Last year the Mets saw Zack Wheeler turn a corner and become that top tier pitcher they always thought they could be. The hope is the same thing happens to Steven Matz this year. The Mets already have one of the best 1-3 rotations in baseball and a slightly improved Matz would elevate them to one of the best 1-4’s in baseball.
2018: 154 IP, 3.97 ERA, 4.62 FIP, 1.247 WHIP, 8.9 K/9, 1.5 WAR, 3.62 DRA
Career: 3.98 ERA, 4.18 FIP, 1.281 WHIP, 8.4 K/9, 3.94 DRA
Last year was a solid year for Matz. There were times where it felt like he was pitching worse than he was (FIP shows that) but compared to over pitchers (DRA) he had a successful year. What do computers think he’ll do this year?
(Citations: Baseball Prospectus (BP) projections are from the Baseball Prospectus annual which can you can get here. It’s highly recommended. ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )
With two exceptions, most projections have Steven Matz slightly worse in ERA, better in FIP abut the same in WHIP so he’ll be the same player in 2019 that he was in 2018. THere are two exceptions. Baseball Reference is quite down on Matz for the upcoming year. Baseball Prospectus, who is usually the most conservative, is quite up on Matz this year. 3.74 ERA / 1.18 WHIP would be a significant improvement.
What’s going to happen? We’ll find out in a little over a week!
