Reason for optimism: A lot seemed to go wrong for the Mets in 2016, and it still took the unlikely combination of Conor Gillaspie and magic to prevent a Mets-Cubs rematch in October.
Reason for pessimism: Thanks to Matt Harvey's disastrous 2016, and injury scares to Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz, the window of success will never feel like it's open wide enough.
Last year, in an effort to shed a bit of light on how valuable the Mets' spectacularly talented quartet of starting pitchers was, I opined that for a seven-year period beginning in 2017, Harvey, Matz, deGrom and Noah Syndergaard would provide contract value in terms of WAR over those 28 player-years to the tune of $1 billion. To get there the rotation would need to average 14 WAR a year for seven years and, despite the abbreviated seasons from deGrom, Matz and Harvey per fWAR, they actually got there in 2016. However, the injury scares certainly underscore the perils of investing in young arms.
As Joe Sheehan says, "There's no such thing as a healthy pitcher. There are pitchers who have been healthy, and the next pitch."
