Predicting the New York Mets’ Starting Rotation in 2015

While Bartolo Colon was one of the Mets’ more consistent pitchers in 2014, he was only signed as a stopgap for Matt Harvey. However, GM Sandy Alderson inked him on a two-year deal and now the Mets are trying to move him. Despite his apparently agelessness, I feel the Mets won’t be able to trade away Colon and his fairly team-friendly contract, and starts the season at the back end of the rotation.

The lone southpaw in the Mets’ rotation will probably draw the most interest of the three that Alderson is most likely to trade. His contract has four years remaining, including two team options at the end, which is also something teams would be interested in. There are concerns about his shoulder, as his fastball velocity was a bit down this year. Nonetheless, Alderson will likely want to keep him around and he’ll probably open as the No. 4.

We’re now getting into “guaranteed” territory – the only difficult thing here is to determine the order. After his first full season in the bigs, Zack Wheeler went 11-11 with a 3.54 ERA, but struck out 187 batters in 185.1 innings. The only thing that continues to haunt him is his control. He spoke this offseason about being bitter, missing a couple of San Francisco Giants World Series due to the trade, so he’ll likely come out firing in 2015.

The reigning NL Rookie of the Year gets the nod over Wheeler for the No. 2 spot in the rotation. It’s definitely possible Wheeler and deGrom are flip-flopped come April given Wheeler has more service time, but it’s hard to argue with deGrom’s results. In 140.1 innings, deGrom struck out 144, surrendered 117 hits and walked only 43 batters. Surrounded by a top-notch cast and deGrom will look to avoid a sophomore slump in his first full season.

Returning to the front of the rotation is none other than the Dark Knight himself – Matt Harvey. After tearing his UCL toward the end of the 2013 season, and missing all of 2014, Harvey will start his comeback this April as the ace of a real deep Mets pitching staff. The Mets will try to limit his innings during the season as they hope to have him through September and October, but they can’t hand the ball to anyone else on opening day.