Do the New York Mets really have the top three MLB starters?

Today’s debatable point is (resolved):  The New York Mets have the best top three starters in baseball. It was a curiously worded statement the editors embraced there, but nonetheless, a decent proposition, and one carefully worded. I think.

It wasn’t the “best three,” but the “best top three” – what is implied there? Perhaps those who have started “the most” games for their teams? Let’s assume something like that, and exclude, maybe, very promising pitchers who have fewer than 10 games started at this point. Also excluded would be a strong pair of front-two starters and a fabulous relief pitcher, obviously. We’re talking starters – not pitchers.

Clearly, the Mets have a place in the debate as their starting staff is led by the most dominant pitcher since Bob Gibson made Major League Baseball lower the mound before the 1969 season – Jacob “Check Out My WHIP” deGrom, and Mr. deGrom has, despite injuries, started 10 games.

Has Jacob deGrom’s dominance created an illusion of general starter superiority for the New York Mets?

Back up to the new nickname – deGrom has, despite an obscene 0.56 ERA at this point, an even more scandalous WHIP – 0.53 (before play June 16, when he is scheduled to face the Cubs in Citi Field). And despite the fact that deGrom has single-handedly killed the notion of the won-lost count as a meaningful record, he is 6-2 in his 10 starts this season. Simply put, he’s baseball’s best starter – a 100-mph, thinking man’s pitcher, not a thrower.

He is backed up at the moment by Taijuan Walker (11 starts) and crafty Marcus Stroman (13 starts). The Mets signed Walker out of the American League as a free agent for what is turning out to be (for two and a half months anyway) the peak of his career. He was given a hefty raise, which looks now like a good decision.

Walker’s figures are 5-2 with a 2.07 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. He has surrendered only two home runs in 61 innings pitched. He was scheduled to start against the Cubs June 15. Stroman? 6-4/2.07/1.07 WHIP.

Together, the Metropolitans three premier starters have given up only 20 home runs. As a group, they are averaging 5.7809 real-number innings per starter, between “5.2” and “6.0” as the numbers are often given currently. This seems a trifle low, considering the otherwise sterling numbers, but hey, it’s the 21st century.

This is a very good trio at this juncture. Who are their challengers, if any?

Is There a Mets Challenger in the rest of the NL?

(At this point, figures are after play June 15.) The short version of the story of the leading starters in the rest of the NL is that there are some fine performers, but only one team with three starters that might challenge the New York Mets leading trio at the moment.

However, the somewhat surprising picture does not have any of the powerhouse West teams – the Giants, Dodgers, and Padres – at the head of that pack.

Yes, the Dodgers trio of Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, and Trevor Bauer are all sporting WHIPS below 1.00, and Buehler is undefeated (6-0), but the aggregate numbers aren’t quite at the Mets level at the moment. Bauer might well pick up the pace for the second two-thirds of the season, but is anyone truly confident that Kershaw, who is now 33, will maintain his current pace – 8-5/3.39/0.97.

The Giants are led, of course, by Kevin Gausman, who is finally fulfilling a potential identified years ago. He is currently at 7-1, with an ERA of 1.43 and a sterling 0.78 WHIP. Behind him are Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood, who are performing well, but not at the level of Dodgers second and third starters, and not at the Mets pace.

Additionally, when you get down to it, which mid-June ace would you bet on to maintain an ERA below 1.45 and a WHIP below 0.80 – deGrom or Gausman? With no disrespect meant toward the Giants right-hander, this is a slightly comical question. However, it would be a wonderful turn of events to see Gausman outperform the Mets flamethrower for the rest of the season.

Down in San Diego, then, Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove lead the Padres starters with ERAs below 2.58 and WHIPS below 0.95, but there’s something of a falloff behind them, and we are considering the top three starters.

So, the one NL team actually positioned to challenge the Mets for the top three starters title is small-market Milwaukee. The Brewers feature three hurlers whose names are becoming widely known all too slowly. Likely only one in ten fans, if asked to name the second-best group of three starters would come up with Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, and Corbin Burnes.

But they are that second-best group now – sporting an aggregate 14-7 record, three ERAs below 2.28, and three WHIPS below 0.89. They may end up being the best group, even if none of them ends up posting numbers better than those deGrom ends up with.

On the other hand, Woodruff’s ERA now is 1.52 (“he’s within a point of deGrom!”), and the three Brewers have only given up 15 home runs.

On to the American League

The first question here, one imagines, is what sort of leeway should be given to the AL trios because of the league’s use of the DH? How about in a year following a 60-game, pandemic schedule that’s somehow deposited every other MLB player, seemingly, on the injured list before July 4?

You got me. Is a 0.30 higher ERA about right? Is a good AL WHIP, rather than 0.90, 1.05? 1.20? Let’s look at some prominent numbers and see if there’s even a point in trying to answer these questions?

This is a way of asking if any team is within spitting distance of the Mets.

Generally speaking, the AL starters who have performed the best this season are now in two places – in the AL East and on the Southside of Chicago. Gerrit Cole leads the Yankees top three starters, which also include Corey Kluber and Domingo German. Tyler Glasnow leads an excellent Rays group that also comprises Rich Hill and Ryan Yarbrough – three WHIP figures below 1.09, in the aggregate a tiny bit better than the Yankees’ WHIPs, despite Cole’s 0.87.

Even lowly Baltimore has a star starter in John Means, whose ERA and WHIP figures are better than both Cole’s and Glasnow’s.

However, for the most part, the American League features three starters per team very much like those who lead the Blue Jays, Steven Matz, Hyun Jin Ryu, and Robbie Ray, three guys who largely pass the often-cited eye test, but who have thus far posted surprisingly mediocre numbers. They have three decent WHIPS, but no ERA better than 3.43, and nine losses among them.

Ten different teams can be sensibly classified as Jays-equal, Jays-plus, or Jays-minus. Including Toronto, of course.

The stark exception to this trend is the White Sox staff, which is led, somewhat weirdly, by three pitchers who don’t lead the team in starts – Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn, and Carlos Rodon – 18-6 in the aggregate, with ERAs between 1.51 and 3.38 (two are below 1.90), and WHIPs between 0.84 and 1.23 (two are below 0.95). So, this is a trio arguably only a hair behind the Mets top three starters, if that.

But, more than that rough equivalence, the Pale Hose feature two other starters who have both started more games than the starter stats leaders, and who could – either of them, Dallas Keuchel or Lucas Giolito – replace any of the three current leaders.

Moreover, Keuchel is now 6-1, and Giolito’s WHIP is 1.11. Both have already started 14 games.

So, the Mets have the top three starters; the White Sox have the best five starters, and the Brewers are very, very good as well.