The Mets announced this evening that starter Carlos Carrasco is headed to the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April 16, due to inflammation in his throwing elbow. New York recalled reliever Jeff Brigham from Triple-A Syracuse to take the active roster spot. The club also announced that reliever Dennis Santana cleared waivers and was outrighted to Syracuse after being designated for assignment over the weekend.
Manager Buck Showalter told the team’s beat that Carrasco will head back to New York to undergo imaging (relayed by Tim Healey of Newsday). It’s not yet clear what the issue is or how severe it might be, but it’s a concerning development for a 36-year-old pitcher. Carrasco has spent time on the IL in each of his first three seasons as a Met. He lost a chunk of the first half in 2021 to a hamstring strain and missed a bit of time last year with an oblique issue. He’s generally avoided elbow concerns in recent years, though he did undergo Tommy John surgery over a decade ago while playing for Cleveland.
The start to the season hasn’t gone well for the veteran righty. He’s been tagged for 13 runs in 13 2/3 innings over his first three starts. Carrasco has eight strikeouts and walks apiece and has already surrendered a trio of home runs. He’s also battled a velocity dip. Carrasco’s average fastball speed has checked in at 91.3 MPH; that’s down nearly two ticks from last season’s 93.2 MPH average. He certainly hasn’t appeared to be at full strength and the IL stint reflects that.
Carrasco joins Justin Verlander and José Quintana as expected rotation members on the shelf. Quintana won’t be back until midseason but Verlander should be able to make his team debut before too long. Verlander is tentatively scheduled to throw a live batting practice session on Sunday, tweets Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. He’ll be on a five-day throwing program from that point, with a minor league rehab start the anticipated next step. That points towards a potential MLB return in the first week of May if all goes as planned.
In the meantime, the Mets will have to plug another rotation vacancy. Injuries to Verlander and Quintana forced the team to call upon David Peterson and Tylor Megill. The likes of José Butto and Joey Lucchesi project as the next line of defense. Butto was already called up for a spot start against the A’s over the weekend. He was promptly optioned out and has to spend 15 days in the minors unless he’s replacing someone who lands on the IL. Considering he wasn’t the corresponding promotion with Carrasco’s placement, that might point towards Lucchesi getting a call later this week.
Santana lost his roster spot as part of the shuffling to accommodate Butto’s promotion last Saturday. The sinkerballer has bounced around via trade or on waivers since the start of the offseason. He’d made seven appearances for the Mets this year, allowing six runs over 7 2/3 frames. Santana has over three years of major league service time and has the right to refuse an outright assignment. Doing so would require forfeiting his $1MM salary, however, so it’s likely he’ll report to Syracuse and try to pitch his way back onto the MLB radar. He’d reach minor league free agency at season’s end if he’s not first added to the 40-man roster.
I saw Vasil on milbtv the other day. He had his best stuff but he definitely could start at some point this season
Mets should think about using him out of the bullpen now. But ok, they need him to start at AA to “stretch him out as a starter”
Mets bullpen is the worst Ive seen in a while
Actually, over the past week, the bullpen has been more solid than the starters.
Long term it’s not sustainable. A bullpen implosion at some point is almost a foregone conclusion
Four pitchers- Yacabonis, Brigham, Reyes, and Uceta, are pitchers that shouldnt be in the major leagues, or at the very most they should all be the last pitcher on the depth chart
When you see pitchers like Nogosek and Yacabonis in the pen, and they are actually higher up on the depth chart, it’s bad
Apparently you haven’t seen the White Sox. I’ll match the Sox against the Mets bullpen any day to see which bullpen is the worst. My money is on the Sox
Agreed on Vasil. Two very impressive starts last week, silencing a Somerset club loaded with top Yankee prospects..
Vasil has 6 innings above A ball. Vasil was an extremely unimpressive college pitcher. Pump the brakes. He isn’t going anywhere this season, certainly not to the MLB club.
Damaged goods like dating a Kardashian
He won 15 games last year as a 35 year old. That’s actually pretty remarkable. At 36 this year hes pretty much done. Give him a break. Hes 36
Do people understand the aging patterns in baseball? They talk like a 36 year old should still be good
300M team and guy is a SP3 or SP4 (depending on how you view Senga). Even if he’s a SP4, what is the average age of NYM’s rotation 1-4? Hint: Jesus would be dead.
Well, I had Carrasco last on the Mets depth chart because you could tell he was done. Even Butto and Lucchesi are better at this point
Dylan Bundy will be in the mix too at some point when he gets into shape
@Rundmc. This is a fun game. Give me another hint. Is the average age older or younger than the World Trade Center?
Seattle has Tommy Millone…but it’s gonna cost ya…
Dylan Bundy may need more time to ramp up. He threw batting practice to Scranton in his first start: 4.1 inn, 10 hits of which 4 were home runs. Next up Lucchesi.
Near a month in, and the Mets will have tapped all 3 of their supposed “depth pieces” for the starting rotation. And they should probably go and get back Nick Dini from the Rays AAA team in Durham who was at Syracuse last year. Keep him up behind Nido, and let Alvarez get his regular at bats and get back into a groove at Syracuse. At least Dini has a decent eye at the plate and a little pop.
