How Mets’ rookies could force them into some big decisions

Weighted by usage, the Mets have on average the oldest group of pitchers in the majors and the second-oldest position player assemblage.

Yet they also have a counterintuitive shot to have three players vie for NL Rookie of the Year votes, though one of the candidates is 30-year-old Kodai Senga. The others are Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty, who are 21 and 23, respectively, and key pieces of the Mets’ present and future.

If it isn’t obvious yet, NL Rookie of the Year is the focus of our weekly Awards Watch. And at this point, the best any Met could hope for would be to wedge into a single spot on the ballot. The BBWAA ballot has room for three players, and currently two NL West outfielders, the Dodgers’ James Outman and the Diamondbacks’ Corbin Carroll, would likely be 1-2 or 2-1 on all 30 ballots.

What we haven’t seen develop nearly a quarter into the season is a clear-cut No. 3. So the Mets’ trio is in the running with the Cubs’ Hayden Wesneski (acquired from the Yankees for Scott Effross), the Marlins’ Huascar Brazoban and San Francisco’s Blake Sabol.

Of course, it is a long season. Lots of jockeying left. Someone such as the Cardinals’ Jordan Walker could be called up again and go off. Miami’s touted pitcher Eury Perez is due to make his major league debut Friday.

Keep in mind that different voters see the world, well, differently. Which is why even if there only may be three slots on the ballot, more than three players receive votes annually. The last time the Mets had more than one player receive NL Rookie of the Year votes was in 2014, when Jacob deGrom won and Travis d’Arnaud and Jeurys Familia finished tied for seventh. That trio was a central part of an NL champion a year later.

Senga has yet to have a signature outing. But what he does have is seven starts, which makes him the lone member of the Mets’ projected rotation who has yet to miss time due to injury or suspension. The Mets have babied Senga. He has not pitched on a standard fifth day yet, and all of his opponents to date rank in the bottom half of the majors in runs scored, including the Reds, who tallied all of their runs off the righty Thursday in a 5-0 triumph over the Mets. His degree of difficulty will clearly go up in the coming weeks and months. Will Senga rise to that challenge? Or will his current 4.14 ERA just keep rising?

Perhaps the best element for Alvarez and Baty is that they have defended well — in Alvarez’s case, particularly well. Baseball Prospectus’ pitch-framing metric had Alvarez as seventh-best in the majors. It is validation of how hard the Mets say Alvarez has worked to improve his overall catching ability and how much he cares to do so.

Offensively, Baty has ascended to the fifth spot in the lineup. Alvarez may not be far behind with a climb up of his own as his production has been steadily improving. There are holes in Alvarez’s swing to be exploited. But the power of his contact is overt.

Could there be more rookie oomph coming? Mets fans certainly have been calling for Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio. Vientos ranks third in the International League in OPS (1.114) while amassing 11 homers and a .339 batting average. Mauricio, who recently moved from shortstop to second base in hopes of finding a clearer path to the majors, is hitting .340 with six homers, seven steals and a .963 OPS.

Those are eye-opening numbers. So why aren’t they in the majors?

Vientos essentially is not viewed as a strong defender at any position. So, for now, the Mets would have to see clear DH at-bats for him. And they currently would not give Vientos the DH at-bats vs. righties over Daniel Vogelbach. They do not want to make him a part-time player as the DH only against lefty starters.

Meanwhile, Mauricio has done a strong job of cutting down his strikeouts from 24 percent at A ball in 2021 to 23.1 percent at Double-A last year to 17.6 percent this season. However, the Mets as an organization are obsessed with the underlying swing decisions — essentially whether a hitter is offering at the right or wrong pitches. At the beginning of this week, Mauricio’s chase rate outside the strike zone was 39.9 percent, the seventh-highest in the International League for any player with at least 90 plate appearances.

The Mets believe the tendency to go out of the zone would be exploited at a much higher level in the majors than in Triple-A. They still want Mauricio working on better swing decisions.

Nevertheless, the Mets are in the business of winning this year. They already made Baty the starting third baseman over Eduardo Escobar. It will be interesting to see when Omar Narvaez returns from injury what the Mets do at catcher. Alvarez is making it more difficult to send him to the minors or just make him the backup.

Is it possible that even at full strength — with Nido, Narvaez and Alvarez — the Mets have Alvarez catch 2-3 times a week and DH otherwise, especially against lefty pitching. Or do they just waive Nido because the offense is too unacceptable?

And how long is the leash for Mark Canha in left? At some point do the Mets decide that whatever the dropoff is on defense, they will live with Vientos in left? Or do they move Jeff McNeil to left and have Mauricio become the regular second baseman? Or do they use Mauricio and/or Vientos to try to problem-solve in the trade market? GM Billy Eppler had lieutenant Carlos Beltran drop in on Triple-A recently to gauge how ready the youngsters are. The Mets are struggling and could want to shake things up.

There are more rookie decisions to come.

Whose career do you got? It has become our recent tradition to play “Whose career do you got?” But I will change it for this week to: “Whose future do you want?”

