New York Mets Tickets

The Mets are one of the National League’s fastest-rising teams thanks to a dominant starting rotation. Matt Harvey is back and pitching as well as ever, top prospect Noah Syndergaard is in the big leagues, and Jacob deGrom refuses to slump following his Rookie of the Year season, and Jon Niese got off to the best start of his career. And then there’s Zack Wheeler, who will miss the season. But Dillon Gee slots in with Wheeler gone, and the rotation becomes the last of New York’s concerns. That concern would be offense, where two of the team’s biggest threats in David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud missed significant time from injury. First baseman Lucas Duda carried the team through that time. Veterans Michael Cuddyer and Curtis Granderson have been tabbed to provide insurance in run production with mixed results. Luckily, the Mets aren’t totally reliant on those veterans. Center fielder Juan Lagares routinely dazzles with a sweet play seemingly every night, shortstop Wilmer Flores could still develop into a great everyday player, and 25 year old Jeurys Familia started the season with a lights out performance as closer. The bullpen, long a sore spot for recent Mets teams, seems to finally have a working group of relievers for a contending team. But behind that impressive rotation, they won’t need the bullpen as much as in years’ past either. Harvey, Syndergaard, Wheeler, Niese, and Bartolo Colon already comprise a fantastic rotation--that doesn’t even include Rafael Montero, one of their other studs on the mound who wasn’t in the rotation in early on and then was injured. Look for the Mets to trade someone from this pitching surplus for offense if they’re serious about a playoff run in 2015.