#MLB evaluators: New Met Rick Porcello ‘will help’ rotation

It doesn’t take a genius to deduce the NL East’s best rotation heading into spring training 2.0 belongs to the defending World Series champion Nationals.

Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez provide the kind of punch that might be unrivaled in baseball. The question is, are the Mets even close after losing Noah Syndergaard to Tommy John surgery?

The Post asked two talent evaluators with strong knowledge of the NL East where the Mets rank in starting pitching within the division. The first evaluator put the Mets tied for second with the Phillies, who boast a Big Three of Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler and Jake Arrieta. The second evaluator placed the Phillies and Braves on the same footing as the Mets. The Braves in the offseason added veteran lefty Cole Hamels to a mix that includes Mike Soroka, Sean Newcomb and Max Fried.

Both evaluators mentioned Rick Porcello as a reason the Mets could emerge as the clear-cut No. 2 rotation in the division.

In a rotation that also includes Jacob deGrom, Marcus Stroman, Steven Matz and Michael Wacha, the 31-year-old Porcello is the wild card and might be the Mets starting pitcher with the most to prove when full-squad workouts commence Friday at Citi Field.

Porcello went 14-12 with a 5.52 ERA in 32 starts for the Red Sox last year, continuing a career trend of following a good or respectable season with a clunker. Porcello arrived to the Mets on a one-year contract worth $10 million.

“It’s an every-other-year thing,” the first evaluator said of Porcello, who won the 2016 American League Cy Young Award with the Red Sox. “I think part of his problem last year is he got caught up in trying to go the analytics route and pitch to the top of the strike zone with a four-seamer and he’s always been a sinker and two-seam guy.

“He got away from his strength. I think he got two-thirds of the way through the season and he realized that ‘This isn’t working, I have to go back to what helped create success.’ I think he went back to using his two-seamer and he finished stronger and got better result. I think he’s probably learned a lesson from that and he’s going to go back to his strengths instead of trying to create something that he’s not.”

The second evaluator said Syndergaard’s loss for the season might not hurt the Mets as much as fans perceive.

“Porcello will help them,” the second evaluator said.

Still, the biggest seismic shift might have occurred with Wheeler’s departure to the Phillies from the Mets on a five-year contract worth $118 million. The Phillies are banking on receiving the Wheeler who was among the most dominant pitchers in baseball in the second half of the last two seasons.

“J.T. Realmuto will really help Wheeler,” the second talent evaluator said, referring to the Phillies’ All-Star catcher.

DeGrom has won the last two NL Cy Young awards, giving the Mets the best pitcher in the division, if not all of baseball, but it’s difficult to find a duo that equals or surpasses the Nationals’ two-headed monster of Scherzer and Strasburg, who finished third and fifth, respectively, in the vote.

“The Mets, Phillies and Braves are bunched together in starting pitching,” the second evaluator said. “Whoever has the most depth will pull ahead of the others.”