Just Mets

Steven Matz has done nothing but show the organization he is ready to join the big league rotation.

He’s 6-4 with a 1.94 ERA in 11 starts for Triple-A Las Vegas, a remarkable accomplishment in the last professional league on earth where hitting dominates.

There’s just one problem right now: There’s no room for him in the rotation with six starting pitchers currently on the active roster.

In fact, Sandy Alderson told Mike Puma of the New York Post it’s, “very possible” Matz would be here already if not for the glut of starting pitching at the big league level.

However, while Alderson believes Matz has nothing left to show the club at Triple-A, he could benefit from the added professional experience at Triple-A.

After all, he does have a limit of around 180 innings in 2015. The club also has an unwritten policy for their pitchers to throw 150 innings at Double-A and higher, and Matz has only recently breached that threshold (he threw 71 innings with Binghamton during the regular season last year, 12 1/3 in the postseason with Binghamton last year, and 74 1/3 innings with Las Vegas this year).

Matz is inexperienced in general thanks to a long recovery process from Tommy John Surgery – he only has 63 professional appearances and 349 innings under his belt. It’s one of the reasons the Mets are taking things conservatively with him, as they did with Jacob deGrom before promoting him in 2014.

“Matz has only pitched at Triple-A for [11] starts,” Alderson said to Puma. “So he’s realistically inexperienced at that level. Nothing stands out that he needs to work on, but getting more experience at that level is always beneficial.”

There’s also the issue with the Super-Two date approaching. That date will be somewhere in between June 15-20 this season, and as it stands on June 7, there is no reason to cost the organization an extra arbitration year over a matter of one or two starts right now. Obviously, by calling up Noah Syndergaard this year and deGrom last year, it’s not an issue for the organization if the timing is right (they were both promoted five weeks before the Super-Two cutoff). But calling Matz up right now would just be a bad business decision, for any team.

Still, Matz is ready, and ready to compete at a very high level in the big leagues. Alderson’s comments indicate the club is more or less just trying to find a place for him.

Eventually, the Mets could conceivably promote Matz if they could find a taker for one of Dillon Gee or Jon Niese, with one of them going to the bullpen and being used to spot start Matz and the other young arms with innings limits.

But when and even if that happens is anyone’s guess.