What Does Max Scherzer’s Injury Mean for the Mets?
The Mets lost another starting pitcher on Thursday, as the team announced that the pain that forced Max Scherzer from his start Wednesday has been diagnosed as a moderate to high grade oblique sprain; the anticipated timetable for Scherzer’s return is six to eight weeks. After throwing a slider to Albert Pujols, Scherzer was in visible discomfort and quickly pulled the plug himself, sparing Buck Showalter the most dangerous part of a manager’s job: telling Max Scherzer to hit the showers:
The loss of Scherzer comes at a time the Mets are already down two other starting pitchers (three if you count Joey Lucchesi‘s loss to Tommy John surgery, which I’m not). Most notably, Jacob deGrom’s 2022 season has yet to begin due to a stress reaction in his right scapula. Tylor Megill is also currently on the IL due to biceps tendinitis diagnosed after the worst start of his professional career. Luckily, there’s reason to be hopeful in both cases. The most recent imaging of deGrom’s scapula indicated it is healing effectively, raising hopes that the ace’s return isn’t too far off. Meanwhile, Megill’s MRI didn’t reveal anything darker than a case of tendinitis, and he’s already scheduled to play catch today:
Jacob deGrom's MRI and CT scan revealed "considerable healing of the stress reaction on his scapula," Mets say.
He has been cleared to begin loading and strengthening his shoulder and will be "re-imaged in approximately three weeks."
— Deesha (@DeeshaThosar) April 26, 2022
The franchise’s track record of losing top pitchers at particularly inopportune moments sometimes evokes the work of Buster Keaton, and two of their top three remaining pitchers, Taijuan Walker and Carlos Carrasco, have significant injury histories of their own. But with a seven-game lead in the National League East — currently the largest for any first-place team — the Mets have a decent cushion to absorb these nasty surprises.
With David Peterson likely taking Saturday’s start, the immediate replacement will almost certainly be the team’s “Break Glass in Case of Mets” pitcher, Trevor Williams. Williams is a very ordinary pitcher, but by the standards of the typical fifth starter, he isn’t a particularly bleak option. Should Megill return on time and the Mets be spared any further misfortune, I expect Peterson to get the chance to remain in the rotation unless he struggles.
If there is another longer-term opening, the team seems likely to leave Williams in a swing role and possibly take a long look at Thomas Szapucki. Szapucki struggled in 2021 and missed the back half of the season with nerve damage to his arm, an issue stemming from a ’17 Tommy John surgery. However, 2022 has started off much better, and though he lacks the velocity from his early days as a prospect, his curveball has been highly effective at Triple-A this year, and his strikeout and walk rates have returned to his pre-2020 levels. It’s important to note that neither Triple-A league has experienced the massive drop-off in offense that the majors have seen this year, so a translation to the big leagues shouldn’t result in an enormous hit to his numbers.
Assuming that Megill makes a healthy return next week, and that deGrom and Scherzer return after the All-Star break, ZiPS projects the Mets to have a two-in-three shot of winning the NL East:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | #1 Pick |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Mets | 92 | 70 | — | .568 | 67.7% | 18.8% | 86.5% | 7.8% | 0.0% |
| Atlanta Braves | 86 | 76 | 6 | .531 | 20.9% | 33.9% | 54.7% | 4.8% | 0.0% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 81 | 81 | 11 | .500 | 7.1% | 19.8% | 26.9% | 1.2% | 0.1% |
| Miami Marlins | 79 | 83 | 13 | .488 | 4.2% | 13.7% | 18.0% | 0.7% | 0.1% |
| Washington Nationals | 70 | 92 | 22 | .432 | 0.1% | 0.8% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 5.8% |
Only the Dodgers have a sunnier outlook when it comes to their chances of winning their division and making the postseason in the NL. In other words, there’s no reason to panic right now. These projections aren’t that far from where they were with a healthy Scherzer:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | #1 Pick |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Mets | 92 | 70 | — | .568 | 71.8% | 17.6% | 89.5% | 9.1% | 0.0% |
| Atlanta Braves | 86 | 76 | 6 | .531 | 18.3% | 35.8% | 54.2% | 4.6% | 0.0% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 81 | 81 | 11 | .500 | 6.1% | 20.4% | 26.5% | 1.2% | 0.1% |
| Miami Marlins | 79 | 83 | 13 | .488 | 3.6% | 14.0% | 17.6% | 0.6% | 0.1% |
| Washington Nationals | 70 | 92 | 22 | .432 | 0.1% | 0.8% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 5.8% |
Two months without Scherzer certainly isn’t ideal, but ZiPS drops the Mets less than a full win, from 92.4 to 91.7 wins. By these numbers, there’s only a one-in-25 chance that Scherzer’s injury costs the Mets a divisional crown that they would have otherwise won. As significant injuries to possibly Cooperstown-bound stars go, that’s…fine?
