Yoshinobu Yamamoto's flameout should make Mets feel better about their staff
Yoshinobu Yamamoto #18 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after the 1st inning during the 2024 Seoul Series game between San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers at Gocheok Sky Dome on March 21, 2024 in Seoul, South Korea. Credit: Getty Images
LAKELAND, Fla.
It’s not that the Mets didn’t try to sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They went to great lengths to do so. Steve Cohen’s personal recruiting trip to Japan was followed by a $325 million offer, the same whopping sum Yamamoto took from the Dodgers.
Like the other spurned suitors, the Mets probably weren’t feeling quite as bad early Thursday morning as they were in late December, when the Japanese ace agreed to that 12-year deal with the Dodgers. Coming off an 8.38 ERA in the Cactus League, Yamamoto saw it skyrocket to 45.00 after Thursday’s regular-season debut, when the Padres chased him with a five-run first inning.
Call it schadenfreude if you must. But the Mets’ pivot from the Yamamoto pursuit to assembling the current rotation on the fly, over three months, is something they’ve convinced themselves to feel better about.
Think of the Yamamoto implosion during MLB’s Seoul Series as helping that medicine go down a little easier at the end of spring training, as temporary as that sensation may be.
Overnight, the Mets’ own rotation issues seemed more manageable than having to explain why a $325 million pitcher, billed as a generational talent, looked like an emergency starter hustled up from Triple-A Syracuse. (Don’t worry. The Mets are sure to need a few of those this season.)
But for now, the Mets are waiting out the injured list clock on their own Japanese ace, Kodai Senga — think early May, best case, for him to be back from his shoulder strain — while being encouraged by the patchwork rotation’s solid Grapefruit League performance.
For what it’s worth, Mets starters have the second-lowest ERA (3.07) in the majors in spring training, second only to the Dodgers (2.86), who played five fewer games before opening the season in Seoul.
Here’s the value in that: Aside from Senga, a significant blow, the Mets stand to have four of their five original rotation members healthy and a sixth — Tylor Megill — rounding out the staff after winning the No. 5 job this past month. Megill has a 4.26 ERA with 12 strikeouts and four walks in 12 2⁄3 innings (four starts).
“As soon as [Senga] went down, the mindset was, yeah, you hate to get news like that, but it’s the next man up,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Thursday before the Mets’ 10-5 victory over the Tigers at Publix Field. “It’s going to be an opportunity for somebody else, and that’s what we’ve been seeing this spring training.”
As for the front four, Jose Quintana — the other incumbent with Senga — was the clear choice for next Thursday’s opener at Citi Field against the Brewers, followed by Yankees castoff Luis Severino, signed to a one-year, $13 million prove-it deal. Megill figures to slot in next, as the Mets don’t want to throw a second lefthander (Sean Manaea) against the lefty-munching Brew Crew, with Manaea and Adrian Houser set to face the Tigers.
All told, if you include Senga, the Mets are paying $59.55 million for their original five-man rotation this season (as compared to $130M a year ago). If you replace Senga with Megill, as the Mets are doing for their Opening Day roster, the cost drops to $46.35 million for the whole rotation — or just slightly more than the individual $43.3 million salaries of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander a year ago.
Speaking of that Cooperstown-bound duo, Cohen is paying almost as much to Scherzer and Verlander this season — a combined $55.83 million — to pitch elsewhere as he is for his entire Flushing rotation.
That helps explain why Cohen has been relatively frugal in rebuilding the starting staff for 2024, along with the 110% tax attached to any additional contracts. For someone like Blake Snell, who just signed a two-year, $62 million deal with the Giants, that $31 million average annual value would have cost Cohen $65 million once his tax bill came due at season’s end.
That’s just not smart business, even with Cohen’s $18 billion fortune. So it’s now put on David Stearns, his hand-picked president of baseball ops, to get this sales-rack rotation to pitch up to Saks-level quality, at least until the next generation is ready.
One of those prospects, the highly touted Dom Hamel, got whacked around some Thursday by the Tigers, who led off each of his first three innings with home runs (four dingers overall).
The current Mets rotation — with all but Senga on expiring contracts (Manaea can opt out) — is designed to hold the fort until Hamel & Co. are MLB-worthy and Cohen opens his checkbook again.
“The pitching looks really terrific so far,” Cohen said last weekend. “That’s a real plus . . . I think the general expectations are pretty low, and I think we’re going to surprise to the upside.”
If the Mets can get Senga back anywhere near the timetable they’ve mapped out, obviously that will enhance Cohen’s prediction. Otherwise, it’s a leap of faith from what we’ve witnessed in spring training. Their rotation has plenty to prove, with a ton of personal financial incentive to do so. And Cohen still has that $325 million left over, too.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
