I'm Jealous - Los Angeles Dodgers (Part II)

TW said ...
This (was) a ridiculous post. The ratio of Ramirez to Pierre to that of Hudson to Castillo is astronomically different. hudson hasn't played a full season in two years and his wrist is still in question. Castillo has looked good in st and can play comparable defense to Hudson. If the power numbers are what is bothering you, you're crazy.

Ramirez is going to hit over .310-.325. with 40+ homers and 130 RBIs Pierre will hit .260 with 3 HRs and 40 rbis. Point is you can compare a healthy Castillo to Hudson. You can't say the same in regards Ramirez.

Met fans are insane. Simply put, the reason the mets didn't make the playoffs last year is because the bullpen could not hold a lead. Forget every other factor. If the bullpen saved half of the games they blew last season they would have had 15 more wins. Hudson, castillo--joe Morgan wouldn't have changed that. Cased closed.

You're wrong and I'll tell you why.

First, it's not about a direct comparison of the four players (Manny to Pierre and Hudson to Castillo). It's a comparsion of the philosophies. Both teams had two positions on the diamond at which to consider upgrades - left field and second base. Both teams had an under-performing veteran at one position (Castillo in NY and Pierre in LA), and a platoon featuring a promising young player and a veteran at the other position (Murphy/Tatis in NY, Dewitt/Loretta in LA).

The Dodgers upgraded at both positions and strengthened their bench in the process. They may have the best everyday lineup in the National League right now. The Mets did nothing and congratulated themselves all winter for adding two relievers. They will simply have to hope for the best at the plate, leaving themselves with a series of question marks and easily exploitable holes in their lineup.

Personally, I like general managers who never stop trying to improve their teams, not general managers who hitch their fortunes to a series of "what-if" scenarios.

Second, it is an incredible over-simplification of the problem to say that the only thing this team needed to fix was the bullpen after last season. The notion that a team can make up 15 games in the standings on the strength of 130 innings pitched by two relievers defies all forms of logic. JJ Putz was injured and ineffective throughout 2008 - is he suddenly going to become a dominant set-up man because Omar Minaya told us he will be? K-Rod's strikeout rate has declined annually for the last five seasons and his 2008 WHIP was the highest of his career. Does your "additional 15 wins" scenario include seven more blown saves from K-Rod - the number he blew in 2008?

Every team in baseball blows saves - even the Phillies blew 15 of them last year. (You thought that because Brad Lidge was 41-for-41 it meant that Philadelphia's entire bullpen didn't blow their share of leads as well?) Met fans who actually think the only thing they needed to fix is the bullpen are deluding themselves - and will actually be shocked when this team limps home with 84 wins.

One last thought: JJ Putz and Francisco Rodriguez combined for 15 blown saves in 114.7 innings in 2008. The two men they are replacing - Billy Wagner and Aaron Heilman - had 12 blown saves in 113 innings. Good luck finding those 15 wins.

2009 National League East Champions!

It's going to be a banner year at at Citi Field/Metropolitan Stadium, where the Mets will celebrate their first year in the new building by storming to 93 wins and a division championship. So says the people at Baseball Prospectus, whose projection system picked the Mets to finish first in the NL East in 2009.

I don't see it - and I'm going to spend most of the next seven weeks telling you why I don't see it. Pitchers and catchers are around the corner and I'm bringing the blog back this year. I just finished a piece for Flushing University about Alex Rodriguez, which I expect will be up within 24 hours.

Loyal readers - and there are probably five or six of you - will the Mets win 93 games and a division championship? Or will they win 84 games and finish in third place, as I am boldly predicting with less than a week before Spring Training begins?

Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good

I'm finally starting to get excited.

Watching the Mets finish off their sweep of one of the best teams in the National League in their home stadium finally stirred something inside of me today. It took a come-from-behind win on Monday, an extra innings thriller on Tuesday and finally, an easy romp on Wednesday to complete a very successful 6-2 road trip. The Mets come home from Milwaukee with a three-game lead over the Phillies and a fan base that is slowly allowing itself to shrug off the devastation of last year's collapse.