Because there I was watching baseball Tuesday night with both David Peterson and Clarke Schmidt starting as fill-ins, and I remembered that those pitchers were taken four picks apart in the 2017 first round.

It was a somewhat rare occurrence in the past three decades that the Yankees (16th) picked ahead of the Mets (20th), though that year marked the third straight time it happened.

In 2016, the Yankees selected Blake Rutherford 16th overall, and the Mets followed at 17th with Justin Dunn. Both became parts of significant trades: Rutherford was in the 2017 trade-deadline package to the White Sox that netted Todd Frazier, Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson, and Dunn was part of the package (notably with Jarred Kelenic) that went to Seattle after the 2018 season for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz.

In 2015, the Mets did not have a first-round pick because they signed Michael Cuddyer as a free agent. The Yankees took James Kaprielian 16th overall.

The previous time the Yankees picked before the Mets was 2009. Both lost first-round picks that year for signing free agents — both to the Angels. The Mets signed Francisco Rodriguez, and with the 24th pick, the Angels took Randal Grichuk. The Yankees signed Mark Teixeira, and with the 25th pick, the Angels took … Mike Trout. The Yankees still had the 29th overall selection, and took Slade Heathcott.

For those keeping score at home, this July will mark the first time the Yankees will draft (26th) before the Mets (32nd) since the Schmidt-Peterson year. The Mets had their first pick moved down 10 spots by rule after exceeding the luxury tax threshold by more than $40 million.

So back to that 2017 first round, which was, well, not very good. The best player taken, to date, Drew Rasmussen at No. 31 by the Rays, was the only one of 36 first-rounders not to sign that year. He instead went back into the draft to be taken by the Brewers the following year — in the sixth round. And his career did not really begin to uptick until he was traded during the 2021 season to … the Rays, of course.

The two most projectable players from that first round — Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene and Washington’s MacKenzie Gore (who was drafted by San Diego) — have had their progress deterred by injury. Both are having strong seasons in 2023.

That is not true of Peterson and Schmidt.

Peterson had a positive season last year, mainly as a starter, going 7-5 with a 3.83 ERA, overcoming wildness by limiting power. Peterson yielded 11 homers in 105 ⅔ innings in 2022. But he already has given up eight in 34 innings this season in going 1-5 with a 7.68 ERA. And five of those are lefty-on-lefty homers — two more than any other southpaw this year. Peterson was the presumptive sixth starter to begin the year, and was needed with injuries to Jose Quintana and Justin Verlander. But he has pitched himself to the eighth starter behind Tylor Megill and Joey Lucchesi.

For his career, Peterson is 16-18 with a 4.71 ERA in 60 games (50 starts) over 256 innings. Schmidt is 6-9 with a 4.26 ERA in 42 games (13 starts) over 105 ⅔  innings (all stats are regular-season only).

Their numbers this year are similar:

Among pitchers who have made at least seven starts this year, only Kansas City’s Brady Singer and Detroit’s Spencer Turnbull had a worse Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference) than Peterson’s -0.7. Schmidt was eighth at -0.4.

Schmidt, though, might be trending positively. He has just put together his best two starts of the year — two runs (none earned) in 4 ⅔ innings vs. Cleveland and six innings and two runs vs. Oakland. Competition, of course, matters: The Guardians were averaging the second-fewest runs per game in the majors and the A’s the fourth-fewest.

But the Yankees have three starters out (Frankie Montas, Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino). Severino is the closest to returning, and when he does, rookie Jhony Brito is most likely to be sent down. Schmidt is going to get more rope to see whether he can master a cutter to help against lefties.

Even in the past two promising starts, lefties were 7-for-21 (.333) against Schmidt with four walks. Among pitchers who have accumulated at least 75 plate appearances against lefties, Schmidt’s .378 batting average against and .689 opponents’ slugging were the worst and his .446 opponents’ on-base percentage the second-worst.

Jose Trevino was a guest on “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman,” and I asked whether Schmidt was a starting pitcher. Trevino said Schmidt will “have a very important role for us” whether it is as a starter or in relief. That leaves me wondering whether Schmidt is Chad Green. The Yankees tried to make Green a starter early in his career. Like Schmidt, his strikeout-to-walk ratio was very good, but he was beat up by the long ball and lefty hitters. He was switched to the bullpen, where he became an above-average contributor.

Will that be Schmidt’s ultimate path? Will Peterson have to become a reliever, too? Can either stay in the rotation? Can either become useful or better relievers?

Whose future do you want?

Got my attention: When Deivi Garcia came into Wednesday’s game to pitch three innings (and actually get a save in an 11-3 Yankees victory), I noticed that he was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2015, as was the starter that day, Brito.

Born in February 1998, Brito is actually older than Garcia, who was born in May 1999. But it feels as if Garcia’s moment with the Yankees already has come and gone. In 2020, he was actually drawing comparisons to Pedro Martinez. Then he lost his control, his confidence and his role as a starter.

Garcia did not even appear in the majors in 2022. And the only reason Garcia was up on Wednesday — for one day, one game and then sent back down — is because he is on the 40-man roster and the Yankees had a pitching shortage. They needed an arm, pretty much any arm. Garcia was walking 17 percent of the batters he faced at Triple-A.

