John Smoltz was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame last year after an illustrious career as both a starter and closer for the Atlanta Braves. His former team had one of the best pitching staffs of all-time back in the 1990s and he believes one current MLB team's pitching can match up with them.
That team is the New York Mets.
Smoltz said the cast of Jacob deGrom (2.14 ERA), Matt Harvey (3.07 ERA), Noah Syndergaard (3.11 ERA), Steven Matz (1.32 ERA in two starts) and the injured Zack Wheeler (recovering from Tommy John surgery) are "way better" and possess "more talent" than the trio of him, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux, who dominated the MLB during their reign in Atlanta.
The Mets' starters (also Bartolo Colon and Jon Niese) are 37-34 on the season with a 3.42 ERA (seventh in MLB), but that includes Dillon Gee's 0-3 record and 5.92 ERA in his seven starts this season. New York's rotation is also fifth in the MLB with a total of 491 strikeouts on the year.
However, he did question whether the talented Mets' staff could achieve the countless accomplishments the 1990s Braves' staff did - Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux combined for six National League Cy Young Awards during their time in Atlanta and all three are Hall of Famers. Smoltz, 48, finished with 213 wins, 154 saves and 3,084 strikeouts in his 21-year MLB career.
"The opportunities that exist today won't allow a lot of staffs to find out what kind of staff they can be," he told Daniel Popper of the New York Daily News. "That's the shame of the game. The injuries have taken over. The inability to learn how to pitch (and) fast-tracking a lot of kids. There's no doubt that the dynamic arms are way better than we've ever seen. And the issue is how long can we keep them healthy and how long can they stick together financially? What we did in the era that we did, we take a lot of pride in it. We worked really hard and we didn't miss a lot of starts."
Harvey, deGrom, Matz and Wheeler have all underwent Tommy John surgery at some point in their careers and recent research finds the shelf life for those who get the procedure is not as long as one thinks. He also believes the league is too hasty when moving forward with young players, but luckily for New York their prospects have proved their dominance quickly.
"We've anointed people a little too quickly in this game. And they don't have the ability to wait and learn and have a fair shake at the game. . . . Everybody wants quick results, expectations through the roof. And that's what these guys are fighting today. They're not giving them a chance to fail too often. And when they do, what happens?"
Harvey has the most experience of these pitchers, having made 53 starts in three seasons (2012, 2013 and 2015).
So far, the only notable achievement of this Mets' staff is deGrom's Rookie of the Year award in 2014. This cast of young Mets' starters has a long way to go, but if they can stay healthy Smoltz believes the sky's the limit for them.
