For once, the Mets may have played a situation correctly.
There was evidence last year that Wheeler was heading down towards an MRI. The Mets front office, despite information from doctors saying that Wheeler up until last week saying Wheeler was fine, kept all of their pitching. Now with Wheeler down, the Mets have depth to absorb the blow.
If the argument was that Gee can replace Wheeler, I’m not sure if a buy it. Wheeler and Gee are supposed to be two very different types of pitchers. However, before going down due to injury last year, Gee was good. He had an ERA under 2.75 over the first 8 starts.
After Gee, the options are Syndergaard, Montero and Matz.
There is an idea permeating around the team and people who talk about the team that Syndergaard is going to be limited to 160 innings. Even if that’s true, do we want to use those in the minors? The only scenario I see that being helpful is having Syndergaard only pitch 4-5 innings in minor league outings, but I don’t think that will mentally prepare him for the bigs.
Personally, I would like the Mets to break camp with Syndergaard in the rotation. Gee is probably the wiser choice, but for a team that hasn’t taken a lot of risks, they need to find one somewhere to roll the dice. When Syndergaard reaches his pitch cap, throw Gee back into the mix, bring up Matz, have Montero start. Have a situation where Syndergaard pitches 3-4 and then another pitcher always pitches 3-4 (I’m not so into this idea).
The Mets brass has already spoken to Gee getting the spot. I think that’s a little premature. Let the rest of spring happen and see who earns it. The most likely scenario is, unfortunately, probably by May something else unpredictable will happen that will mitigate the importance of this decision right now.