The starting pitching looks exceptional at times, and it seems like every night there's a chance to see someone spin seven innings of shutout ball. The lineup is healthy and hitting the ball well. Even the much-maligned bullpen is holding its own, although Jerry Manuel is doing far too much mixing and matching for my tastes.

The New York Mets are a dangerous team, and for the first time this season I'm starting to believe that they are a playoff team.

The Mets still aren't the best team in the National League. Chicago is the class of the Senior Circuit and my pick to make it to the World Series. The Cubs' lineup is simply devastating, and if Carlos Zambrano is healthy, their starting pitching is no joke either. A three-man grouping of Zambrano, Rich Harden and Ted Lilly is on par with Santana, Perez and Pelfrey. Don't even bother comparing bullpens - Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol are light-years beyond anything the Mets can throw at you.

The Brewers, despite playing the victims this week, competed in a three-game series without starting their best pitcher - CC Sabathia. The big lefty is the best pitcher in the National League right now and I would hate to see him three times in a seven-game series. The Cubs are in a different stratosphere, but the Mets and the Brewers are two evenly matched teams with similar flaws - specifically, an untrustworthy bullpen.

Arizona is doing everything it can to hold off the Dodgers in the NL West and they probably will. The Diamondbacks aren't a bad team - I happen to think they are better than their record indicates - and a rotation of Brandon Webb-Dan Haren-Randy Johnson can take care of anyone in a short series.

No matter. The Mets are a team to be reckoned with, and if they hold off the Phillies in the East they will be just as dangerous as anyone else when playoff time rolls around. Something tells me that this September won't bring the same heartache that the previous one did.

Trade Targets, Part 1: Corner Outfield Edition

I had a conversation with Joe about the Rich Harden trade last night, which in my mind is just a fascinating situation. Talk about a risk/reward situation - the Cubs either got themselves a Cy Young candidate a la Rick Sutcliffe in 1984, or they just paid nearly $10 million and four prospects for a career-ending injury waiting to happen.

Harden is a devastatingly good pitcher when healthy; I'm not sure there's a better pitcher in all of baseball when everything is right with him. Of course, everything is rarely right with Harden, which may explain why Oakland GM Billy Beane was willing to trade him with the A's eight games over .500 and trailing the Angels by only five games in the American League West.

Anyway, I was disappointed that the Mets were never able to pry Matt Murton away from the Cubs to help with their corner outfield woes. Murton was part of the six-player deal, mainly because somewhere along the line the Cubs decided that he wasn't a major league outfielder. His track record certainly doesn't suggest that and I have a feeling Murton will look mighty good in the green and gold of the A's before the season is out.

Joe, of course, is expecting an immediate counter-strike by Omar Minaya. He wants a corner outfielder and he wants one 90 seconds ago, even though the Mets have very little to offer in return for someone decent. (Joe is willing to make a challenge trade and use Aaron Heilman as bait - what a surprise, a Mets fan who thinks Aaron Heilman is good trade bait! - but I have no reason to believe the Mets will subtract from the major league roster to go after another bat.)

After some back-and-forth, a few basic criteria for trade targets were established. The only realistic possibilities were players currently on a team that is going nowhere in 2008. They must be performing well, but not playing at such a high level that it would take at least one good prospect to acquire him. Finally, the player should be a veteran without a burdensome contract that is no guarantee to be re-signed by his current team next season.

Shockingly enough, that didn't leave a lot of possibilities.

Back in a few hours with Part 2 ...

25-Man Roster Analysis, Part 1

Opening Day is less than eight hours away, so I have to squeeze in the first half of my 25-man roster analysis between meetings and paperwork. I would really rather do a different type of player analysis, with a focus on how they ended up on the Mets and what role they play on the current squad, but for now, let's take a look at the pitching staff for the team that will take the field in Florida today.

