There stood Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler, all healthy and assembled for the first time. It is fair to say no group of players is more essential to a team’s fortunes than this one.

The Mets envisioned this quintet carrying them deep into the postseason last fall, but Harvey, deGrom and Matz were lost to injuries, all of which eventually required surgeries, and Wheeler’s return from elbow surgery was pushed back and pushed back until it was too late to salvage 2016. Only Syndergaard remained healthy, giving the Mets seven shutout innings in the National League wild-card game, which was still not enough to beat Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants.

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Keep this quintet healthy in 2017, and it is easy to envision the Mets challenging the Washington Nationals for supremacy in the NL East. Watch them break down again, one by one, and they stand almost no chance. Health is a major factor for every team, every year, but the Mets’ fortunes seem uniquely tied to that of their rotation – both because of this group’s sheer ability, and its recent checkered history.

Harvey, who turns 28 next month, is the biggest uncertainty. His surgery in July, for thoracic outlet syndrome, was the riskiest and most invasive, requiring a rib to be removed to alleviate nerve compression, and a five-day hospital stay. There is not much a track record for such surgery among big-league pitchers, and it remains to be seen whether Harvey will ever return to being the pitcher who posted a 2.53 ERA over his first three big-league seasons, with 449 strikeouts and only 94 walks in 427 innings.

Wheeler, too, is an unknown commodity, if only because he hasn’t appeared in the big leagues since 2014; his place in the rotation is less secure, as he will face competition from Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo. DeGrom, meantime, had surgery in September to repair nerve damage in his elbow, while Matz had a bone spur removed in October. Both are considered 100 percent healthy now.

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It is clear now that keeping pitchers healthy is part science, part art and part voodoo. The Mets will be taking all the best-industry-practices precautions, beginning with limiting their starters’ throwing during drills and giving them extra rest between bullpen sessions.

“With what happened last year, they’re more willing to buy into some ideas about staying healthy this year,” Mets Manager Terry Collins told reporters in Port St. Lucie. “If they’re rested, they’re going to stay healthy. That’s going to be the big push.”

The odds are stacked against any five pitchers each making 30-plus starts in a season. Chances are, one or more of the Mets’ starters will break down at some point. The odds are the same for every team.

But from where the Mets stand, in the heady days of mid-February, all that matters is seeing their rotation whole again, and trying to make sure it is that way in October.