PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- You don't get a lot of sizzle-reel moments in spring training, so when they happen, they tend to stand out.
There was one such sequence last week, when the defending champion Houston Astros sent Justin Verlander to the hill against New York Mets bolt thrower Noah Syndergaard in the first spring outing for both pitchers. They did not disappoint, throwing two perfect innings apiece and combining to strike out half the batters they faced. Verlander was hitting 97 on the scoreboard, and Syndergaard electrified the gathering at Ballpark of the Palm Beaches with 11 pitches that registered over 100 mph.
When asked about it the next day, one scout who was at the game simply pursed his lips and said, "Ooooooh. Filthy."
After the game, creaky, old Verlander commiserated with the media about the glory days of yore, bemoaning the inevitable ravages of time that prevented him from reaching triple digits on the scoreboard in that first spring appearance.
"Maybe not 100 right away," Verlander told the Houston Chronicle. "Yeah, I used to run it up there pretty good."
And that was that for the 35-year-old, who went back to living his life and preparing for the season. For Syndergaard, 25, the aftermath of the early velocity explosion was very different. First, he conducted his post-outing interview without a shirt on, which somehow created an internet sensation. Then, a couple of days later, he actually had to answer questions about whether he was throwing the ball too well.
That's life in the Mets' rotation. When it comes to this group of super-talented starters, it's always something.
Perhaps no position group in baseball has been as scrutinized as the Mets' rotation over the past half-decade. Part, or even most, of it is almost certainly because these pitchers ply their trade in the media capital of the baseball world, under the brightest of spotlights even in a market they share with the behemoth Yankees. Part of it, too, stems from the colorful group of personalities in question, bearing nicknames such as "Thor," "Dark Knight" and "deGrominator."
Also, the allure might be not just about the peak production of the staff over the past few years but about how the pitchers have gone about it. In this decade, 85 starters have struck out at least 21 percent of opposing batters. The Mets have five of those pitchers: Syndergaard (28.4 percent, seventh), Jacob deGrom (26.6 percent, 11th), Matt Harvey (23.5 percent, 32nd), Zack Wheeler (21.9 percent, 55th) and Steven Matz (21.2 percent, 73rd).
Over the five-year period ending last season, one of every 9.5 pitches thrown 96 mph or harder by a big league starting pitcher has been by a member of the Mets' rotation. New York's 6,400 such pitches, according to TruMedia, is 1,848 more than any other team. The bottom 10 teams on the list haven't combined to throw as many pitches at that velocity as the Mets.
Because of all that heat, maybe what's really going on is this: The perception remains that whatever the Mets' rotation has accomplished, there remains a whole lot of unfulfilled potential left on the table. This spring, the hope is that this is a story that remains destined for a happy ending.
"There is a lot of excitement," Syndergaard said. "I think it starts off with the brotherhood and the community that we have within the pitching staff. Dig a little deeper, you have five starting pitchers who are in kind of a brotherhood of their own.
"We are always pushing one another to become better pitchers. We are always supporting each other. And there is a little bit of inner competition to want to be the best pitcher in the league."
The culprit for past shortcomings is not hard to pinpoint. For all they've accomplished over the past five years, injuries of a pernicious and varied nature have robbed this talented staff of innings, effectiveness and, sometimes, both. It's an old story for the Mets, who, according to the injury-tracking site ManGamesLost.com, have lost nearly eight more WAR because of disabled players this decade than any other team in the National League.
After last season's 92-loss debacle in which the Mets again led the NL in WAR lost to injuries, it became clear to all -- New York's decision-makers included -- that something had to change.
Those changes largely did not include the names of those pitchers. All five of those aforementioned strikeout artists remain in the organization, preparing for the 2018 season down in St. Lucie, joined by recently signed finesse specialist Jason Vargas. Besides Vargas, the most recent date of acquisition for any of these pitchers belongs to Syndergaard, who came to the New York organization via a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays during the 2012 winter meetings.
