The Mets have claimed left-hander Locke St. John off waivers from the Cubs, who designated St. John for assignment last week. To create space on the 40-man roster, New York moved Jacob deGrom to the 60-day injured list.
St. John signed a minor league deal with Chicago in December, and his tenure with the club consisted of seven innings over five Triple-A games, and a single inning in the majors. It was a second cup of coffee for St. John, whose previous MLB experience was seven games with the Rangers in 2019. A longtime Tigers farmhand before Texas selected him away from Detroit in the December 2017 Rule 5 Draft, St. John returned to the Tigers on another minors deal last winter but didn’t see any big league action in 2021.
The waiver claim adds a bit more left-handed depth to the Mets’ relief corps, with Joely Rodriguez and Chasen Shreve serving as the only southpaws in the Amazins’ bullpen. Elsewhere on the 40-man roster, the only other left-handers are starter David Peterson and Thomas Szapucki, who is working his way back after having his 2021 season cut short by ulnar nerve transposition surgery.
For deGrom, the shift to the 60-day IL doesn’t much change his situation, and he is still around another week away from further imaging on his throwing shoulder. A stress reaction in that shoulder sidelined deGrom for yet another extended absence, and since he’ll require quite a bit of ramp-up before finally taking to the mound, it is seems like deGrom will be out until late June at the earliest.
A perfectly non-cromulent addition.
Jake tried to throw every fastball at 102, every slider at 94, same as so many pitchers today trying to overthrow every pitch. How about we show some of these hard throwers some video of Greg Maddux and so many others of past era’s that changed speeds and locations, truly knew how to pitch. 5000 innings and 4 Cy’s for Maddux, 3.16 ERA, 132 ERA+ and over 100 WAR. It takes 20 years of 250 innings a year to get to 5000!!!
Different age of pitching and hitting. It’s not the same.
No one is holding a gun on them to do this. It’s just the dumb video game age of the sport.
Changing speeds and locations is relevant in every era.
I love Greg Maddux, he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen, but I truly wonder if his numbers would have taken a serious hit if he had pitched in his prime today. There are barely any contact hitters anymore, everyone swings for the fences and doesn’t let you work the corners.
Nestor Cortez begs to differ & says Maddux would’ve been just fine today.
His numbers would be even better.
Maddux and just about every finesse pitcher would’ve been better today. They feasted on all or nothing guys. This era of trying to blow fastballs past everyone makes it more possible to hit bombs because the hitters know where the ball is going for the most part, especially with so many of these high-velocity guys constantly falling behind in counts. The hitters just time the fastballs. The pitchers that we see know how to pitch, play with these guys like toys.
And for any Maddux and finesse pitcher doubter, please take a look at this guy with the Dodgers, Clayton Kershaw. He seems to be pretty good.
What do you mean about “corners”? I would think what you are saying would work to his advantage.
@Monkey’s Uncle
There’s a reason why Smoltz was Atlanta’s most effective postseason starter in the ‘90s. He was a power pitcher unlike Maddux and Glavine. Unfortunately Smoltz was the victim of two 1-0 losses in the World Series (1991 Game 7 and 1996 Game 5). That could have been the the difference between Atlanta winning only one championship or possibly winning three.
The 1995 ring, the only ring for that Braves era, was won with a 2 hit gem in Game 1 from Maddux, he was strong in his other start as well, Smoltzie got lit up in his only start….Maddux put together a career 2.09 ERA in 5 WS starts, not his fault the Braves were 2-3 in those starts. ….not a Braves fan at all, but Maddux was incredible.
I totally agree. deGrom would be just as effective spotting his pitches at 95 rather than max effort on every single pitch. Goes for tons of other starters. No doubt this has an effect on so many pitching arm maladies.
@Wampum
I agree with that deGrom fell in love with throwing hard.
However, I disagree that dialing it back will take a major adjustment from deGrom. He only started throwing his fastball 100-102 mph (averaging 98-99) over the last season and 1/2. Prior to that, he won two Cy Young awards back to back in 2018-19 sitting 95-97 on the fastball. There was relatively no change in his slider velocity, averaging 91, 92.5, 92.5, and 91.6 over the last 4 seasons.
