The New York Mets have been known for two things in the recent past - elite front-end pitching and injuries to their pitching. It's the latter that brings an opportunity for big lefty David Peterson. The loss of Noah Syndergaard for the season and an injury to Marcus Stroman, left a spot in the rotation open, and Peterson made his debut Tuesday night in that open spot.
Rankings
Peterson was the sixth-ranked prospect in Prospect Live's offseason Mets top 30 prospect list.
Background
A 28th round selection from high school in Aurora, Colorado, Peterson instead chose to attend the University of Oregon. After two seasons where he was a solid, but not spectacular pitcher, Peterson showed out in his draft season in 2017, pushing his stock into the first round, where the Mets selected him 20th overall.
Peterson's numbers in the minors have not blown anyone away, but he had a top-10 FIP in all of AA in 2019. Along the way, he's induced groundball rates of 59% through his minor league career.
Description
At 6'6" and 240 pounds, Peterson is listed as a mountain of a man, and he looks every bit that mountain.
Peterson's delivery is easy and repeatable. He comes from a 3/4 arm slot and has a bit of a stab toward the ground with the ball on the backside of the peak of his delivery, but it looks to be a timing mechanism for Peterson. Multiple times in the game, he rushed his delivery, didn't have the stab, and the ball would sail as he would take a long, loopy path with his arm, causing his body timing to get off and his legs to be ahead of his arm. At his height, that can be a concern, but that one timing mechanism seems to completely settle those issues.
First Inning
For a debut inning, facing the Red Sox lineup is not as daunting as the Sox lineup even last year, but it's still plenty formidable. Peterson was up to the task, however. He showed his nerves by launching his first pitch high and outside before Jose Peraza tagged his second pitch deep to left field off the wall. Unfortunately for Peraza, he misjudged the ball and J.D. Davis threw him out at second base by a country mile.
J.D. Martinez was the second batter of the inning, and he gave Peterson a good battle, though twice Martinez should have been rung up during the at-bat, once on a quality change that was called a ball and once on a diving slurve that Martinez failed to hold up on, but the swing was ruled as checked. Eventually, Martinez struck out on a changeup up and in.
Rafael Devers jumped on the second pitch of his at-bat, grounding a high-hopper to second base for the third out. Peterson needed just 11 pitches to get through the inning.
Second Inning
The Mets put up three runs in the top of the second, which meant that Peterson had a long break before coming back out for his second inning. It didn't end up phasing him.
Xander Bogaerts was up first, and Peterson attacked him backward, pitching him with a changeup to open the at-bat. Behind 1-2 in the count, Bogaerts swung at a slurve out of the zone and popped out harmlessly to right field.
Kevin Pillar attacked a first-pitch changeup that was up in the zone, grounding it deep in the shortstop hole. Peterson put two fastballs on the outside out of the zone with Michael Chavis before coming in with a changeup, and Chavis popped the ball down the right field line. Michael Conforto made an excellent play to catch the ball in the stands.
Jackie Bradley Jr. attacked Peterson's first pitch and lifted it gently to left field. Peterson was through 2 innings on just 21 pitches.
Third Inning
Some tough luck got Peterson into a jam while some fortunate luck got him out of it with minimal damage. He had a decent battle with Kevin Plawecki before Plawecki tagged a hanging changeup to left-center for a double. Peterson struggled to get calls on the corners against Andrew Benintendi and walked him, putting runners on first and second.
Peraza jumped on the first pitch he saw in his second plate appearance, lifting a ball to center field that could have easily been an out, but the ball glanced off the end of a sprinting Brandon Nimmo's glove, leading to the bases loaded. Peterson bounced back and battled hard with J.D. Martinez before striking out Martinez on a sharp 83 MPH cutter inside.
That's when the insanity came out. Rafael Devers jumped on a pitch, lifting a short flare to second base that Robinson Cano was unable to catch on the fly. Cano flipped the ball to second base, getting the second out of the inning, and Amed Rosario was checking first to potentially throw out Devers for the double play when Benintendi took off from second base unexpectedly.
Benintendi was tagged out eventually, though in the confusion, Plawecki did score the first run against Peterson. After three innings, he was now up to 42 pitches.
Fourth Inning
Responding to a long inning is a big thing, and Peterson did well, needing just 12 pitches to get three fly outs on Bogaerts, Pillar, and Chavis in the fourth. Only Bogaerts even put a scare into the ball, making Conforto have to catch the ball on the run heading backward in right field for the first out.
