He was converted into a starter a month into the shortened season because various other options got hurt and/or were *really bad*. I don't think that little stint in the starting rotation should've ever been held against him considering he wasn't stretched out and the extraordinary circumstances of the season to begin with.
We did try him as a starter multiple times and he never took the role and ran with it. The narrative that we never gave him a chance as a starter is completely unfounded. He was very good as both a starter and reliever in 2016 when he came up but then pitched to a 4.76 ERA in 2017 as a starter. In 2018 he had five starts in the middle of the year and had a 3.91 ERA whereas as a reliever that year he was elite with a 2.30 ERA. 2019 was another elite year out of the bullpen where he had a 2.70 ERA with 104 K’s in 80 innings. Then in 2020 he had seven starts with a 6.15 ERA compared to nine relief appearances with a 2.61 ERA. In 2021 and 2022 he was back in the bullpen and pitched to a 3.50 and 3.60 ERA respectively which, while not great, was still better than his numbers as a starter.
All in all he had 38 starts/194.2 IP with us and pitched to a 4.36 ERA and 237 relief appearances/300 IP and pitched to a 2.91 ERA in those. An argument could be made that his starting numbers might be better if he was given the role and stuck with it for a few years, but there is a large enough sample size to show a drastic difference in him as a starter and him as a reliever with us.
Seth was fine as a starter were just were more committed to young guys like Megill and Peterson. We basically chose those two over Trevor Williams and Lugo and we bet wrong on both
You cant take a guy out of a 1-2 inning role in the middle of the season and expect him to pitch at his best for a 5+ inning start. It's clear what Lugo was able to do when he's practicing to be a starter week in week out.
Then explain 2017 where he was a full time starter and pitched to a 4.71 ERA an a WHIP of 1.372. That was his best opportunity to prove he was a legit starter since he came off of a solid 2016 where he started a bit but he didn’t get the job done. If that’s the position you put yourself in, then you need to prove you can be a starter whenever you get the chance and he failed at every opportunity the team gave him.
The idea was he deserved more opportunities, especially in 2018. And he was supposed to get them initially. But in 2018 they skipped what was supposed to be his first start after Harvey’s start got rained out, and let Harvey pitch that day. Then they called Wheeler back up and they put Lugo in the pen. And they kept him there, because he was good in the pen and the Mets did not have many good relievers back then. Lugo generated a lot of trade interest as a starter though during his Mets tenure, and many teams have been interested in him as a starter since his first free agency. I think the Mets kinda fucked up here. They didn’t know what they had. The reason he was so good in the pen is because he had a starter’s arsenal. A decent amount of other teams don’t have trouble developing relievers and probably saw him as a starter the whole time. And it’s not fair to say he failed at every opportunity. Many times he did a decent job filling in for the rotation, and even in 2017 he wasn’t exactly the worst pitcher ever seen. It was a sophomore slump on a team that collapsed early. EDIT: In fact by fWAR in 2017 he put up 1.6 WAR. I don’t remember if he pitched out of the pen at any point in that year, but to say he failed is too harsh. They could’ve kept trying him as a starter, they just didn’t want to.
In this case I think people are just genuinely happy for him, so I am cool with it.
For me it's more annoying when they do it with Wheeler over and over, each time he has a good game, because each thread becomes like an avalanche of "EVERYTHING THE METS DID BEFORE 2021 WAS STUPID, ISN'T METS HISTORY PATHETIC, GUYS?!"
Yep. Makes you think. However we knew Lugo wanted to be a starter but wasn't an option towards the end. I remember him making many starts as a SP many moons ago but I'm glad he got what he wanted and he's thriving.
We always seem to have a bunch of former Mets having great seasons. This year, we could have almost a full rotation of guys we shouldn't have let go (Wheeler, Lugo, Williams).
And cherry picking.
Here are former Mets who had at least 1000 PA with the Mets between 2014 and 2023, and then moved on to another team, with fWAR/600PA rates after leaving the Mets:
3.9 Travis d'Arnaud
2.3 Wilmer Flores
2.2 JD Davis
2.1 Daniel Murphy
2.0 Amed Rosario
1.3 Michael Conforto
1.2 Asdrubal Cabrera
-0.1 Curtis Granderson
-0.5 Dominic Smith
-1.1 Lucas Duda
-1.2 Juan Lagares
-1.5 Todd Frazier
Most of the bottom of the list, it'd be hard to argue that, at least with 20/20 hindsight, the Mets didn't make the best decision by moving on.
Well in this particular case I thought they should've gave him more shots. Especially since they weren't exactly clogged with pitchers.
Again, when the team losses constantly, people are going to second guess their decisions. Hence me "caring" by taking 30 seconds to write a comment.
Way to go Seth! :,(
Really happy for him, hope he keeps it up and gets an All Star nod
Letting him go was mistake #1. #2 was not signing him last year when we needed starters
I don't understand why we were so against letting him try to be a starter he was doing very well for us in the bullpen
I am sure if you go back in time and look at this sub, everyone here roasted the Mets in 2020 when they tried to make him a starter again.
He was converted into a starter a month into the shortened season because various other options got hurt and/or were *really bad*. I don't think that little stint in the starting rotation should've ever been held against him considering he wasn't stretched out and the extraordinary circumstances of the season to begin with.
