Mets have the depth and high-upside players needed to overcome their injuries

The Mets literally caught two bad breaks this past Sunday, with Travis d’Arnaud knocked out of action for at least three weeks due to a broken pinky and Jerry Blevins on the shelf for at least six weeks after suffering a broken forearm. Unlike prior years, though, the Mets have the depth and upside needed to overcome these injuries.

The injury bug started to bite the Mets in Spring Training, when both Zack Wheeler and Josh Edgin were determined to be in need of season-ending Tommy John surgery.

While Dillon Gee has stepped in for Wheeler in the starting rotation, the Mets will likely soon turn to Rafael Montero, with both Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz – two of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball – waiting in the wings.

To deal with the Edgin injury, the Mets went out and swung deals for Jerry Blevins and Alex Torres, and kept Rule 5 draftee Sean Gilmartin on the roster, giving them three lefties. The Mets haven’t called up another lefty to replace Blevins, instead turning to Hansel Robles, whose fastball was hitting the upper-90s during early-season dominance for Triple-A Las Vegas.

The Mets are also dealing with injuries to Vic Black and the suspension of Jenrry Mejia, but have seen Carlos Torres step up in a late-inning role and watched as Jeurys Familia seamlessly took over the role of closer from Mejia.

For most teams, losing a player like d’Arnaud would’ve been an enormous blow. For the Mets, it’s something they should be able to get through, with highly-touted catching prospect Kevin Plawecki coming up from Las Vegas to fill in.

Plawecki doesn’t have the offensive upside (especially in the power department) of d’Arnaud, but he’s one of the best catching prospects in all of baseball, profiles as a major league regular, and is ready to contribute. Most teams would be going with their backup or trying to swing a trade. For the Mets, all they had to do was dip down to the minors.

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The injury to David Wright was a bit more worrisome than the pitching injuries and the injury to d’Arnaud because the Mets didn’t have a high-upside third baseman to turn to.

However, with Wright perhaps due to return in just nine days, the club opted to go with Eric Campbell as a short-term replacement instead of displacing some of their other infielders in order to call up either Matt Reynolds or Dilson Herrera, who would’ve likely played second base.

If Wright has a major setback, something that isn’t anticipated, the Mets could then turn to either Reynolds or Herrera to play second base while shifting Daniel Murphy over to third base.  The aforementioned scenario would give the Mets another solid offensive piece to insert into the lineup while awaiting Wright’s return.

In 2009, the last time the Mets went into the season expected to contend, they were decimated by injuries and didn’t have either the depth or upside needed in order to overcome them. This season is different.

Hopefully for the Mets, they’ve made it through the worst of it and will only get stronger as their injured players begin to return later this month.