Tylor Megill’s remaining time in the Mets’ starting rotation could be short, depending on returning pitchers and the potential for a trade-deadline acquisition, but the rookie’s emergence ranks among the organization’s greatest hits this season.
That his early success has occurred in the heat of summer for a first-place team may only enhance the manner in which he’s viewed by team officials in charting his future.
The right-hander will take a 2.63 ERA and 1.21 WHIP over five starts into Friday’s game against the Blue Jays at Citi Field, but he’s still winless following a bullpen implosion in his outing last Saturday in Pittsburgh. In that game, Megill fired six shutout innings before Seth Lugo and Edwin Diaz combined to allow nine runs in the eighth and ninth. Megill has struck out 28 batters and walked nine in 24 innings.
Megill, 25, has thrived at a time when the Mets are without (most notably) Jacob deGrom, but have also lost Joey Lucchesi to season-ending Tommy John surgery and David Peterson to a strained oblique. Two marquee pitchers, Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard, haven’t thrown a pitch for the Mets as they rehab from a torn right hamstring and Tommy John surgery, respectively.
“You hope beyond hope when you bring up a young pitcher like [Megill] that you can get experience and innings and have enough depth in your rotation that you can take an iffy start every once in a while, but he’s not in that position,” former Mets pitcher and current SNY analyst Ron Darling said. “He’s in a position where there’s three people that are in the rotation and he’s one of them, so his start is as important as [Taijuan] Walker’s and as important as [Marcus] Stroman’s. You hate to put that kind of pressure on him, but that is the reality.”
Megill, who was barely on the Mets’ radar during spring training (he had pitched only one game above the High-A level), has thrived, showing a four-seam fastball that averages 94.6 mph, according to Statcast, complemented by a slider and changeup with an occasional curveball.
“His stuff is certainly major league level,” Darling said. “I think there has to be an efficient or effective velocity that is there because of the swings I see. What I mean by that is he’s not throwing 100 mph, but you see a lot of awkward swings, so that tells you his effective velocity is certainly there.
“All the things you want to see from a young pitcher: not get rattled, you have got to spin the ball behind in the count, be able to pitch with people on base, all of those things, so far he gets A-plusses across the board.”
A scout from a National League team who has watched Megill said he sees a back-end-of-the-rotation arm, provided the Mets know when to remove him from a game — his pitches have a tendency to “flatten out” near the end of his second time through the batting order.
“But he competes really well and throws strikes,” the scout said.
As the Mets await deGrom and Carrasco, and perhaps another quality arm by the July 30 trade deadline, Megill’s audition in the rotation could be ending soon, but with his stock climbing.
“I think he shows a great maturity on the mound,” Darling said. “There is a calmness that he exhibits for such a young pitcher, and most young pitchers, including myself a hundred years ago, tend to complicate things. He seems to compartmentalize and simplify things, so I have been really impressed.”