Of course, being a Mets fan isn’t always fine, so let’s contemplate an extremely negative scenario and wipe out the rest of the season for all three starters:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | #1 Pick |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Mets | 89 | 73 | — | .549 | 51.2% | 23.0% | 74.2% | 3.4% | 0.0% |
| Atlanta Braves | 86 | 76 | 3 | .531 | 30.4% | 27.8% | 58.3% | 8.9% | 0.0% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 82 | 80 | 7 | .506 | 11.3% | 18.9% | 30.2% | 2.8% | 0.0% |
| Miami Marlins | 80 | 82 | 9 | .494 | 6.8% | 13.6% | 20.4% | 1.6% | 0.1% |
| Washington Nationals | 71 | 91 | 18 | .438 | 0.2% | 0.9% | 1.1% | 0.1% | 5.1% |
Even in the event of this disaster, the Mets still remain the projected favorite and retain a coin-flip’s chance of besting the rest of the division, though the playoff consequences are significant. However, this may be underrating the Mets a bit — if they really did lose all three pitchers for the season, it would be shocking if they didn’t aggressively seek a replacement in the trade market. This scenario probably results in the Mets going after someone like Luis Castillo, Tyler Mahle, or Frankie Montas, all pitchers who will likely be available at the deadline.
Losing a top pitcher for two months is never a good thing. But with a solid division lead and viable alternatives, the Mets shouldn’t implode. At least this time.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
They are quite fortunate that the Braves have been… weird at best, quite bad at worst. I’m a Braves fan and I have had to update my prior quite a bit- I still think the Braves make the wildcard but there’s almost no way they pass the Mets for the division.
In a sport where teams generally win a third of their games and lose a third of their games, having wins in the bank matters a whole lot.
“Almost no way…”?? come on.
If it was any team other than the Mets, I would be inclined to agree with you. But given it is the other New York team, I’m just waiting to see how they manage to implode in the second half.
Would anybody be surprised if Degrom, Scherzer and Megill all hurt themselves again in the first inning of their first starts upon returning?
All of them, in the same general way? Based on pure probability I’d be surprised.
Would not be surprised to see Megill go down again at some point, though.
It’s the Mets. All of them in the SAME first inning in relief of each other.
At least they aren’t the Orioles or Mariners
Or the Reds.
If deGrom insists on throwing nothing but 98-101 fastballs like a reliever, then absolutely. Megill was an injury red flag as soon as he showed a noticeable velo gain over the course of one offseason, and Max idk. His arm has looked late with the Mets.
The Mets will always be the Mets.
“ZiPS drops the Mets less than a full win, from 92.4 to 91.7 wins”
Lol dude, Scherzer’s absence is uhhh gonna cost more than one marginal win. He was leading the team in innings and ERA. The ripple waves of losing your most dominant pitcher means that the bullpen will have to work much harder for the next 6-8 weeks, which means they’ll be less effective when he comes back after the All-Star break.
Aside from the “Lol, dude,” I think you are on to something here. This feels awfully light and the building effect of losing *another* starting pitcher shouldn’t be altogether discarded.
Also, the Mets need to fire every living sole that has so much as filled a bag of ice and start over with a new training staff from scratch. They shouldn’t even let people who live in Queens apply.
To be fair, when your rotation consists of deGrom, Scherzer, Carrasco, and Walker you are pretty clearly planning to have health issues. Two old guys, a guy with leukemia, and Walker. This was part of why they got Lucchesi (who also promptly blew out his arm and needed TJ).
Carrasco’s leukemia has been successfully treated to the point where his survival rates should be essentially the same as the general population, and while he’ll have to continue treatment indefinitely, he shouldn’t expect any recurrence or progression.
Yes, and with fewer “workhorses” around in 2022, his absence will be even more felt because starters that are capable of shouldering more innings are especially valuable in today’s climate. Starters’ value to pitch more innings has exponential, not linear value. This is what ZiPS is missing. The fact that who the Mets would pencil in for the next two months only will account for approximately one marginal win is simply not true.
ZiPS certainly takes into it consideration; you just don’t like the projections. And since I can’t change a projection, there’s nothing really I can offer you.
In any case, Scherzer’s not exactly Old Hoss.
Wait, the Mets should fire the entire training staff because pitchers get injured..?
Consistently for years at a way higher rate than other teams? Then they bring them back just to get hurt again?
