New York Mets: Jason Vargas has officially become a bust of historic proportions

Jason Vargas has been one of the worst free agent acquisitions the New York Mets have made in recent years, but his bust status has been finally cemented.

After an All-Star year with the Kansas City Royals in 2017, the New York Mets signed lefty pitcher Jason Vargas to a two-year, $16 million deal this past offseason. Based on his track record and the club’s need for pitching depth at the time, the move made sense.

While not an overpowering pitcher in any sense of the word, Vargas was a much-needed back-of-the-rotation innings-eater. Unfortunately, his second stint as a Met hasn’t started as planned.

New York’s veteran free-agent signing has spent a considerable amount of time on the disabled list this season and has disappointed when he’s been healthy enough to take the mound.

Through his 10th and most recent start on July 27th, Vargas owns an abysmal 2-6 record and has given up a whopping 39 earned runs in 42 innings pitched (That amounts to an 8.36 ERA to put that in further perspective).

Needless to say, Vargas has certainly drawn the ire of all Mets fans due to his poor performance this season. Yet, despite his unbelievably terrible season, the much-maligned free agent acquisition only recently made MLB history after his last start.

Last night Mets player, Jason Vargas became the first pitcher in MLB history to go 10 consecutive starts throwing under 6 innings.
— Sean Loewy (@Sean68477633) July 28, 2018

If you haven’t done the math already, Vargas has failed to pitch six innings in any of his 10 starts to begin the season, breaking Rich Hill’s MLB record of nine straight such games set last season. The southpaw’s ineptitude frustrating needless to say, but also confounding based on his body of work last season.

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Unlike this year, Vargas was a model of durability and consistency with the Royals in 2017. Of the 32 starts he made during his All-Star campaign, the lefty hurler lasted at least six innings in 17 of those games.

Vargas’ consistency last season could be considered an outlier by some considering he performed that way during the only All-Star season of his career.

However, getting past the sixth has surprisingly been par for the course for Vargas. In fact, he actually owned a career innings-per-start average of six coming into this season (Well, 5.96 if you want the exact math, but let’s round up for argument’s sake) .

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Vargas is slated to take the mound again Thursday night against the Atlanta Braves and there’s a chance that he could break his streak. After all, he didn’t allow a run the last time he pitched against Atlanta. In a season where the club has played at historic levels of ineptitude, Mets fans could really use a break.

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