Later today in Pittsburgh, Noah Syndergaard will make the third start of his major league career. Last night in Florida, Dillon Gee threw six-and-one-third innings in a rehab start, and it would appear he either is or will soon be ready to return from the disabled list. So the Mets would have six healthy starting pitchers for five spots in the rotation. While the team has already cycled in a sixth starter during a long stretch with no off days, it has pretty consistently indicated that it won’t use a six-man rotation.
Last year, Syndergaard had a 4.60 ERA for Triple-A Las Vegas, but his strikeout, walk, and home run rates were all good. In five starts there this year, those rates all improved, and he had a 1.82 ERA pitching in a league and a home ballpark that are extremely hitter-friendly. There’s really nothing left for Syndergaard to prove in Vegas. The Mets should not send him back there to make room on the roster for Gee’s return.
Jon Niese and Bartolo Colon pitched poorly this week, but weighing each pitcher’s most recent start too heavily when projecting future performance would be a mistake. For now, both pitchers should rank ahead of Gee in the starting pitching pecking order. It just seems that the best thing for the Mets to do—other than making a beneficial trade—is to move Gee to the bullpen, where he might prove more effective than he has been as a starter and could make a spot start occasionally as necessary. So let’s take a look at what relief pitcher Dillon Gee might look like.
As a starting pitcher, Gee has been below league average when adjusting for league and park—both in his career and recently. Since the beginning of the 2014 season, he has a 113 ERA- and 119 FIP- that suggest he has pitched worse than league average. Over that span, he has struck out 16.3 percent of opposing hitters, walked 7.3 percent, and given up 1.13 home runs per nine innings. His average four-seam fastball over that span has been clocked at roughly 90 miles per hour, per Brooks Baseball.
Generally speaking, pitchers who move to the bullpen change for the better. Strikeout and home run rates improve, and fastball velocity increases. Going back to Tom Tango’s "rule of 17," there’s a 17 percent improvement in strikeout percentage and a 17 percent reduction in home runs per contacted plate appearance, while walk rates do not change. A few years back, Baseball Analysts dug into the numbers and found the average gain in fastball velocity was 0.7 miles per hour.
Applying all of that to Gee, the Mets would have a relief pitcher with a 19.1 percent strikeout rate, a 7.3 percent walk rate, and a better home run rate—crude math would be about one home run per nine. And his fastball would average closer to 91 miles per hour than 90.
By the standards of relief pitchers in 2015, that would give Gee slightly-below-average strikeout and home run rates and an above-average walk rate. His fastball would be on the low end for relief pitchers, even if he were able to average over 91 miles per hour. But all of that might make him a viable relief pitcher. The expectation here would be a decent relief pitcher—not the next Wade Davis or Andrew Miller.
Those general changes for pitcher moving from the bullpen to the rotation make sense. Relief pitchers perform in short bursts and can therefore throw harder than they would if they were expected to pitch several innings, and they don’t have to go through the opposing batting order multiple times. The latter part could be very helpful for Gee, who in his career has been much worse in his third or fourth time through a lineup than in his first two times.
Relief pitchers can also cut down their arsenal, as it isn’t necessary to use quite as many pitches in short stints as it can be in longer starts. As a starter, Gee has thrown his fair share of pitches: four-seam fastball, sinker (or two-seam fastball), changeup, slider, curve, and—recently—cutter, according to Brooks’ classifications. Here’s a breakdown of his usage of those pitches by year.
In Gee’s case, perhaps he would ditch his curveball and focus on throwing his other secondary pitches, which he has already thrown more frequently as a starter. Let’s take a look at the swinging strike rates of his pitches.
The curve has fared worse in that regard than the slider and change. Neither of his fastballs has been great at generating whiffs, but Gee could potentially focus on throwing whichever of the two fastballs is stronger and two of the three secondary pitches. Add it all up, and Gee could be a decent reliever, maybe a bit better in that role, relative to his peers, than he has been as a starter.
Keeping Syndergaard in the rotation and slotting Gee into the bullpen would require a roster move, of course. In the short term, the Mets could option Jack Leathersich back to Vegas, as it would be hard to do so with Erik Goeddel or Hansel Robles, both of whom have looked good so far this year. If the Mets’ injured relief pitchers return sooner than later, there could be another roster crunch. But for now, finding out what Gee can do as a reliever seems reasonable.