The Mets Are Taking A Huge Gamble...

The Mets are taking a huge gamble. Shawn Minaya is seemingly a lock for the rotation next year, and David Stearns wants to compete. But the veteran left-hander has shown some cracks recently, as has the young right-hander Christian Scott. And for two guys who are seemingly penciled into the rotation, this could be a rocky situation for the Mets pitching staff moving forward. What's going on, guys? I'm Josh Byrne. You're tuned into Mets Digest, guys. Thanks so much for all the recent support as we continue to grind out the daily content here at Digest Media. It really doesn't go unnoticed. And if you're part of the 68% of viewers who are watching but not subscribed, please do consider doing so if you're enjoying the daily updates. And also make sure to follow us on Twitter, TikTok, and you can also download the show anywhere you get your podcasts from. Now, yesterday, the Mets lost the second game of a three-game set against the Tampa Bay Rays. And Shawn Minaya, I'm not going to lie, he wasn't all that bad. The Mets lost 6-2, but he did end up ultimately giving up five runs. Now, three of them came in the sixth inning, and it was against a good lineup. I understand all of that. But when you look at the facts here, Shawn Minaya is the highest-paid starting pitcher on this Mets team. This is also a guy who was not trusted to begin the season in the starting rotation. These are facts. And to Minaya's credit, he has made significant progress, and a lot of hard work has been put in from his side to get back into the rotation, into the good graces of Mets management. But in terms of counting on him to be a fixture and an effective one at that in the Mets rotation for next season, it's a gamble. Because over the past month, the results just haven't been very good, okay? He put up an ERA over four in August, not off to a good start in September. And it's looked like this on baseball savant, where he's based on this, getting pretty lucky overall with his results this year. His expected ERA is near five. Hitters are getting the barrel out against him at a much higher average than most other opposing pitchers. And Shawn Minaya is a very easy guy to root for. There's no doubt about it. And I do believe that he is good enough to contribute at the Major League level. But what I don't know is if he is good enough to contribute in a starting rotation for a contender. You have to ask yourself that. Has he had a good stretch during this season where he was pitching very well? Yes. And it was encouraging to see. But that has seemingly sort of come to a halt, and things have fallen back down to earth. And we know that he's going to be on this team next year. You look at the contract situation. He's owed roughly $20 million next year. But he is simply not the guy that they signed. This is the guy that they signed. This was 2024 Shawn Minaya via baseball savant. And it's a very different story. It just is. You look at how he grades out, the chase rate, the whiff rate, batters not getting the barrel out, not hitting the ball as hard off of him as they are just two years later. And it begs the question, is Shawn Minaya a part of this future rotation for the Mets? A rotation that right now consists of Minaya, McLean, Scott, and Thornton. Now, I know Robert Stock is definitely making a case right now to contribute for 2027, but nobody expects him to actually be part of the rotation plans. And I don't know if Minaya should be either. Now, one guy we do know will be in the Mets rotation and will likely be the ace by default is Nolan McLean. And Nolan McLean has been sensational for the past two months. There's no other way to put it. He had a dicey May into parts of June, but he has really found a groove here this season and is one of the higher graded pitchers in all of the National League. Is he a finished product? Is he a perfect pitcher? No and no. But that's a good thing because he's already really darn good. And that's someone that you don't have to worry about. But unfortunately to me, there are serious questions around basically everybody else in this rotation. Even Christian Scott, who for some of this season was looking like easily the Mets second best starting pitcher. And that could still turn out to be the case. But his numbers have taken a step backwards. His ERA is now up to 4, 3.8 still respectable, but it hasn't been the same for him. You look at the past month plus for Christian Scott and compared to what he was doing earlier in the season, he has absolutely come back down to earth. One thing he always struggled with and we knew that this was a thing for him is getting deep into ballgames. To his credit, he's been doing a little bit of a better job at that, but he has struggled in those later innings, in those fifth innings, in those sixth innings. And that's the next test for him. To me, it's not a question of whether Christian Scott will be in the rotation, but it's