I’m not sure Mets’ starters get injured at a higher rate than anyone else’s; it might just feel that way. They were almost absurdly healthy in 2019, we needn’t discuss 2020 (but deGrom did make 12 starts, Stroman opted out, they let Wheeler roll away because BVW is an idiot, and had to rely on has-beens and never-will-bes), so we’re really just talking about last year and this year. I think it’s more about how they communicate (or don’t communicate) what’s going on injury-wise, though I can understand why they might want to keep things close to the vest.
This is fangraphs. They can’t quantify that so it doesn’t exist.
I agree that it might be more than one win, but I think we overrate the impact one player can have over such a small sample size, especially a player that only plays roughly once a week
Scherzer is expected to miss ~10 starts.
The last time Scherzer was worth less than 1 WAR per 10 starts was in 2011.
I get that Scherzer is older and his replacement could have positive WAR,
but loss of 0.7 wins for two months’ absence doesn’t pass the smell test
as it would imply that Mets are paying $43M AAV for three years to a 37-39 year old pitcher who is worth ~2 WAR in his first year of the contract if he is healthy.
ZiPS isn’t projecting Scherzer to be replaced by theoretical replacement-level innings of freely available talent, our baseline for overall value; ZiPS is projecting Scherzer to be replaced by specific pitchers that it projects to be above replacement-level.
I get that.
But preseason ZiPS was projecting 4.2 war from Scherzer in 28 starts.
That is 1.5 war/10 starts.
FWIW, Scherzer has been on 1.4 fwar & 1.9 ra9-war/10 starts pace this season so seems reasonable.
Then it would imply ZiPS is expecting Scherzer’s replacement (Peterson/Williams) to put up 0.8 WAR in ~10 starts.
Except preseason ZiPS was projecting 0.9 war in 19 starts for Peterson
and 0.9 war in 21 starts for Williams
and ZiPS ROS is even more bearish with 0.4 war in 14 starts for both Peterson and Williams.
These numbers are inconsistent in my opinion.
ZiPS projects an average of 1.16 WAR for Scherzer over an average of 9.53 starts out of a possible 10 (he would not have been 100% to pitch all 10 starts because not being injured here didn’t preclude something else from happening). ZiPS uses a variable playing time model, so over a composite Mets roster profile made up of a million playing time simulations, he *typically* got 9 or 10 starts, sometimes 8, sometimes 7, and so on down to some very rare cases, 1 or 0. The injury spots here are filled in with the same blend that’s used below.
ZiPS liked Peterson and Szapucki a lot more than at the start of the year. The main fill-ins are an assorted mix almost entirely of Peterson, Szapucki, Williams (there are very rare starts by Butto and Montgomery and very occasional three inning specials from a long reliever, especially in runs during which Walker or Bassitt are also injured). This clump combined to 0.47 WAR filling in for Scherzer. ZiPS also fills in an average of 9.5 relief innings, filtered in from the bottom of the depth chart, resulting in an average of -0.05 WAR.
This. Williams is the current replacement and is, according to ZIPS ROS worth only a bit more than 0 WAR the entire rest of the season. That checks out to me.
With Scherzer losing about 1.4 WAR over the next 6 weeks (again, by ZIPS), that’s already more than a win. And it doesn’t account for the knock-on effect of Williams being replaced in the swing man role by an even worse pitcher.
I would say it’s more like 1.5 – 2 wins.
The unspoken subtitle to this article is, “My #$%& lord, what is going on with Atlanta?” that the Mets could Met it up and still win?
I think the current belief is that the ball is what happened to Atlanta. Getting a useful Kyle Wright wasn’t enough to offset the loss of the offense
Leading the league in K% isn’t helping and can’t be blamed on the ball.
It is a team built on the home run but honestly they’ve gotten quite a good number: 50. That’s 5th in MLB.
Still, with the frustrating start, the Braves project to 88 wins which would likely get them in the playoffs.
yeah I’m not being clear- I don’t personally think the ball is responsible for Kyle Wright’s fastball suddenly playing up like it “should.” Or, at least, the change in balls causing a depression in offense isn’t the same change causing him to suddenly strike a ton of guys out. I know TNSSAAPP but he was all world coming out of Vandy.
Braves don’t look all that different from last year offensively on the dashboard (for example, they don’t seem to be all that different in terms of BABIP- slight edit, they’re bottom 5 right now, might be a little unlucky), but their ISO is 30 points lower. Interestingly, for now, their WRC+ is almost identical.
Albies, Swanson, and Riley have all taken big steps back in the power department, and Olson has been a lot worse in terms of power than Freeman was last year.