Early NY Mets underachiever confirms doubts about a November roster decision

Yeah, it’s only spring training. Of course we’ll forget every moment from the preseason. There’s a 100% chance much of what has happened over these last three weeks of exhibition action will be meaningless. However, confirmed concerns about certain New York Mets players might be enough to set off some alarms.

Back in November, the Mets had a choice to make with multiple players on the 40-man roster. They decided to cut three, Grant Hartwig and Alex Ramirez whom they re-signed to minor league deals and Alex Young. The more experienced players all hung around including trade deadline addition Paul Blackburn whom the team could have simply non-tendered and moved on from.

His tenure with the Mets ended prematurely after 5 starts. The thought of having him around as a depth addition must’ve been front of mind for David Stearns. He was tendered a deal and despite our best wishes, has lingered around and will now move forward as one of the starting rotation pieces to begin the year. If you already had your doubts, Blackburn has done a fine job confirming them.

Mets pitcher Paul Blackburn is confirming doubts we already had about him

After one shutout inning against the Miami Marlins back in February, Blackburn has been plastered in two consecutive starts. In 1.1 innings against the Boston Red Sox he surrendered 4 runs (3 earned) while walking 2 and allowing 3 hits. His most recent outing on Friday versus the Washington Nationals resulted in 2.1 innings and another 3 runs (all earned) tallied to the stat sheet. He gave up 5 hits against the Nationals including 2 home runs.

Unraveling in the third inning, Blackburn managed to escape his early wildness. However, this is the second straight appearance with a pair of walks and no strikeouts. Minimal in comparison to all of the runs he has allowed, now up to 7 in only 4.2 innings, it’s not the kind of start to give us much faith he’ll stick around in the rotation for very long.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a competition between him and Griffin Canning for a rotation spot as originally planned. It’s not even a choice between Tylor Megill. Megill’s own struggles probably has him leaving St. Lucie with a direct flight to Syracuse barring any other injury. As of now, the Mets are going to have to live with Blackburn starting in one of the first five games of the season.

An unsatisfactory resume already, we can only further question the appeal as to why the Mets thought even at a rate of just over $4 million he ever made sense. Blackburn has struggled to stay healthy and even when he has been able to take the field, he’s a low strikeout pitcher prone to letting in runs. Surely, there was a better option out there.

Long ago, the Mets chose depth over talent to piece together their rotation. Blackburn was never meant to have such easy access to start games for them, but the injury sucked the blood from them and passed along a disease where the only cure is hoping the guy figures it out or someone better quickly replaces him.