Reliable and consistent, we’ll be happy to have him join the Mets in 2024.
The New York Mets might be sleeping giants as a team. When it comes to their chances of winning a championship, they’re not receiving much attention. It makes sense. This roster’s name recognition isn’t what it was a year ago at this time.
The players are accepting their role as the underdogs. In every one of their spring training interviews, they have been positive. This collar makes a big difference when worn. And there’s a player in this pack of wild dogs that we might all be undervaluing.
A fifth starter is not as good as Adrian Houser.
Adrian Houser, a pitcher, is expected to start the fifth game for the Mets this season. Having played his entire career with the Milwaukee Brewers, he comes to the Mets with a 31-34 record, a 4.00 ERA, and experience as both a starter and reliever. Given his higher than average walk percentage and lower than average strikeout rate, it makes sense why some people might not think highly of him.
Houser did not have a particularly good season in 2023, nor did he manage a stellar year in 2022. He wasn’t appalling either. Houser is pretty much the ideal candidate to be your fifth starter. He even displayed a glimpse of what his ceiling might look like in 2021.
Houser started 26 games for the Brewers in 2021, a career-high, in addition to making two relief appearances. He would give them a record of 10–6 for the season in addition to a 3.22 ERA. Despite having a career-low ERA, his FIP of 4.33 was strangely higher than it was in each of the previous two years.
It’s funny with numbers. It appears that he was extremely fortunate to have had this successful year, or considerably less fortunate to have had the previous two seasons.
Either way, the Mets have a pitcher who has had great success when pitching to groundball contact. Even though the previous two years weren’t as successful, the low of 46.3% was still higher than the league average. Throughout the majority of his career, he has been over 50%, which should help for the 2024 campaign if he can maintain that level. Get the hitter to hit it into the ground if you are unable to get it past him.
Last season, Houser had to tread carefully due to career-worsts in exit velocity, hard-hit percentage, and fly-ball percentage. Luckily, he was able to avoid most damage by slightly raising his strikeout rate and lowering the overall number of walks.
Houser won’t just walk into the Cy Young discussion. He should be valued far more by the Mets than he is, as he has been throwing over 100 innings per game on a regular basis, lengthening the Milwaukee rotation in recent years, and providing them with some excellent relief pitching when needed. It’s simple to ignore the Mets’ lowest-paid player because he’s still in the arbitration-eligible phase of his career.
Houser’s season hasn’t been as explosive as Luis Severino’s was the previous year. Unlike Sean Manaea, he is not on a downward trajectory and is not depending on a spike in velocity to turn around his starting pitching career. He is a very good fifth starter who will finish the job; that is what he is.