Zack Wheeler, last week, in explaining why his current elbow soreness was no big deal.

The second issue — recurring soreness in his right elbow — raises red flags.

“It’s something that I’ve had before and have had to deal with,” said Wheeler, who is expected to take his next turn in the rotation, which falls on Thursday.

…

“Every pitcher in here pitches through pain at some point, so it’s just a matter of dealing with it and going out there,” Wheeler said. “It wasn’t affecting me all that much so I could go out there and compete like I wanted to. So I was going to do it.”

Today, though, the MRI results have revealed a torn UCL, the injury that leads to Tommy John surgery. Assuming Wheeler doesn’t try to continue to pitch through the pain, he’ll be out until roughly mid-summer of 2016.

This is obviously a significant blow to the Mets, as Wheeler had emerged as a quality starting pitcher. This is where they depth comes in handy, however, as the drop-off from Wheeler to one of Rafael Montero, Steven Matz, or Noah Syndergaard isn’t that large. Here are the Mets current depth chart projections for their rotation candidates:

#14 Mets

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Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP	WAR
Matt Harvey	173.0	9.1	2.6	0.7	.297	74.2 %	3.07	3.08	2.9
Bartolo Colon	176.0	6.2	1.5	1.0	.308	70.3 %	4.00	3.80	1.3
Jon Niese	178.0	6.7	2.4	0.9	.307	71.2 %	3.91	3.83	1.1
Jacob deGrom	165.0	8.2	2.7	0.8	.306	72.5 %	3.53	3.40	1.9
Dillon Gee	98.0	6.7	2.5	1.1	.300	70.5 %	4.23	4.24	0.2
Noah Syndergaard	75.0	9.2	2.7	0.9	.310	72.8 %	3.54	3.37	1.0
Rafael Montero	28.0	8.8	3.0	0.9	.302	74.1 %	3.56	3.62	0.3
Steven Matz	37.0	8.4	2.8	0.8	.306	73.4 %	3.42	3.43	0.5
Zack Wheeler	56.0	8.8	3.5	0.8	.307	72.8 %	3.65	3.61	0.5
Total	984.0	7.7	2.5	0.9	.305	72.1 %	3.68	3.60	9.8

ZIPS and Steamer see Montero as Wheeler’s equal for 2015, while actually liking Matz and Syndergaard a little bit more. Of course, losing Wheeler means that one of these guys can’t replace another pitcher when a future injury occurs, so losing Wheeler is far from a good thing, but the Mets are at least positioned to absorb this kind of injury.

The problem will come if too many of Wheeler’s innings are allocated to Dillon Gee. He’ll likely step in and fill the void in the short term, but if he pitches like the projections expect him to pitch, he shouldn’t hold that spot for too long.