Although the names remain the same, the support staff around them has changed.
There's a new manager, former Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway, who last season coordinated a curveball-heavy Cleveland staff that established a single-season record of 31.7 WAR, according to FanGraphs' version of the metric. The buzzword of his early tenure has been "accountability." Gone are the days of protecting Mets pitchers from themselves.
"They are aware that we are going to hold them accountable," Callaway said. "They know that they have to be held accountable sometimes. But they know what they have to do. They've done a really good job this spring training."
And there's a new pitching coach, the stern Dave Eiland, whose tutelage helped the Kansas City Royals pitch and defend their way to a 2015 World Series win over the Mets. Eiland, who was also the pitching coach for the Yankees when they won the World Series in 2009, displayed his succinct manner when asked about the possibilities for his new charges.
"I'm not a hype guy. Go out there and show me."
Callaway has ties to Eiland going back to their playing days and considers him a mentor, making him the logical pick to take on the difficult task of teasing health and production from a staff that has wriggled together under the big-city microscope for several years now.
"[Eiland] is a guy that holds guys accountable," Callaway said. "First and foremost, when I think of Dave Eiland, it's a guy that is going to make sure people are doing things the right way. He's a professional in everything he does. He expects the most of everybody he's around."
Finally, there's a new medical staff, headed up by former U.S. Army supervisor Jim Cavallini. The new group replaces the one led by longtime trainer Ray Ramirez, who drew lots of social media ire the past few seasons as injuries mounted. But there won't be a magic formula when it comes to keeping Mets pitchers upright. With pitcher health, there is no such thing as a magic formula.
"Guys are expected to go out there and perform," Callaway said. "To do that, you've got to have good routines, and process information the right way to give you the chance to go out there, stay healthy and be able to perform to these high expectations everybody has for these guys. We have to make sure they are doing those [things]."
Also still on hand are many of the starters the Mets have used to fill in for disabled pitchers the past few years -- Robert Gsellman, Seth Lugo and Rafael Montero. So you've got mostly the same names, the same arms, but a different set of eyes overseeing it all.
Is that enough?
"New eyes and new thoughts can get guys going," Callaway said. "When you've been in one place for too long, at a certain point -- and it started to feel a little bit like this in Cleveland -- it's the same old, same old. I'm kind of glad that those guys in Cleveland have a different voice because I've probably helped them as much as I possibly can.
"Hopefully, what is going to happen here is you're getting new information, different information at times, and probably stressing some of the same things that the people who were here before us stressed. But they see, 'Oh, they are saying that, too. It must be really important.'"
Already this spring, we've seen the gamut of possible outcomes of this Mets staff. Syndergaard followed his scintillating debut with an effective three innings against Miami, during which he focused on his secondary pitches. He fanned the last batter he faced that day, Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto, with a sharp-breaking curveball. Be afraid, National League hitters. Be very afraid.
"I was very pleased with the last pitch I threw," Syndergaard said, wearing a shirt this time. "I don't think I've ever struck anybody out on a curveball looking before. That just tells me it was breaking pretty good."
Elsewhere on the spring-hope front, after an offseason in which Harvey's agent, Scott Boras, talked up his rediscovered stuff, the controversial righty has drawn mostly positive reviews for his two outings. His velocity has ticked up to 96 mph at times with better life than he saw on his pitches during last season's struggles. He hasn't been Dark Knight-good, but there is reason to hope for a bounce-back season that would not only boost the Mets but also revive his career before he hits free agency.
On the other hand, Matz, who is trying to come back from elbow surgery, has been hit hard in his spring outings -- to the tune of a 54.00 ERA and a pair of midinning exits. But it's spring, after all, and the process matters more than the pitching line.
"It's February, and this is the best I've felt in spring training in a long time," Matz said after his first appearance. "It's frustrating when you get results like that, but you've really got to overlook that at this point."