The Yankees keep saying that Garcia is taking to the relief role. But that feels like positive spin as opposed to reality.

Roster stuff maybe only I notice: With the retirement of Albert Pujols, there are no longer any players drafted in the 1990s (Pujols was selected in the seventh round in 1999) active in the majors.

When Pujols’ now-former Cardinals teammate Adam Wainwright made his 2023 debut last Saturday, it meant there was a player from the 2000 draft back in the majors. There were two last year, but like Pujols, another legendary Cardinal, Yadier Molina, retired.

Wainwright was the 29th overall pick in 2000. If you want a flavor for how long ago that was, Rocco Baldelli, who is in his fifth season managing the Twins, was the sixth overall pick, and Chase Utley, who is eligible this coming offseason for the Hall of Fame, was the 15th pick.

For the second straight year, there is no one from the 2001 draft in the majors. The last players from that draft who played in the majors were catchers Jeff Mathis and Rene Rivera in 2021. There are four players currently left from the 2002 draft: Zack Greinke, Charlie Morton, Rich Hill and Jesse Chavez. And there is no one from the 2003 draft, which was represented in the majors last year by the Yankees’ ninth-round pick that year — Tyler Clippard.

Last licks: I wrote a column for our Thursday paper about how vital it is that the Yankees do what they did this week by sweeping the A’s. Because the AL East is so strong and because there is a return to a balanced schedule this year with fewer games within the division, it is going to be vital to beat up weak competition to inflate win totals to get into the playoffs.

Consider that Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Reference and Fangraphs through Wednesday projected all five AL East teams to finish with winning records — Fangraphs had the most upside, with the Orioles and Red Sox tying for last place at 85 wins. Obviously, only one team can win the division, but four AL East teams can make the playoffs, and there seems a pretty decent chance that at least three will.

So, you don’t want to leave any wins on the table. The fourth- and fifth-place finishers in the AL East might be close to the fourth- and fifth-best teams in the league, yet due to location, location, location, not gain playoff entry.

I came up with a Sickly Six that comprise a seventh division that every team in this balanced schedule will play and must overwhelm: the A’s, Royals, Rockies, Nationals, Reds and White Sox.

Through Thursday, two teams had played the most games (19) against those clubs: the Pirates and Rays. If you are wondering why the Pirates are off to a surprising start and the Rays a historic one, schedule is one place to look. Pittsburgh is 13-6 against the Sickly Six. The Rays are 17-2.

Now, keep in mind this is just the way the schedule played out early. Every team in the NL Central will ultimately play the Sickly Six with the frequency the Pirates have, just as every AL East club will get their shot as the Rays did. But, for example, if you were looking for a reason to believe the Red Sox’s strong first quarter of the season is not a fluke, you can note that they have played zero games against the Sickly Six. They are going to get 25 games against those weaklings. Perhaps it will be even better to see those foes later in the season, when attrition sets in for organizations that probably do not have the depth or the quality of prospects to make these bad rosters better and/or the trade deadline removes some of the little veteran quality they do have. After sweeping the A’s, the Yankees have 24 games left against the Sickly Six, including three in Kansas City to end the season. Beating Oakland — not just winning a series, but perhaps sweeping them — is imperative for contenders. It is like they put their nickname within A’trociou’s. Oakland is 3-3 in intra-Sickly Six games (2-1 vs. Kansas City, 1-2 vs. Cincinnati). Which means the A’s are 5-28 otherwise. The A’s have a minus-146 run differential through 39 games. They have allowed at least seven runs in more than half their games.

The AL East is a collective 9-1 against Oakland (the lone loss was by Baltimore). The Orioles only outscored the A’s, 29-24. The Yankees 28-10. The Rays 31-5.

And, of course, more than the AL East needs to feast on the least.

The Mets did sweep the A’s, too, but were a combined 6-6 vs. the Sickly Six after losing series to the Nationals, Rockies and Reds. The Braves are 8-1. The Phillies are 9-5. Do you believe in the Marlins? I don’t because their minus-54 run differential is the worst in the NL. Their 19-19 record is beholden to setting the record for most consecutive one-run wins (they are 12-0 this year) — and one-run victories are generally fickle as opposed to revelatory.

I think there is a better chance ultimately that the Marlins join the Sickly Six than contend. But they are .500 and have yet to play a game against the Sickly Six. That begins this weekend when their top prospect, starter Eury Perez, makes his major league debut Friday night to open a six-game homestand against the Reds and Nationals.

The Braves have with the biggest division lead (6 ½ games) in baseball. But they also know now they are likely without NL Cy Young runner-up Max Fried (forearm) and the majors’ lone 20-game winner in 2022, Kyle Wright (shoulder), for about two months. That duo led Atlanta in innings and wins last year as the Braves won the NL East for a fifth straight time.

The Braves will have to show now familiar ingenuity and fortitude to ensure the loss of two standout starters — while also continuing to boost their record when the Sickly Six shows up on their schedule.