Nationals. All the Nationals frustration boiled over on Sunday when Jonathon Papelbon attacked Bryce Harper in the Nats dugout during another difficult loss.

The return of David Wright to the New York lineup was pivotal in addition to the acquisitions the Mets made at the trade deadline but it was the Mets starting pitching that was able to give the Mets a huge advantage on most nights. Jacob deGrom and Matt Harvey were even better than expected in their first full seasons with the Mets. Veterans Jon Niese and Bartolo Colon were very up and down this season but were able to provide some solid moments for a Met club in the midst of a special season. However one of the biggest reasons the Mets have had a resurgence is the promotions of Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz.

Both former top prospects were even more polished than advertised and were key to the Mets going on their second half run. No other club had two top flight pitching prospects that were able to step into a major league rotation and contribute like this right away. Having two rookies contribute in the starting rotation the way Matz and Syndergaard have is extremely rare and should not be taken for granted.

All of these pieces had to fit together for the Mets to win their 5th division title in franchise history. They will face the Dodgers in the NLDS starting Friday October 9th.

BrokeMets will have a full scouting report on what the Mets can expect from the eventual NL West champs next week.

With Mets expanding lead, resting Harvey much simpler

By Steven Inman

By now everyone knows the saga with the Matt Harvey innings limit. It looks as if the entire situation weighed on Matt Tuesday in his worst career start against the rival Nationals. It didn’t matter to the Mets as they turned a 7-1 deficit into an 8-7 win to take the first two games of the series against the club trailing them. If the Mets can take Wednesday’s game with Jacob deGrom on the mound then they would have a seven game lead, their largest lead of the season. With that huge lead and just three games left with the Nationals, the Mets can rest Matt Harvey until the playoffs and put all this drama behind them.

At 171.2 innings pitched, Harvey is dangerously close to his 180 cap. If the club can rest him over the next month and somehow enter the 2015 postseason under the 180 mark, than Harvey can make an impact on the Mets first playoff appearance in nine seasons.

Ideally the Mets can continue to expand their lead and then pitch Harvey the final weekend of the year as a “tune up” to get him back in a rhythm for the playoffs. It doesn’t even have to be a full start maybe four or five innings. Harvey would be under 180 IP and it would be on him to decide how deep he wants to go into the playoffs. If Harvey wants to still be considered a superhero he cannot shut himself down in October, especially when the Mets have done everything in their power to keep him healthy.

The further the Mets advance into the playoffs, the harder it would be for Harvey to ditch his teammates and shut himself down. Obviously he cares about his future contract but when Stephen Strasburg (another Boras client) was shut down right before the postseason a few seasons ago, the Nationals got bounced in the first round and Stephen has been known as being “soft”. Probably not a good thing when looking for a nine figure contract.

If the Mets and Harvey can get on the same page than the Amazin’s can go into the playoffs without any distractions and with a pitching staff that can stack up with anyone.