Why Experience In New York Could Help Luis Severino
With the New York Mets reportedly signing Luis Severino to a one-year, $13 million deal, some fans might think why are the Mets taking a chance on a starter who is going from the Bronx with the hated New York Yankees and is coming off of injury issues? Severino is far from the pitcher that […]
The post Why Experience In New York Could Help Luis Severino first appeared on Metsmerized Online.
With the New York Mets reportedly signing Luis Severino to a one-year, $13 million deal, some fans might think why are the Mets taking a chance on a starter who is going from the Bronx with the hated New York Yankees and is coming off of injury issues?
Severino is far from the pitcher that finished third in the AL Cy Young voting in 2017, but there is still some talent that former Yankee bench coach and current Mets manager Carlos Mendoza as well as pitching coach Jeremy Hefner can harness to get the best out of the 29-year-old right-hander. The question is does the track record suggest that a Yankee-turned-Met can find success switching boroughs?
Photo by Roberto Carlo
This might help those of you who play the daily Immaculate Grid game, but Severino would be the 156th player and the 79th pitcher who plays for both the Mets and Yankees should he pitch in a game this year. In some cases such as reliever Adam Ottavino, it could end up being a success.
Ottavino didn’t go directly from the Yankees to the Mets since he pitched for the Boston Red Sox in 2021. However, his familiarity with pitching in New York had to have helped him find success. In his two years in pinstripes (2019-2020), the right-hander had a 2.76 ERA and 12 K’s per 9 innings over the course of 84 2/3 innings. With the Mets, he had a 2.62 ER and 10 K’s per 9 in 127 1/3 innings (132 games).
Of course, for every Adam Ottavino, there is a Dellin Betances. Betances, a four-time All-Star reliever with the Yankees, signed a one-year, $10.5 million contract with a vesting option back in 2019. Unfortunately, Betances’s Queens career was marred by injuries whether it was right lat tightness or right shoulder impingement.
Yes, those two examples are relievers, but it’s very rare to find notable starters that fit the comparison outside of David Cone, Al Leiter, Orlando Hernández, Dwight Gooden, or Bartolo Colón.
In free agency or in trades, it is always tough to gauge whether or not a player will be able to handle the bright lights and the media scrutiny that comes with playing in New York. Severino has shown he can handle that based on the 141 games (125 starts) he had as well as 11 career postseason appearances.
The question for Severino is how much can his arm hold up as a starting pitcher to be a success on this list rather than another why did they take a chance as another former Yankee? The key to that could be the first inning. The first-inning success of a starter can affect the momentum of the game, carrying the pitcher throughout the game.
This past year, Severino pitched to an 11.50 ERA in the first inning of starts. He allowed 23 earned runs (seven home runs) and had 19 strikeouts to 12 walks with opponents hitting .375 against him. Contrast that to 2022 when Severino had a 1.89 ERA and allowed only two home runs (opponent batting average of .164).
A change of scenery can always be good for a player who has had a tough few years where the confidence level can dwindle down to almost nothing. During last season, Severino even admitted that he was the worst pitcher in the game in his mind after one of his starts.
Severino: “right now I feel like the worst pitcher in the game, no doubt about it.”
— Erik Boland (@eboland11) July 31, 2023
While Severino isn’t exactly changing his state of residence, he goes from being a pitcher who had all the hype of being the number two pitcher in a rotation with Gerrit Cole to a pitcher the Mets are taking the chance on at the middle to the back end of the rotation assuming they make other moves to add more starting pitching. That alone can ease some of the pressure off of him.
The offseason is a marathon and not a sprint. If Severino wasn’t the first real offseason move that David Stearns and the Mets front office made, likely, the signing wouldn’t have come with as much as pessimism as it has. The fact of the matter is that the Mets need pitchers who are almost guaranteed to eat innings consistently.
The problem is that Severino isn’t a guarantee to eat innings. Dating back to 2019, he has had rotator cuff inflammation (2019), Tommy John surgery (2020), two different right lat strains (2022 and 2023), and a left oblique strain. In his eight big-league seasons, he has only eclipsed 100 innings in a season three times (once since 2018). Last season, he only went five innings or more in a start eight times.
If Severino can fix the idea that he could be tipping his pitches and find his confidence once again, then it’s a high-reward signing for Stearns whether it’s as a starter or a late-inning reliever later in the year. While it may feel like the Mets are getting someone the Yankees didn’t want anymore, it is a pitcher who is experienced with this market and knows what it takes to succeed in New York.
The post Why Experience In New York Could Help Luis Severino first appeared on Metsmerized Online.