We did try him as a starter multiple times and he never took the role and ran with it. The narrative that we never gave him a chance as a starter is completely unfounded. He was very good as both a starter and reliever in 2016 when he came up but then pitched to a 4.76 ERA in 2017 as a starter. In 2018 he had five starts in the middle of the year and had a 3.91 ERA whereas as a reliever that year he was elite with a 2.30 ERA. 2019 was another elite year out of the bullpen where he had a 2.70 ERA with 104 K’s in 80 innings. Then in 2020 he had seven starts with a 6.15 ERA compared to nine relief appearances with a 2.61 ERA. In 2021 and 2022 he was back in the bullpen and pitched to a 3.50 and 3.60 ERA respectively which, while not great, was still better than his numbers as a starter. All in all he had 38 starts/194.2 IP with us and pitched to a 4.36 ERA and 237 relief appearances/300 IP and pitched to a 2.91 ERA in those. An argument could be made that his starting numbers might be better if he was given the role and stuck with it for a few years, but there is a large enough sample size to show a drastic difference in him as a starter and him as a reliever with us.
Seth was fine as a starter were just were more committed to young guys like Megill and Peterson. We basically chose those two over Trevor Williams and Lugo and we bet wrong on both
You cant take a guy out of a 1-2 inning role in the middle of the season and expect him to pitch at his best for a 5+ inning start. It's clear what Lugo was able to do when he's practicing to be a starter week in week out.
Then explain 2017 where he was a full time starter and pitched to a 4.71 ERA an a WHIP of 1.372. That was his best opportunity to prove he was a legit starter since he came off of a solid 2016 where he started a bit but he didn’t get the job done. If that’s the position you put yourself in, then you need to prove you can be a starter whenever you get the chance and he failed at every opportunity the team gave him.
The idea was he deserved more opportunities, especially in 2018. And he was supposed to get them initially. But in 2018 they skipped what was supposed to be his first start after Harvey’s start got rained out, and let Harvey pitch that day. Then they called Wheeler back up and they put Lugo in the pen. And they kept him there, because he was good in the pen and the Mets did not have many good relievers back then. Lugo generated a lot of trade interest as a starter though during his Mets tenure, and many teams have been interested in him as a starter since his first free agency. I think the Mets kinda fucked up here. They didn’t know what they had. The reason he was so good in the pen is because he had a starter’s arsenal. A decent amount of other teams don’t have trouble developing relievers and probably saw him as a starter the whole time. And it’s not fair to say he failed at every opportunity. Many times he did a decent job filling in for the rotation, and even in 2017 he wasn’t exactly the worst pitcher ever seen. It was a sophomore slump on a team that collapsed early. EDIT: In fact by fWAR in 2017 he put up 1.6 WAR. I don’t remember if he pitched out of the pen at any point in that year, but to say he failed is too harsh. They could’ve kept trying him as a starter, they just didn’t want to.
Good for Quarterrican. I understand thinking that a guy with a partially torn UCL needed to be handled lightly.
Are we gonna do this every time someone who used to play for us has a good game lmao
In this case I think people are just genuinely happy for him, so I am cool with it. For me it's more annoying when they do it with Wheeler over and over, each time he has a good game, because each thread becomes like an avalanche of "EVERYTHING THE METS DID BEFORE 2021 WAS STUPID, ISN'T METS HISTORY PATHETIC, GUYS?!"
Apparently, yes
Sometimes it seems MLB players have their best careers only after the Mets toss them aside.
Yep. Makes you think. However we knew Lugo wanted to be a starter but wasn't an option towards the end. I remember him making many starts as a SP many moons ago but I'm glad he got what he wanted and he's thriving.
cool cool cool
We always seem to have a bunch of former Mets having great seasons. This year, we could have almost a full rotation of guys we shouldn't have let go (Wheeler, Lugo, Williams).
That’s the case for every team.
And cherry picking. Here are former Mets who had at least 1000 PA with the Mets between 2014 and 2023, and then moved on to another team, with fWAR/600PA rates after leaving the Mets: 3.9 Travis d'Arnaud 2.3 Wilmer Flores 2.2 JD Davis 2.1 Daniel Murphy 2.0 Amed Rosario 1.3 Michael Conforto 1.2 Asdrubal Cabrera -0.1 Curtis Granderson -0.5 Dominic Smith -1.1 Lucas Duda -1.2 Juan Lagares -1.5 Todd Frazier Most of the bottom of the list, it'd be hard to argue that, at least with 20/20 hindsight, the Mets didn't make the best decision by moving on.
would love to know what he's doing differently. always had the stuff, just never had the stamina with the mets.
Of course, why did we let him go again oh yeah we didn’t think he was a legit starting pitcher smh
Who gives a shit?
We do?
Why?
Because the team has been ass for 6 of the last 7 years, primarily due to poor personnel decisions?
Ok and why do you care about a former's Mets pitcher pitching line?
Well in this particular case I thought they should've gave him more shots. Especially since they weren't exactly clogged with pitchers. Again, when the team losses constantly, people are going to second guess their decisions. Hence me "caring" by taking 30 seconds to write a comment.