DeGrom also has far less miles on his arm, being drafted as a shortstop in the 9th round in 2010. He subsequently had
TJS in October 2010 and returned to the mound in May 2012. He was promoted and won ROY in 2014. Point being, low miles and huge success throwing with slightly less velocity = a better chance to return and remain injury free than many detractors give him credit for.
This move gives Locke a clean slate with his new team…. almost a “tabula rasa”.
(Yes mom, I’m making bad philosopher puns on a baseball website again…)
So then do the Mets pick up his social contract
loved his character in Jane Eyre
Does this add to deGrom’s IL stint?
*ROCHESTER RABBITS
Maddux and deGrom are both among the best of their generation. They accomplished their goals very diferrently, but were equally outstanding.
As a side note, Thor is much more efficient this year with his pitch count. He’s pitching at 94-96 and, as always, generating alot of ground balls. Perhaps deGrom is watching and will look to be more efficient upon his return after nearly a year off due to injury.
MLB is better with a healthy deGrom.
“Maddux and deGrom are both among the best of their generation. They accomplished their goals very differently, but were equally outstanding.”
–
No.
Last year deGrom finished his age 33 season, Most of his “dominance” has occurred in the past 4-5 years. He was a very good pitcher before then.
By age 33 Greg Maddox had a few seasons coming up at age 20 with the Cubs. At age 22 he started rolling.
During his age 33 year deGrom had thrown a total of 1,261 innings. During his age 33 season Maddox had thrown almost 2,700 innings – not counting the innings in his first 2 season.
There is a major problem in this country with putting things into perspective. This logic is like saying Roger Maris dominated home runs during his time like Babe Ruth did in his.
Greg Maddox continued as an impact pitcher for 3 more years after age 33. He then hung around as a bit above average, average, and a bit below average pitcher for a number of years before he retired.
deGrom we don’t know about yet. But what we do know so far is the way the Mets poo-poo’ed his being out at the beginning of the season as just needing an exam and wanting to be careful is now a 60 day IL stint.
Samuel, don’t overthink it. I’m just saying deGrom and Maddux are/were really good.
Angels & NL West;
Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are in Greg Maddox’ class. Jacob deGrom is not.
Why you mad bro lol
thought and prayers for a speedy mets recovery 2027.
I would take Maddux over just about any pitcher today when he was in his prime. He threw 90 pitch complete games and completely dominated the Steroid Era of baseball. All those juiced up guys would have tee’d off on these fastball pitchers. Don’t forget the Era that Maddux and Randy Johnson, Glavine, Pedro I mean they pitched. DeGrom is great. But he’s got to be out there every 5 days to be put in that company
Prime Maddux over just about any pitcher today? Well, yeah, give me the inner-circle Hall of Famer, too. There aren’t many of them around ever.
Well the argument was that Maddux wouldn’t do well in this era. I strongly disagree. I think DeGrom would have been made a closer in the late 90’s and he probably would be the best ever
As a Mets fan who know this will never happen I would like to see DeGrom come back as a closer. They say late June return does that mean the 60 day stint started earlier in counting days from his other IL stint?
DeGrom will come back and start and then hit the IL and be out the rest of the year. 🙁
Live and work a mile from the big A for 12 years and love the Angels as it does not conflict How about 22 year old Detmers No No!
@Fg-3
Fair point about deGrom. I’ve also felt that I wouldn’t class him with the past legends because he doesn’t go deep into games like they did. With deGrom, you start looking at his pitch count at the end of the 5th inning in over half of his games. Pitchers in the past were not considered anything close to an Ace when they were that type of pitcher of dominating for 5 innings and being pulled after 6 or 7 on a routine basis. Guys like Sid Fernandez and Dice-K would’ve loved to pitch in this era. They would have been Hall of Fame caliber with their ability to dominate for 5 innings and call it a night since they wouldn’t have to be there for much more than another inning or two.
Okay, I have to ask again.
How did @MetsFan22 do this? Seriously. We’ve all seen trolls before, but to see one be able to put a jinx or hex on a player like this is something I’ve never seen before.
@MetsFan22, return to your trolling here and let us know how you did this. Seriously, when you said that deGrom didn’t need to do anything else in his career and he was a lock for the Hall of Fame, I never thought you’d be able to get him injured in his very next start to where he’s not been healthy since. How did you do this?
He’s a witch
Put it in the books = metsfan22.
What does this mean?