Mets Prospects Could Pave Way For Renewal Between Old Rivals

Going back nearly five or six months now, I got into a Twitter conversation with a friend of mine about the young pitchers for our respective teams we root for. He happens to be a Cardinals fan, of course, it's no secret, I'm a die-hard Mets fan.

Via Twitter I was expressing my excitement for the pitchers Carlos Martinez and Michael Wacha. I really like both pitchers, and despite playing for the Redbirds, I really cannot wait to watch their careers unfold.

The particular tweet was, I believe, about Carlos Martinez, but the question proposed to me was Michael Wacha or Carlos Martinez. I said "Yes". Then came the interesting question that has sparked months of pondering and research and thinking, which was Matt Harvey/Zack Wheeler or Martinez/Wacha? I could not answer, and really could not until I think now. (Lots of reason really, but mainly was I just had a new kid, and of course, that really takes up a lot of time, thought and energy). But I'm back to thinking baseball and am ready to get this ball rolling.

I'm going to take the proposition on a different course though. I will start out by saying, I think the Mets and Cardinals have very similar young pitchers. I find the trio or Shelby Miller, Wacha and Martinez very comparable to Harvey, Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard. With Miller and Harvey being pretty much mainstays in their respective rotations, and yes I realize Harvey's status is in flux after TJS, but I expect to him be back at the front of the rotation come the start of next season. With that said, I'm going to twist the question just a little bit and ask, who do I like more, the combo of Wacha/Martinez or Wheeler/Syndergaard.

Even though both Wacha and Martinez have seen the big leagues for St. Louis, and only Wheeler has for New York, I still think this is going to be a fun comparison.

I've seen all three of these guys live except for Noah Syndergaard, but I've watched him a little bit on TV. I cannot say enough how impressed I am with all four.

Of all four hurlers, I think the guy with the highest potential is Noah Syndergaard. He's a big 6-foot-6 kid out of Texas. He's got the frame to be a horse of a pitcher who can log 200-plus innings year after year after year. What really impresses me with him, is his control of all his pitches. He's got a burner of a fastball, that tops between 94-97 MPH. His changeup may be the weakest pitch he has, but over time, he will be very effective with it. While his fastball is of course his premier pitch, his curveball is just a tick below it. It is an overwhelming pitch. It is a classic 1-7 curveball. It has 12-6 movement, with just a hint of sweep to it. It is a big bender that would start at the left shoulder of a right handed hitter, and then drop down to just below their knees. What's so impressive with his curveball already, is the command and ability to throw it in any count. Watching him in the futures game, he really overwhelmed guys with that fastball, and rarely went to the curve, but when he did, it was unhittable.

The Mets acquired Syndergaard as a part of the RA Dickey deal that sent him to Toronto. Travis D'arnaud was the premier piece of that deal, but the Mets really got a steal with Syndergaard being a part of it. I've thought for the longest time the Mets would not ever stick with him to see him into their rotation. The obvious need in their line up is a power hitting lefthanded bat. They somewhat addressed that with Granderson in November, but he does little to ease our concerns long term. Which is where Syndergaard comes in. He's nearly major league ready, and could really bring in quite a haul if the Mets ever put him on the block. A name that has always been at the forefront of my mind is Carlos Gonzalez. With Syndergaard's nearly-ready big league arm, that could just about be a trade you'd make straight up.

As of late, I'm really questioning whether the Mets are willing to move Syndergaard. The way Sandy Alderson operates, he's always been a home run guy. But I think with recent World Series winners, you are beginning to see the importance and emphasis teams are putting on pitching. For the long term, I think Syndergaard is a Met, and I think he ends up being a Cy Young candidate, if not winner in the not so distant future.

After Syndergaard, I see a dead heat between Zack Wheeler and Carlos Martinez as the guys with the most upside. Being a Mets fan has me apprehensive to automatically crown Wheeler the next guy up. If he pans out and is the stud everyone says he is, I'd give him the nod, but again, because he's with the Mets organization, there's bound to be something go wrong. So that takes me to Carlos Martinez.

The comparisons to Carlos and Pedro are astounding. The two have so much in common, it's unbelievable. After Pedro retired, everyone said, there won't ever be another Pedro. With the way he handled himself and played the game, it might be true, and it might not. But when it comes to other ways, I think we've found the next one.

If you take away all knowledge of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Martinez and you were to their size, delivery, and stuff up against each other, you'd have no idea who is who because they are almost identical. If you watched the World Series, you heard Tim McCarver use the phrase "fluid arm motion" to describe Carlos. That was the way Pedro threw. When Pedro was first signed and then traded for, it was all about his size, and how he couldn't be a big league pitcher because he wasn't big enough. The fluid motion of his arm made up for the lack of size. I've said before, and I'll say it again, the same holds true for Carlos. His slider is nearly as nasty as Pedro's, his fastball actually has a few more ticks to it and really takes off out of his hand, maybe more so than Pedro's did, though I really only remember watching Pedro when he was in his prime and towards the end of his career.

Carlos was originally a Red Sox prospect, maybe now you see why. Because of Visa issues he was sent back to the Dominican Republic, and the Cardinals signed him nearly a year later. They really found a gem, and many question whether Martinez can stick in a rotation, but I have to believe he's going to get his fair chance to prove himself, and if I had a betters guess, I wouldn't gamble against him.

He was so dynamic and dominant in the World Series, I would bet he might even get a shot at that third or fourth rotation spot, with a chance to really move up as the season wears on.

If I had to have one drawback to this young guy, it would be his size. I don't care that he's small, and throws major gas. He's going to be a stud for many years, but once he starts to decline, it will really be a sharp decline. We saw it with Pedro, and we've seen it with many other smaller, aging stud pitchers. Once the decline comes, it doesn't take long for the descent to really become a steep one.

If there is one guy I most look forward to seeing how he develops and matures, it will be this guy. He has so much potential and I think a lot of doubters in the scouting world will continue to doubt him, but I look forward to seeing their bewildered faces as he just tears down those doubts one at a time in what will be a very illustrious career.

Now for Zack Wheeler. Like I've previously stated, if you had to make a safe bet on who would be better, Wheeler or Martinez, the SAFE bet would be Wheeler. I don't necessarily agree with that, but it is the truth. Wheeler has been a "can't miss" guy since he really climbed his way through the lower levels as a high school draft pick. The SF Giants really do a great job of developing guys like him. The Mets really have just continued the work the Giants put in on him early on, and he's really blossomed. He struggled initially in coming to the big leagues last summer. There was the whole deal with him tipping his pitches and of course the command issues, but we saw pretty similar things, minus tipping pitches with Matt Harvey in his initial time with the Mets. I think Zack Wheeler really turns into a second Harvey this summer.

Wheeler is your traditional fastball, curveball, and changeup combination. Like most prospects, the fastball is the premier pitch, with a very good moving curveball to compliment it.

It's a big 12-6 hook that can buckle the best of hitters.

To preface my next point, I will say, being a former pitcher and student to the art of pitching, I felt as long as I'd watched Matt Harvey, which was basically his college days, he had perfect mechanics. I never thought I'd see him succumb to Tommy John Surgery. Then I started second guessing my knowledge on mechanics and all that when it came about he'd have to have TJS. Then I heard an interesting take,which has been disputed among pitching experts, but I think there's some real legs to the argument; that Matt Harvey perhaps threw too many of those hard sliders he has. I think that could be a realistic cause because sliders really do put a lot of strain on the forearm/elbow area. All that to say, I am not a huge fan of Wheeler's mechanics (the above picture is a big reason why), and would not be surprised if he's under the knife in the next couple years.

When Matt Harvey came up, and Mets fans were waiting to see Wheeler, all we heard was Wheeler is going to be better than Matt Harvey; Hard to believe given how dominant Harvey was last year, but a lot of scouts kept with their original assessments. With Harvey out of the picture, Wheeler has a chance to be the guy in New York, at least this year. I think he's poised to have a Matt Harvey type of break out year. I like him a lot as one of the front guys in the rotation. His mission in the offseason seems to be to get control of his pitches and be able to throw them in any count, at any point in the game. That was really what Harvey did last year. If you were break down the two's track record in the big leagues, being offset a little bit by timing, their paths and struggles and everything really seem to be strikingly similar. I think the combo of Wheeler/Harvey is well on it's way to a pretty dynamic and dominant tandem.