Then why did they sign Verlander, Scherzer, and Quintana? They are all old, still productive. Age is a thing but guys still pitch effectively as they get older.
Third oldest in the rotation.
Don’t tell us. Tell Cohen.
@Camden, for pitchers yes many are still good at 36 years old. Pitchers typically age better than position players. As far as Carrasco last year was the first season he’s really been healthy since 2018. Him being injured seemed highly likely. He has not had a track record of being a workhorse like Verlander and Scherzer have for the majority of their careers.
If they use Butto against free swinging teams with lower statcast chase rate he’s ok. But any team with good chase rate is just going to draw walks and tee off
No Baty or Alvarez in the lineup tonight for the Mets. The prospect simps are going to be upset
Are the casuals going to be upset also?
Probably. They wont get that Baty is sitting vs a lefty, and Pham is in against the lefty, and Alvarez cant DH because they moved Nimmo to DH to give him a day off from fielding
Casuals dont yet understand these basic things
@Camden Right on the money
@Camden, instead of Baty the Mets got typical 0 for out of Escobar. And who are you to accuse anyone of not understanding basic things?? Nearly every comment of yours I ve read have been flat out wrong assumptions….
Or the showcasing as pieces in a possible trade.
@Tigers3232
Camden is a character. Although everyone has different opinions and different levels baseball knowledge, Camden believes he is superior. He condescendingly calls others “casuals”. Based on his love of Jankowski, he is likely related to him. Maybe that’s why he thinks he knows more than the rest of us.
Unfortunately Carlos looks washed in early going.
It has nothing to do with fortune or luck, but rather it is just the fact that hes 36
Theres nothing he can do really. No amount of hard work will help anything
Verlander on line 1…
Older players get hurt more often and take longer to heal when they do.
Stop looking at depth charts as the season opens and coming to conclusions. The games are played on a field…..not on paper. Past statistics don’t matter. As the investment counselors write: “Past Performance Is No Guarantee Of Future Results”.
Steven Cohen is not going to buy a championship.
Alvarez and Baty are up, which is for the good. But they have some adjusting to do playing in the majors….and that’s the way it is.
P.S. The Padres aren’t exactly lighting it up. MLBTR needs to give an award for winning the offseason – so those teams’ fans can think they accomplished something.
“Past statistics don’t matter.”
I think the pitch clock is going to result in a ton of arm injuries for pitchers. I don’t think it’s enough time for modern pitchers to get set. They’re just throwing throwing throwing. At this type of speed and modern bulk, body types, I don’t see this as sustainable. At least 5 move seconds would be good. But even that is cutting it short.
@Samuel … Captain Obvious strikes again!!!
Well as a baseball fan I hope it’s not curtains for the old pitchers in the time clock era. I’d have like to see Verlander get to 300 wins, but boy that looks a lot longer away than it did before the start of the season. The teams more than good enough to get him the runs, but will he be able to last in this version of supermarket sweepstakes ?
Having just subscribed to hot potatoes you tube channel, old Bauer is looking pretty darn good in Japan. His pretty agent is hot, and funny. In fact judging by his channel size it don’t seem like he’ll be there too long. If they are going to try to black ball that guy, good luck.. He’s got fun channel, and it seems like he’s doing quite well over there. I think if he does well there, he’ll be a future Met.
Bauer has a female agent??? Brilliant.
Carlos Carrasco is up there on the list of “guys that were touted as the eventual best player in baseball destined for a giga salaried contract despite being locked into a very long term extremely team friendly deal who’s career quietly petered out and he retired on that original team friendly deal with nothing left in the tank.*
Kinda reminds me of those brief windows when Rafael Furcal and Mark Ellis were talked about like these absolute must have prizes who were worth all the money in the world and then signed very modest team friendly extensions amidst all that hullabaloo and their careers quietly finished out without much of an impact in the grand scheme of things.
@mp. Her name is Rachel Luba.
Thanks
This would be an LOLmets moment except New York teams from winter sports are in their respective leagues’ playoffs.
Ilya Sorokin!!
You gotta carry that weight a long time!
Carrasco was getting lucky all year last year. Pitched good vs team with under .500 records. Gets obliterated vs teams over .500. Also saw the highest run support last year out of all our pitchers. The worst part about him is that he makes an excuse after every bad outing. Just this year hes blamed his poor performance on the pitch cloth, having a rookie catch his games, and now elbow inflamation. Elbow inflamation won’t make you hit 3 batters agaisnt the worst offense in baseball. I’m tired of his act. I said that when the Mets took his club option on his contract, it was the most stupid decision I’ve ever seen. That falls on the worst GM in baseball. It’s kinda sad that a fan knows more about this team than the GM. I try to watch as many games as I possibly can, I’m sure Eppler watches some. I don’t see how we watch the same game yet have totally different opinion on how the team should be run. One of the worst bullpens in the league with a 400 million dollar payroll, pathetic
Buttercup knows more than Eppler. No one would hire someone that hates the team like you. Maybe try the Nationals.
Mets to sign Tommy millone, Dallas Keuchel to IL.