Indeed, it is early, at least early enough for bad outcomes to still be chalked up to its being early, and both Matz and Callaway seem pleased enough with his stuff.
"We're not worried," Callaway said. "We just want him to go out there and continue to work. He's got good stuff, and he knows how to pitch. He'll get to where he needs to be at some point."
As if the Mets needed another injury headache, deGrom, their most durable and consistent starter in recent seasons, was slowed by lower-back tightness that put him behind schedule and threatens to derail what would otherwise be a likely Opening Day assignment. DeGrom seems to be making steady progress, but the sight of Mets beat writers closing in around a pitcher in search of injury-related answers is one that has been all too common in the New York clubhouse. The Mets, as you would expect, will be careful.
"Whether he starts on Opening Day or not, he's certainly earned it," Eiland said. "But we've got to be smart about this."
With Vargas on board, Wheeler seems targeted for a super-reliever role that Callaway can use to help manage the workload of his rotation. He's had swing-and-miss stuff early on, and if he does end up in a relief role, Wheeler will have good support behind him in Jeurys Familia, AJ Ramos and Anthony Swarzak.
"I'm very optimistic," Eiland said. "I've never had a group this talented, this deep. I'm excited about [the season], and they're excited about it. But one day at a time."
The Mets are very much in the bloated group of National League wild-card contenders, not near the three superteams of the Senior Circuit (Cubs, Dodgers, Nationals) and also a notch below the St. Louis Cardinals. That's all based on preseason projections that are designed to take into account last season's bottoming-out, a painful, slow-developing disaster that enveloped everyone but deGrom.
Yet we know that New York's range of outcomes is wide. The Mets finished 25th in starting-pitcher WAR last season, per Baseball-Reference.com, with just 2.8 wins, the third-lowest total in franchise history. The rotation ERA aside from deGrom was 5.62. Just one season before, in 2016, New York had racked up a 17.0 rotation WAR, the seventh-best total for a Mets staff, and ranked fourth in all of baseball. Even that fine performance might have been better: Syndergaard was the only one of the starters still on hand to throw enough innings to qualify for the ERA title that year.
So the ceiling for this version of the Mets remains unknown, and this is the considerable challenge Callaway and Eiland have taken on. So far, the players, who never blamed the old staff, seem receptive.
"It's an open dialogue," deGrom said. "They bring new approaches. You take stuff from them, they take stuff from you. There are a lot of guys [in this clubhouse] who have been doing this for a little bit of time, who know what it takes to be ready. Dave and Mickey have been great with listening, to kind of establish these routines and getting us to follow them."
With Harvey entering a walk year, the overriding question about the 2018 Mets is whether this can be the year when, finally, we get to see what this rotation can really become. Because if the Mets can get peak-level performance from those five arms, they can blow the projections out of the water.
"We've been throwing the ball really well," Callaway said. "Guys have been working their tails off, doing what is expected of them. And that's really all you can ask at this point, that they are getting their work in and going about their daily routines the right way.
"If they do that, they have enough talent and enough stuff to go out there and have success. Now, we'll layer on information towards the end of camp, and that's going to be something they have to pay attention to, too, to be the best they can possibly be."
Of course, the past few years, nearly every wide-lens assessment of the Mets has included the obligatory caveat, "If their pitchers can stay healthy ..." and, unfortunately, that qualifier remains very much in effect. Simply put, while all the Mets' strikeout starters have enjoyed success, there has never been a full season in which they've all been healthy and effective at the same time. New ideas, stories of spring hope, remembrances of potential past -- all of that stuff is great. But time is running out for the Mets' rotation to become what we thought it would become.
"I hate to use the word 'potential' and [the phrase] 'what they can do,'" Eiland said. "Talk is cheap. They've got to get out there and do it. They've got to live up to that potential and live up to that hype."
All things remain possible for the Mets' rotation. Unfortunately, that's not always a good thing. But sometimes it is.