Of course, we're left with one final pitcher, but let's not make him out to be the last guy picked for a game of dodgeball, because well, Michael Wacha to this point may be the most accomplished pitcher of all these guys. I was very, very big on the Michael Wacha pick by the Cardinals in the 2012 draft. So much so, I thought, (and once again, I did not verbalize what was a pretty accurate prediction) he might be the first pitcher of all the guys taken in the draft to make it to the big leagues. I thought that much of him, and to be honest, it's not hard to predict those sorts of things with guys fresh outta college. Wacha was tremendous at Texas A&M, and much like Syndergaard, Wacha has the size and frame to be a big time innings eater year after year after year.

Out of college, Wacha was a two-pitch thrower. He had the dynamic fastball, and a pretty above-average change up, but scouts knew then, he'd have to develop a third pitch. Along with that, I think Wacha may have gone above other guys if he had a better third pitch, and if his arm slot wasn't so out of wack if you will.

But the Cardinals saw something probably not a lot of people saw, and that was an incredible resemblance of their ace Adam Wainwright.

Wacha was able to dominate the college ranks and even to a degree the minor leauges with that big fastball and devastating change up, but to succeed at the big league level, he's going to have to develop a third pitch. That became incredibly evident when in the sixth game of the World Series the Red Sox teed off on the rookie who'd tore his way through the postseason and announced his arrival in a booming manner. I said it then, I said it as he arrived, and I still maintain it, Michael Wacha will be an ace type of pitcher when he establishes a breaking pitch.

As I watch Michael Wacha throw, I think it's almost inevitable he's going to have TJS at some point. That much stress on an elbow is just not sustainable. Adam Wainwright met that same fate, and has since been back for some pretty solid years since. I think Wacha can certainly do the same. I'm not saying Wacha is going to go down next year, or the year after, but I do think if he's going to log major innings like he should, that's almost a guarantee he will have a new elbow.

The beauty of where Michael Wacha is developmentally, is he can probably join the Cardinals rotation, which he should, right out of spring training and be somewhat successful and effective. All the while working to develop that third pitch, which I would bet is his #1 goal this offseason. I would say roughly by the middle of next year, we could be talking about Michael Wacha as one of the leagues top pitchers and he should be a perennial all-star for years and years to come.

In terms of the duo I like the best, I have to say, I like the Wheeler/Syndergaard duo the best. Closely, and I mean very closely behind is the Martinez/Wacha duo. There aren't many teams in baseball that are going to be able to throw out a 1-3 in 2015 and beyond like the Mets and Cardinals. If I had to look into a crystal ball with a gun to my head, I would bet we're in for a renewed rivalry between these two clubs like what we saw in the 80s, late 90s and early 2000s. They both have tremendous talent, and while the Cardinals have been contenders for a decade now, the Mets are getting there.

Of all the blogs I've done so far, this one is maybe my favorite. I also enjoyed my future look into MajorLeague Baseball. I love watching and talking about young players and projecting them. I could go on and on all day probably about these four guys, but this is just a brief synopsis of what I see for them and where I think they can go. Of course there is likely bumps in the road for all of them, and it will be interesting to see how they all handle it. They are all well on their way to getting big money, and having tremendous careers.

Other pitchers I'm looking forward to watching develop as we go through the next couple years:

Aaron Sanchez - RHP Toronto Blue Jays (A spittin' image of Noah Syndergaard)

Alex Colome - RHP Tampa Bay Rays

Archie Bradley - RHP Arizona Diamondbacks

Casey Kelly - RHP San Diego Padres

Dylan Bundy - RHP Baltimore Orioles

Henry Owens - LHP Boston Red Sox

Kyle Zimmer - RHP Kansas City Royals

Rafael Montero - RHP New York Mets

Yordano Ventura - RHP Kansas City Royals (Another Carlos Martinez Type)

Once we get to the Valentine's Day holiday, I'm really going to gear up and start thinking about doing some more baseball writing. If you've got a topic you'd like to hear about or discuss, shoot me a tweet, my handle is @sethalaurence . I most always respond and will always talk baseball.