Nolan McLean’s debut puts Mets’ vital future front and center

The future was late Saturday afternoon, so most certainly now. Forget about easing Nolan McLean in. The Mets stopped being a good baseball team in mid-June and have devolved into an atrocious one of late, losing 14 of 16 going into the touted prospect’s MLB debut. 

There are many culprits. A starry, highly paid lineup main four of Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo has lacked enough clutch impact. A refortified bullpen has been central to blowing leads in each of the seven games going into Saturday. 

But poor rotation work, which has had a chain reaction of giving a spent bullpen too many outs to get daily, has been the main internal saboteur. Since June 13, a period in which the Mets were 19-34 before Saturday, the rotation ERA was 5.34 with the fewest innings generated in the majors. 

The descent of this rotation from arguably the majors’ best through June 12 to this has focused criticism on David Stearns for his philosophy not to invest long, lavish deals on established (read: already close to or in their thirties) starting pitching. But keep in mind that these were three starters who received by far the largest free agent deals last offseason: