3 NY Mets spring training battles we can already smell brewing

3) Griffin Canning vs. Tylor Megill

And our main event, Griffin Canning vs. Tylor Megill. A pair of sixth starters trying to spend this season to prove they belong on a big league roster, each is at a crossroads of their career.

Let’s start with Megill who we know best. This is his final year with a minor league option. It should be enough for the Mets to keep him around. After all, he’s coming off of a promising season featuring a 4.04 ERA and dazzling 10.5 strikeouts per 9. He’s one of those guys we’ve been waiting to see benefit from the pitching lab and working with Jeremy Hefner. At least last season, it seemed to get the most out of him even if he spent half the year in the minors.

Canning is new to our Mets coven. A career 4.78 ERA and an unsatisfying final year with the Los Angeles Angels that did manage to include a personal high of 171.2 innings but 99 earned runs to lead the league, he’s a depth piece for the Mets to try to mold into what the Angels couldn’t. Canning has gotten hit hard over the last two seasons. The troubling numbers from last year in a larger sample size than ever before are cause for great concern.

A major factor in this spring training battle is the fact that Canning has enough service time to refuse a minor league assignment. A conversation we hope the Mets had with him before the signing, there’s also the possibility of him being used as a reliever at times. This is a spring training battle more about an emergency start versus an actual regular spot on the team.

Conclusion: This is a battle with no real winner, but I’d bet they favor seeing what Canning can do as he was a choice by David Stearns while Megill is an inherited player.