Mets’ first-half MVP Taijuan Walker has eased rotation concerns

LOS ANGELES — The Mets’ Most Valuable Player will not be represented at the All-Star Game.

If your mind went immediately to Brandon Nimmo, got it. Nimmo is leading a first-place team in Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference), just ahead of Starling Marte, who will be at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night.

But I am looking at the player behind Nimmo and Marte in Mets WAR. That is Taijuan Walker. He serves as the frontman for what I believe is the MVP for this shiny Mets first half — all the starters not named Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer (with the mulligan of eliminating Thomas Szapucki’s one-start abomination).

Once Scherzer was signed to the largest per-annum contract in history, the Mets projected as Max and Jake and could the others carry the weight? After all, Walker followed a 2021 All-Star first half with a 7.13 ERA in the second. Carlos Carrasco couldn’t stay healthy last year and when he did pitch had a 6.04 ERA. David Peterson followed an encouraging 2020 debut with a discouraging sophomore effort. Tylor Megill had little track record. Trevor Williams didn’t even have a no-doubt clear path to a roster spot.

The post-lockout trade for Chris Bassitt was acknowledgment that the team had real concerns about covering innings and rotation depth. But then deGrom went down with a scapula issue. Then, after pitching like deGrom for a month, Megill was lost first with a biceps injury, then a shoulder problem. Then Scherzer was lost for six-plus weeks with an oblique strain. Suddenly there was no Max and Jake, just what was in their wake.

So that Bassitt, Carrasco, Peterson, Walker and Williams have remained sturdy has been vital and valuable. The Mets are tied with the Yankees and three other teams for having used eight starters this year, second fewest in the majors. The eighth was Szapucki (nine runs, 1 ¹/₃ innings), so they would not have wanted to figure out who the ninth starter was.

On Sunday to close the first half, Peterson started the 81st game (exactly half a season) by a Met not named deGrom (who has zero starts) or Scherzer (who has 11) or Szapucki (one start). His one run allowed over five innings (none earned) gave those other Met starters a 3.77 ERA. That is so much better than the Mets could have imagined for health and results. It is made all the more important because the depth quality of the Mets bullpen is an issue. Subpar starting pitching would have exposed the relievers even more.

“That brings a lot of value if we can do that [pitch solidly in the absence of the expected aces],” Walker said recently.

But Walker is particularly integral because part of “value” has to be when you produced your value — does it, for example, help blunt a crisis for your team by, say, excelling in that quarter-of-a-season alley in which neither deGrom nor Scherzer started, Megill made two starts (8.10 ERA) and Szapucki made one (60.75 ERA). Wait, it goes further. Peterson had a 3.93 ERA in that 41-game chunk, but Carrasco (5.44), Bassitt (5.51) and Williams (5.82) all had their struggles. There were 14 starts in all of fewer than five innings, none by Walker.

He pitched like an ace when the co-aces were both out. Walker never provided fewer than five innings, went six or more seven times in nine starts, never gave up more than four runs, gave up three or fewer in eight starts and two or fewer in six. His ERA in that period was 2.59.

“You can’t try to emulate them because they’re [deGrom/Scherzer] two of the finest pitchers,” Walker said. “So I just try to go deeper, while staying within myself.”

Off of a 7-3, 2.66 ERA/.573 OPS against in 94 ²/₃ first-half innings last year, Walker went to his first All-Star Game. He is 7-2 with a 2.55 ERA/.582 OPS against in 91 ²/₃ innings this season.

Can he avoid the second-half swoon of last year to set himself and the Mets up well? If Walker gets to 175 innings, his 2023 player option becomes $8.5 million. But short of devastating injury, the righty will take a $3 million buyout into free agency. He only turns 30 next year.

The Mets will, naturally, hope he maximizes the second half because with deGrom seemingly on the precipice of returning and Scherzer pitching so well since he came off the IL, the Mets could finally be approaching their rotation dream for the stretch run — and playoffs — made all the better if this version of Walker plays a worthy No. 3 behind deGrom/Scherzer.

For much of the first half, the Yankees had a healthy, flourishing rotation. But with Luis Severino (shoulder) out and some wobble all around among the starters, they are currently the New York team most in need of upgrading before the Aug. 2 deadline. The Mets will not exactly be ignoring Cincinnati’s Luis Castillo and others. After all, no team truly ever has enough starting pitching.

But because of their first half MVP — the surprising rotation depth led by Walker — the Mets will open the second half with far fewer rotation concerns than they did the season.