PORT ST. LUCIE — This is the dream time. This is the part of the calendar when you imagine all the best-case scenarios because if you don’t now — every team at 0-0 — when will you?
So the Mets and their fans are busy dreaming, particularly about their young pitching, notably about Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler. Imagining them as near-future Nos. 1-2 in a stacked young rotation with Jon Niese behind them, and some combination of Dillon Gee, Cory Mazzoni, Rafael Montero, Noah Syndegaard, Hansel Robles and Darin Gorski filling out the starting five.
This is the time of year when all the prospects will reach their ceilings, when there is a whitewash on logic, an ignoring of history that screams this warning: Dreams hardly ever honor the script.
This is the most encouraged the Mets have been about their young arms since the mid-1990s. Going into the 1995 season, they had three of the top 15 pitching prospects in the sport, according to Baseball America. This was Generation K. This was Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson and Jason Isringhausen, and the promise of Doc and Darling and Sid Fernandez redux.
But the Mets actually got more from the guy who was ranked as the best pitching prospect in the majors that year than any member of Generation K — that was Armando Benitez (sorry, Mets fans).
It is a reiteration of just how difficult it is to translate prospect-dom — even elite prospect-dom — into serial major league excellence, especially for a high-attrition job like pitching. From 1996-2000, the best pitching prospects in the majors were Wilson, Kerry Wood twice and Rick Ankiel twice. Ten years ago, the top five pitching prospects were Jesse Foppert, Jose Contreras, Gavin Floyd, Francisco Rodriguez and Scott Kazmir.
The step from promise to healthy, productive pitching genius is the most difficult in all of sports.
This is not to say what the Mets are doing is wrong. Quite the opposite. General manager Sandy Alderson’s decision to populate his organization with high-end pitching possibilities is the proper route because of the attrition rate.
This only shows what a high-wire act it is, how daunting the odds remain for the Mets to compete consistently with the Nationals by developing their own version of Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann.
“As good as we feel about Wheeler, he hasn’t thrown a pitch in the majors,” pitching coach Dan Warthen said. “The same goes for guys like Mazzoni and Montero. Lots of people in baseball throw 95 mph. Our job is to make them better as pitchers so that it matters in the majors.”
Wheeler is Baseball America’s fifth-ranked pitching prospect going into this season and Harvey would be in that range if he had not used up his rookie status with an impressive 10-start cameo last year.
Those 10 starts — 2.73 ERA/.631 OPS against — have similarities to Isringhausen’s 14-start debut in 1995 (2.81/.658).
This, of course, does not mean Harvey will break down or be part of a moronic trade for a Billy Taylor type; just another example of the arduous navigation from here to there.
Harvey had ace stuff yesterday against the Marlins, 94-96 mph from the outset, a breaking ball that one scout in attendance said had improved a grade since this time last year because of a willingness to alter speeds with it.
What was missing was command as he worked further to refine a change-up.
Harvey needed 50 pitches in 2 2/3 innings. Even Mets people will say that is the finishing item for the self-critical Harvey to fully harness his repertoire.
Mets officials actually think Wheeler’s pure stuff is even better than Harvey’s. There have been Strasburg comparisons. But even Strasburg already has needed Tommy John surgery, was famously limited to 159 innings last year and has yet to prove he is the consistent horse of his projections.
Again, this is hard.
As Robles, a prospect the Mets really like, was getting beat up yesterday, Warthen turned to manager Terry Collins on the bench to say: “These young pitchers have to learn that is not easy to pitch here.”
No, it is not. Still, good for the Mets that they have stockpiled well-regarded arms, that they have two on the brink of possibly changing the arc of the franchise. This is the proper path and it is spring. Time to dream, to ignore history and imagine the best playing out. If not now, when?