NL East rivalry built on arms
Nationals, Mets expect to vie for bragging rights in division for years
It isn’t a full-blown rivalry, but then again it was only last year that the New York Mets weren’t expected to provide more than token resistance to the Washington Nationals.
We know how that ended: Buoyed by a powerful young rotation, a July trade for a power hitter and a transcendent postseason from a homegrown second baseman, the Mets startled the National League from 2015’s opening day through October, outclassing the Nationals, winning the division and capturing the league pennant.
The team expected to dominate 2015 and the one that actually did meet Tuesday for the first time since their fortunes flipped — and a look at each team reveals two clubs well-equipped to dominate into the next decade.
The catch is they’ll have to go through each other to do so.
“It will be interesting for years to come to compete against them,” Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo says.
Tuesday’s game, the first of 19 between the teams this season, neatly sums up why. Starting for the Nationals: Max Scherzer, who struck out a record-tying 20 batters in his last start and who in his last game at Citi Field in New York threw a no-hitter against the Mets.
Countering for New York: Noah Syndergaard, the 23-year-old who features the hardest fastball (97.9 mph) and slider (91.4 mph) among major league starters, according to Fangraphs, and who has struck out 55 batters in 461⁄ innings this season.
Batting cleanup for the Nationals: Daniel Murphy, whose record-breaking six consecutive postseason games with a homer powered the Mets to the NL pennant weeks before he signed a three-year, $37.5 million contract with Washington.
Murphy provides tabloid fodder, as homegrown stars returning to New York often do. He expressed concern for the reception — “I’ll have a better idea after I get it,” he said Sunday — though the Nationals are ready to defend their new teammate, already popular for reasons beyond his .400 average and five home runs.
“He deserves to get a standing ovation,” first baseman Ryan Zimmerman says. “He basically carried them to the World Series. Fans will probably boo or do something because he should have stayed there, even though I don’t think they really offered him a contract.”
Adds shortstop Danny Espinosa, “I think he deserves a hell of an applause. He played almost seven years there and did a great job all that time.”
The matchup’s long-lasting ramifications go far beyond Murphy’s reception or New York fans compelled to cast reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper in the role of villain.
Rather, it’s a foundation of pitching, acquired through various means, that both teams will boast for years.
Much has been made of the Mets’ young power quartet: Syndergaard, 2014 rookie of the year Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Steven Matz are between 23 and 28 this season and have combined for 75 major league wins, even though none has pitched even three full seasons.
Though Harvey has been hit hard in some starts and Matz missed his start Saturday because of elbow soreness, the Mets have a 3.34 rotation ERA to rank fourth in the NL, the same as last year’s group that finished with a 3.44 mark.
Perhaps most impressively, the quartet — 42-year-old Bartolo Colon rounds out the rotation — leads the NL in strikeoutto-walk ratio, its 4.18 mark edging the Nationals’ 4.15.
“They’re not just out there pitching with 97 (mph) and just trying to throw the ball by you,” Scherzer says. “They have 97, but they also have breaking pitches off of that — sliders, curveballs and changeups, all of them. It’s unique to see that many pitchers all have that type of arsenal, all pitching at the same time, all being relatively young.
“It’s difficult, as a young player, to be that polished. All those guys are that polished.”
The Mets drafted Harvey, deGrom and Matz and traded for Syndergaard in the early stages of rebuilding.
The Nationals group is a confluence of fortuitous draft timing (2008 No. 1 pick Stephen Strasburg), deft trades (Joe Ross and Gio Gonzalez) and financial might (Scherzer, whose signing for $210 million made them prohibitive 2015 favorites).
Washington’s big bucks struck another key blow when the club unexpectedly signed Strasburg — eligible for free agency at season’s end — to a seven-year, $175 million extension. While Strasburg can opt out of his deal after 2019 or 2020, his signing buys the Nationals rotation certainty even the young Mets lack.
They have Scherzer under contract through 2021, Strasburg potentially through 2023. Ross, emerging as a dependable No. 3 starter, is under club control through 2021. Gonzalez (2018) and Tanner Roark (2019) can walk before then, but Rizzo has consensus top-10 prospect Lucas Giolito lurking in the minors, as well as Austin Voth and Reynaldo Lopez, each striking out a batter per inning at Class AAA and AA, respectively.
Rizzo observed the Mets’ methodical stockpiling and saw a nemesis looming, even though his club was doing much of the same.
“That is how long-term contenders are built. They are not going to be one-anddone,” Rizzo says of the Mets. “We have a good rotation, too, a good feeder system that brings up good power arms.
“We like the fact that we know, more or less, what our rotation’s going to look like down the road.”
Indeed, the Mets might face attrition before Washington, as Harvey is eligible for free agency after 2018 and deGrom after 2020.
But those are issues for another year. Tuesday in Queens, N.Y., Scherzer and Syndergaard will light up radar guns and punch out hitters. And two teams well aware of each other’s capabilities finally will engage, Washington atop the NL East at 23-15, the Mets 1½ games back along with the surprising Philadelphia Phillies.
“Absolutely we’re going to be excited to toe it up against one of the best teams in baseball. We believe we’re one of the best teams as well,” Mets outfielder Michael Conforto told ESPN on Sunday. “It’s going to be a great matchup.”
That probably goes for the foreseeable future.
“We have a very healthy respect for the ballclub,” Rizzo says. “They’re at the top of the mountain now. Our job is to knock them off the mountain.”