Fifth Inning
While he came into the game very hot, Bradley Jr. struggled with Peterson's stuff, flailing at a high fastball for a strikeout to open the fifth. Then the bad luck hit again.
Kevin Plawecki hit a sharp ball to Jeff McNeil that would have definitely been out as McNeil made a nice play to scoop the ball with plenty of time, but then he threw the ball away, allowing Plawecki to end up on second base. Red Sox announcers then questioned two calls with two strikes on Andrew Benintendi that were called balls before he was walked.
While that could have led to frustration and over-pitching, Peterson attacked Peraza with a sharp breaking pitch that he grounded to Cano to begin a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.
Sixth Inning
Surprising many, the Mets sent Peterson back out to face the heart of the Red Sox order in the sixth inning, his third time through the order. It started well, as he got J.D. Martinez to jump on an early pitch and ground out to third.
Rafael Devers battled Peterson before going opposite field off the Green Monster for a double. Xander Bogaerts jumped on a pitch early and lifted a lazy fly ball to left field before Pillar reached out his bat and blooped a double down the right field line, scoring Devers and ending Peterson's night.
Final Line: 5 2/3 innings, 7 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts, 78 pitches, win (1-0).
Pitch Mix
Fastball (50, FV 60): Peterson reported that his velocity ticked up in the spring, and that velocity held in summer camp. He previously worked with a heavy fastball in the low-90s, but he worked up to 94 with the fastball consistently.
Peterson's heater doesn't get into the upper 90s, but he is consistently 92-93 with the pitch. In fact, he averaged 92.8 MPH with the fastball in this start, and that would have been top 10 among left-handed starters in baseball in 2019.
The pitch has varying movement depending on where in the zone he's throwing. Peterson gets excellent glove side movement between the knees and belt with the sinker and can locate it well in that area. He gets more depth below the knees with less command and can dial up the velocity up in the zone, but the pitch doesn't have a ton of movement, so he lives up and on a corner when he goes up in the zone.
Changeup (45, 55 FV): Peterson's change sits 83-87 and does have a tendency to straighten out, but he did locate the pitch very well in this start. That has been the issue in the past with this pitch for Peterson. While it's technically his third pitch, as we'll talk about in a moment, it's really his fourth in quality. When he was locating the pitch well in the start, however, it was effective to both righties and lefties.
Slider (60, FV 60+): Throughout his minor league career, Peterson's slider has been ranked as a plus pitch. One thing that many fail to mention with Peterson is that he throws two very distinct sliders. Both are slider hybrid pitches.
The better, and more frequently used, of his two sliders is a slider/cutter hybrid that he throws 83-87 with an impressive sharp, late break. The pitch is especially effective on the glove side as a strikeout pitch coming in on right-handed hitters and going away from lefties. It's an easy plus pitch and the only thing holding it back from an even higher grade is that Peterson did straighten out the pitch multiple times when he was obviously amped up emotionally.
His second slider is a slurvy variety that works from 78-83 and gets plenty of depth. When he can keep this pitch landing from the knees on down, it's very effective, and he got multiple check swings against the Red Sox from hitters fooled by the pitch, even when it was clearly out of the zone. The slurve does not break as well higher in the zone, and it can lead to the ball getting hit hard if he misses into the middle of the zone with it. If I were grading the slurve individually, it'd be in the 50-55 range, with consistent location of the pitch the biggest drawback.
Health
Pitchers at Peterson's height are always a legitimate concern for knee, back, and oblique issues that aren't as common in other pitchers simply due to their body length and torque and angle on joints as they tally innings. However, Peterson has a very repeatable delivery that does not put any visible stress in that chain.
Outcomes
Peterson is not a guy with elite, ace-type stuff. That said, the uptick in his velocity to sit around 92 instead of sitting around 90 is significant and likely takes his future from a "potential 3, likely backend guy" to a guy who's likely a mid-rotation, inning-eating starter from the left side. Our offseason list had Peterson as a 50 ceiling/40 realistic, and the velocity increase along with the continued development of even an average change as a third/fourth pitch would certainly make a 60 ceiling/50 realistic seem in range.
Conclusion
Pitchers making velocity jumps seem to happen all the time in baseball anymore. Holding those jumps long-term is what will determine Peterson's value long-term. However, to truly test his mettle, one couldn't ask for a much better situation than a lineup with two of the best right-handed hitters in the game and multiple other legitimate offensive threats.
He pushed through missed calls at the plate, missed plays in the field, and he really did not show any breakdown in composure. I certainly left much more impressed with Peterson than I had been prior to this outing, enough so that I'd have trouble taking any other pitcher in the Mets system ahead of him right now.