Jacob deGrom, Game 2 starter, is the face of the new Mets

If there’s any solace for Mets fans after the grim heart theft of Game 1, it’s this: Win Game 2, and the Mets have home field advantage in a best-of-five series. Win Game 2, and the odds turn in favor of the Mets. Win Game 2, and it’s not just possible, it’s more probable than it was before the World Series started.

They just have to, you know, win Game 2. No pressure.

To accomplish this noble goal, the Mets are turning to their best pitcher. Technically they have a 1a, 1b and 1c, but the Internet wasn’t built on lukewarm opinions, and if I have to pick one fully rested Mets pitcher to start a hypothetical Game 7 with Bugs and Lola against the Monstars, I pick deGrom. Harvey is great, but not quite his 2013 self yet. Syndergaard is great, but he’s still a puppy. A gigantic, flaxen puppy who throws 100 mph. He might be the one to take on the Monstars in the sequel.

For now, it’s deGrom. And after looking at how all three did over the last two seasons, I’m realizing that this is the “I think tacos are excellent” take of the day. Still, the Mets’ best chance to win the World Series at present rests on the right arm of deGrom, and that’s exactly what they should want. He’s also the reason you should be most excited about the Mets for the next few years, even if he’s the oldest of the three co-aces. Let me explain:

Harvey is the high draft pick, the consolation prize for being so very awful the season before. The Mets lost 92 games in 2009, a season after a brutal September collapse led to the rival Phillies winning a championship. Mets fans, who opened this looking for nice words about deGrom, were just slapped with that memory like it was a dead herring, but this is going somewhere. Those 92 losses started the New Era of General Mets Pain, and they led to more losses, and Bernie Madoff, and more losses and a large-market team wearing mid-market clothing. The losses also led to Harvey. The Mets are in the World Series because of it. Turns out that the death spiral was worth it.

But the way to sustain a renaissance isn’t by picking in the top 10 every year. The Mets get a ton of credit for selecting Harvey, don’t get me wrong -- consider that Barret Loux was the pick before him and Karsten Whitson was the first pitcher picked after -- but the best teams get one or two of these picks, at best, to become a cornerstone. There’s no lesson other than “Don’t screw up those high first rounders when you get them” to apply to a team looking for sustainable success.

Syndergaard is the acquisition, the product of a wide net and keen eyes. The Mets had a Cy Young for sale, and they didn’t have to rush into anything. They needed to “hit a home run” with this trade, considering that R.A. Dickey was a fan favorite and the kind of feel-good story that keeps people coming back to watch dreadful teams. They probably received 20 informal trade proposals for him, which means there were about 18 ways to screw it up completely.

The Mets get a tremendous amount of credit for honing in on Syndergaard, but the way to build sustainable success isn’t to set up a Cy Young Winner booth at the farmer’s market and expect other teams to dump their A-grade prospects on the counter. Teams usually get one or two shots at finding a franchise cornerstone during the veteran-trading portion of the rebuild. Don’t screw it up is the lesson, just as it was with Harvey.

deGrom isn’t the high draft pick. He isn’t the top prospect that everyone was already aware of before he was traded. He was the raw pitcher ore who was melted down and reforged into exactly what the Mets needed. deGrom was the ninth-round pick that exceeded expectations, partially because the Mets got lucky, but mostly because the Mets are competent and set up to take advantage of a pitcher like him. Here’s his Baseball America scouting report from before the 2010 draft:

He throws strikes as his arm works well, he’s athletic and has a clean delivery. There were some reports that deGrom, at 6’4, 185 pounds, was hitting 94 mph with his fastball late in the year, and he has a solid if inconsistent slider to go with it. His changeup is in its nascent stages.

Here are some scouting reports from the pitchers picked just before deGrom. You haven’t heard of the pitchers they’re attached to, and that’s the point:

He works primarily off two pitches, an 88-91 mph fastball that in the past has touched 94, and a slider with above-average potential at 79-82 mph.

His fastball sits comfortably at 92-93 mph, and he has shown the ability to touch 94-95 late in games. His curveball is average, but he flashes some that scouts can dream on. His second pitch is a changeup that’s an average pitch now and has a chance to get better.

And on and on and on, stretching all the way back to the first round. They’re all descriptive ways of saying “If this kid can beef the baseball up a little, and/or refine their offspeed stuff and/or ... maaaaybe it’ll work out?” That’s every scouting report in history, give or take. While the Mets got lucky that there wasn’t another team in the previous eight rounds who liked the glimmer of deGrom’s potential just a touch more that the player they eventually picked, they get full credit for drafting him. Full credit for easing him back after Tommy John. Full credit for pushing him, even as he had his ups and downs in Double-A and Triple-A. And full credit for holding on to him when it still wasn’t clear what they had and the Red Sox came calling.

deGrom is the face of the new Mets, the pitcher who didn’t have to happen. And once you realize it, you see the greasy thumbprints of the organization all over Syndergaard’s success, too. He didn’t just arrive after the Dickey trade, put down his bags and announce that he was a majors-ready ace, ready to go as soon as possible. There were growing pains with him, too, with forearm tightness in 2014, poor luck in Las Vegas (same) and forearm tightness again at the beginning of this year. He wasn’t fully formed. The Mets had to Mets him up. In the past, that was a vile thing. In the present, it’s how pennants are won.

Last year, the New York Times started the recap of a boring April loss like this:

The Mets are often asked what reasons they have to be optimistic. Lately, their unequivocal response has been starting pitching. It is their obvious strength, now and for the future. They consider Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero precious assets. The Mets plan to be cautious with them, bring them along at the right pace and eventually ride them to relevance.

They did it. The sons of guns ... they actually did it. And if you’re looking for a reason why they could keep doing it, deGrom is your guy.

He’s also the guy for the Mets before one of their most important games in the last 30 years. No pressure. In just two short years, though, he became the pitcher the Mets would have chosen over just about anybody to shoulder that burden. That he exists at all is proof that the Mets didn’t just stumble into their current success. They’re here for a reason, and they’re showing signs of sticking around for the next half-decade or so.