The SNY GUYS

Hernandez, Darling & Cohen

Post columnist Steve Serby went around the horn with SNY’s award-winning Mets broadcast team — Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen — to catch their opinions about the 2017 Mets. Q: Who wins 20 games this year? Darling: None of them are going to win 20. You know how perfect you have to be to make only 30 starts and win 20 games, going only seven innings? Three of the four, though, are gonna win 15-plus.

Cohen: [Noah] Syndergaard would be the first choice, and [Jacob] deGrom would be 1-A. Q: Expectations for Matt Harvey? Darling: I think he’s gonna have a real strong year. I wouldn’t be surprised if his second half of the year is stronger than his first half of the year. But I think he’s gonna have an extremely strong year. Syndergaard is going to have a re-establish-howgood-he-is year. DeGrom’s gonna have an incredible bounce-back year, and Harvey’s gonna have a put-himself-back-on-the-map kinda year.

Hernandez: I don’t think he needs to be the Dark Knight. I just think he needs to be Matt Harvey. I’m just more concerned about him getting all caught up in velocity. He’s had something that he’s gonna have to be very patient with, and it’s surgery. I’m just worried he’s gonna get all wrapped up in that radar gun and blow it out again. I personally don’t want to see the Dark Knight. I want to just see Matt Harvey on the mound and winning 12-15 games. Q: How is Syndergaard going to handle being the ace? Darling: I don’t think he even thinks of that. He’s a rare bird. He has a chance to be [Clayton] Kershaw-like. I’m not talking about the numbers on the field — that’s too much pressure to put on any young pitcher — but Kershaw-like in the way that he takes care of every fifth day. He’s more prepared.

Q: deGrom? Hernandez: I think he’s the most polished pitcher on the staff. Darling: He’s a personal favorite of mine because he’s an athlete first and a pitcher second. On any given day, if he has less than A material, he knows how to compete just like an everyday player would compete. What they do in football all the time, they talk about a quarterback who has a linebacker mentality. Well, that’s deGrom. He pushes through tough spots as well as anyone I’ve seen.

Cohen: I think he’s throwing free and easy more than he has in a couple of years. He’s like a greyhound when I watch him. He’s got this whippet quality to him that you don’t see from most pitchers. He looks more like an athlete from another sport. And he’s got such fearlessness on the mound.

Q: Robert Gsellman?

Darling: Athlete. No fear. Confidence through the roof. Those are the kinda guys you want out there when the s--t hits the fan. And also, in this day and age, where pitch counts are so important, he’s a guy that pitches to contact, wants the ball put in play, and you wouldn’t be surprised if over seven innings he had 80 pitches.

Hernandez: He’s got guts. He’s not afraid out there. And I like him very much.

Cohen: He’s a tremendous athlete, he was a great basketball player in high school, so he has that working for him. His sinker is terrific, and he pitches to contact.

Q: How much of a concern is Travis d’Arnaud’s throwing? Darling: There’s about a half-dozen elite arms in the game behind the plate. There’s four or five things that mechanical-wise you’ve gotta do to get rid of the ball quickly. I don’t think he’s there yet. But having a catching coach in [Glenn] Sherlock should help in that development. Travis d’Arnaud is on the team for one reason: That is to hit .280, have 40 doubles and drive in 75 runs.

Cohen: The greater thing withith d’Arnaud is his bat. If he hits the way he is supposed to hit, and the way we thought he would hit when he first came up, you live with his throwing. I mean, people knocked Mike Piazza’s throwing too — never comparing Travis to Piazza — but if he gives you enough offense, then the other stuff becomes less important. The other piece with Travis, he has to prove he can stay healthy through a whole season. He hasn’t done that yet. Q: Jose Reyes at third base? Darling: When you don’t see a talented guy like Jose for a while, you forget. He’s a tremendous baseball athlete. His defense at third base has been remarkable, but that being said, his job on this team in front of a lot of thumpers is to get on base.

Hernandez: I’m not worried in the least. He is a plus defensively at third base. Q: What would you do about Michael Conforto? Hernandez: Conforto needs to play every day at some point. The sooner the better. This is no slap at Jay Bruce. Q: What is it you like about Conforto? Hernandez: I like his swing. I like his eye at the plate, even though he got away from that last year. I like everything about him at the plate. He needs to play. Q: Jay Bruce? Darling: I’m a Jay Bruce fan. He’s always produced the numbers year in and

year out. Some players, when they’re paid for hire toward the end of the season, that’s a lot of pressure to put on guys. Guys try to do too much, and I think that’s what Jay ddid. The Mets want a slugger that hits 30 home runs, drives in 90-100, and Jay Bruce does that every year.

Hernandez: Last year was a very unsettling year for him. I know. I’ve been traded midseason. It’s not easy. And I was traded to a last-place team. He’s traded to a team that was contending. I think that Jay will feel more comfortable starting the year, and he’ll be just fine. Q: Why are Yoenis Cespedes and New York a perfect match?

Hernandez: Some guys don’t like New York, don’t thrive in New York. This is where he’s happy, and hey, when you’re happy in the workplace, it shows up in your performance. If we lost him, that was gonna be a hole that wasn’t gonna be able to be filled. [Darryl Strawberry] has more power. Cespedes is a better hitter.

Darling: Very few athletes in this town stick out. Very few people are in baseball, especially the kind of guy that you don’t go to the restroom, you don’t go to Shake Shack. You’re sitting, watching this guy when he comes up because you know big things are gonna happen. Throughout the ballpark, and you don’t go to a lot of games, your eyes go straight to him. He just has that star power. And he’s right at the right time. He wants the attention, deserves the attention, and plays for the attention. The Mets haven’t had a player like him since Piazza, I guess, and Strawberry before him.

Cohen: I think he’s poised for a monstrous year. Q: David Wright? Darling: Whatever you get you just kind of enjoy. That’s what you are with David Wright now. It’s kind of a shame that as the team has gotten so good, that he wouldn’t be a bigger part of it. Q: Does this team have any glaring weakness? Hernandez: I don’t think it’s a glaring weakness. I have my concerns with the bullpen. ... The back end’s fine. I’m talking about the middle. Q: Is this team a World Series team? Darling: Absolute playoff team.