My argument, as it was in 2015, was that the Mets were relying on overextended arms that had been wearing down towards the end of the season. I never doubted for a moment that they had the talent to be "aces", but results are often much different than potential in baseball.
You say that the only thing holding these pitchers back are injuries, but a big part of being an ace is simply durability. You can have the best stuff in the world but if you can't stay healthy (as no one but Syndergaard seems to be able to), then talent can only take you so far. Only two of their pitchers had pitched the entire season, and I didn't buy the argument that the four of them should be considered among the Top 30 pitchers in the league.
Why I asked for your definition of an ace was because of their youth, Harvey, Degrom and Matz were showing real signs of wear and tear heading into the World Series. Since Degrom passed his previous high of 175 innings, he was showing undeniable signs of inconsistency. While teams weren't always tagging him for runs (because luck is
never a factor in baseball), he had shown a
substantial drop in his vertical release point and had the
lowest strike zone percentage of his career since passing his career mark in innings pitched.
Degrom wasn't the only pitcher in this type of trend. Matz and Harvey were also hitting walls. Harvey had his lowest fastball velocity in his
career in a start against the Nats in October, and overall velocity was a mile and half per hour lower than it was at his peak. Like Degrom, Harvey's zone percentage had also fallen considerably, and as the fangraphs article I'm posting below points out, Matt Harvey had the worst stuff of his career in his Game 1 start against the Royals.
Matz also showed signs of fatigue, dipping into conventional statistics, Matz had posted a WHIP of over 1.4, had an elevated line drive percentage, and never pitched more than 5 innings in any of his starts. I had a feeling the Royals would be able to get him out of the game by the 6th, and they didn't let me down.
What it comes down to is that I thought and still believe it was premature to say the Mets had 4 aces in the 2015 postseason when none of them had showed that they could maintain their dominant performances through 200 innings. While Syndergaard's start became the stuff of legend, we battered him through the third inning - and it even got the point that Terry Collins said he would have pulled him had the Royals inning had not been cut short after Gordo got thrown out at third. They all may well still become bonafide aces - but in the 2015 playoffs I thought this was premature, as they were overextended and demonstrated signs of hitting a wall heading into a series, a trend they continued as a staff (by leaving pitches up, missing pitches, etc) in their series against the Royals.
Fangraphs on Degrom's late 2015 performance:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jacob...ting-the-wall/
Fangraphs on Harvey's late 2015 performance:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/matt-...r-worst-stuff/
Heat maps on 0-2 counts as a staff:
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/i...fgdownload.png
***OFFICIAL 2016 MLB POSTSEASON*** Who you got?
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