a question of how do we define him in this rotation? Is he the Mets number three guy? Is he the number two guy? Or is he more of a back of the rotation arm? Because if he's going to perform like this over the past month, and keep in mind, he doesn't have a ton of starts to his name this season, he hasn't pitched a full season, he's at 20 starts right now. So that's a good chunk of the season that he's been struggling this past month. And if he pitches like that next year, the way he has been the past month or so, then you're not going to be in a good spot if you're counting on him to even be a number three option. Now moving on, and I don't mean to be overly negative here, but despite the quality return that the Mets have gotten from Zach Thornton, he is essentially a very similar profile to David Peterson. Left-hander, not going to blow you away, going to pitch to contact. And baseball savant suggests that he's gotten lucky as well. Now again, these aren't perfect metrics, okay? And Andy Green spoke about it, that sometimes these expected ERA, these advanced analytics, they take away some of the human element in the eye test. And I happen to agree to a certain extent. But when you saw David Peterson at his best, what happened? He came back down to earth. Not necessarily saying that will happen with Zach Thornton, but he has a profile. Again, for me, I feel like Zach Thornton has done enough to put his name solidly into the 2027 Mets rotation. Because you're going to have questions in the rotation. The question is, are the Mets getting value as good as they're going to get right now from guys like Christian Scott and Zach Thornton? Meaning, are these guys more likely to regress next year than develop? And they will develop, but are they more likely to produce better numbers? I think there's an argument to be made, definitely for Zach Thornton, that the 293 ERA that he's putting up next year, or this year, he will not repeat in 2027. And should probably be thought of more as a back of the rotation arm than what you would normally think of for a guy who is putting up an ERA that impressive. And that leaves David Stearns in a precarious situation because he needs to put together a competitor. The Mets cannot have anything close to what happened this year. There's going to be a lot of pressure on him next year. I know Steve Cohen has been extremely committed, I get the word out there, to David Stearns. But if you're going to tell me that a year from now, the Mets are sitting in a similar position in which they've been out of the playoff mix for months on end, and also at that point, another year into David Stearns' five-year contract, then I would be shocked if we were hearing the same kind of rhetoric and saw the kind of behavioral patterns from Steve Cohen that we've seen this year regarding how he's handled David Stearns amidst all of this incompetence and unsatisfactory performance from the Mets. Which leads me to argue, finally, it is imperative for the Mets to bring back Clay Holmes. There's an argument that he's going to be the best free agent starting pitcher on the market. The Mets got the Cubs' number one prospect at the deadline for Clay Holmes in Jefferson Rojas, who is looking really good. And I don't necessarily blame the Mets for trading him, but I did want them to re-sign him then just to get it over with. And now that they have traded him, now it's going to be a priority for the Mets, if they want to compete next year, to bring back Clay Holmes. Because if you thought he was good with the Mets this year, and unfortunately for him, didn't pitch as much for the Mets as he probably should have because he took the line drive off Spencer Jones in May, which put him out about a month or so. But if you thought that sample size was good, he has been even better for the Chicago Cubs. We know the Cubs have a great infield defense that probably plays some bit of a role, but it's not like he was struggling on the Mets. He pitched to a 2-3-9 ERA on the Mets and just 1-5-5 on the Cubs. He's going to be an x-factor in the postseason, and he's also about to get paid because the guy's an impending unrestricted free agent. And I know Stearns has been hesitant to sign pitchers in their early 30s to big contracts, but I think given the question marks, the Mets are going to need to make a strong move, a strong push for a guy like Clay Holmes or someone at his level. Because right now, counting on Shawn Minaya to be a fixture, and counting on Christian Scott to be a number 2 or 3, and also counting on Zach Thornton to pitch to what he's done this year, that is a major gamble. And it's not one that the Mets can afford to take if they want 2027 to not be a repeat of 2026. Let me know what you guys think in the comments down below on the Mets rotation moving forward, how they should act upon it, what your expectations are from Minaya and Christian Scott. Let me know below, and as always guys, let's go Mets!