STARTING PITCHERS
Johan Santana
Pedro Martinez
Oliver Perez
John Maine
Mike Pelfrey
Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez-DL

A potentially dominant rotation and the single biggest determining factor whether or not this team wins 85 games or 100 games.

Santana has to be considered a Cy Young Award front-runner after dominanting the American League for the past five seasons. Other than some concerns about pitch selection, there's nothing not to like about the guy. Pencil him for continued success and the starting nod at the All-Star game.

Martinez is one of the 10 greatest starting pitchers in baseball history, but not enough attention is being to the fact that the surgery he's coming back from is known as a career-killer. You can count the number of pitchers who returned to their old form after rotator cuff surgery on one hand. The days of sub-2.00 ERAs and 0.950 WHIPs are long gone, but I'll be happy with 175 IP, a 4.00 ERA and a 1.300 WHIP. If anyone can do it, it's Pedro.

He's pitching the fourth game of the season, but John Maine will be the nominal #2 starter before the end of the year. Stolen from Baltimore two years ago in exchange for a MILF, Maine has been lights-out this spring and appears ready to step into the elite class of National League starters. In retrospect, perhaps this shouldn't be entirely surprising - Maine dominated the lower levels of the minor leagues before being rushed to the big club at 24. It took him an extra year to get it, which was one year too long in a dysfunctional organization like Baltimore. Bold prediction: 17 wins, a sub-3.25 ERA and a 1.200 WHIP. He's going to look very good in my Strat-o-Matic rotation next season!

The Mets are one of the most interesting teams in baseball because their starters have the potential to throw a shutout every night of the week. No one exemplifies this more than Oliver Perez, whose raw stuff rivals that of Santana or pre-injury Pedro. Unfortunately for Ollie, he still hasn't learned to consistently harness that stuff, making him a terrific candidate for most disappointing starter in the National League. Having Perez on a one-year deal at $6.5 million is fine for a big-market club with enough money to fill Scrooge McDuck's vault. As a #4 starter without a long-term contract, he's an absolute dream. But signing Oliver Perez to a 5-year, $75 million free agent deal (as he's been rumored to be looking for) would be disastrous. You can bank on 5 great starts and 5 terrible starts in 2008 - the consistency he shows in the other 20 will go a long way toward determining his future worth to the franchise.

Mike Pelfrey should be a reliever. He's going to get tattooed with the big club, sent to AAA by May 15 and will rot there until Minaya trades him for pennies on the dollar.

El Duque is starting the season on the DL because apparently bunions are the most debilitating baseball injury known to man. The graceful leg kick of yester-year is gone, replaced by a more pedestrian wind-up that will rob El Duque of some of his trademark abaility to hide the ball until the last possible second. The man is a joy to watch when he's on and, like Perez, perfectly suited for the role he will play as a #5 starter. Omar made a big boo-boo by guaranteeing a pitcher in his mid-40s a two-year deal after the 2006 season, but at this point it's not like El Duque is blocking the next Mets pitching phenom.

Summing Up: The single biggest joy of being a Mets fan is this starting rotation. Once Pelfrey is back in the French Quarter, every single start has the makings of something special. They will need to catch some breaks though. Don't worry about Santana and Maine - they'll win at least 30 games between them. But the key to sustained success will be Pedro and El Duque, who will have to stay healthy enough to make 50 regular-season starts and still be ready for October assignments. If they do that and Perez simply maintains his 2007 form, the Mets can hit the century mark in wins. Extended DL stints for the veterans, combined with a severe regression from Perez to 2004-2006 levels, will mean an 85-77 record and the end of Willie Randolph's managing career. At this point, I honestly don't know what I'm rooting for more.


RELIEF PITCHERS
Billy Wagner (closer)
Aaron Heilman
Pedro Feliciano
Matt Wise
Scott Schoenweis
Jorge Sosa
Joe Smith

Before I begin, let me state for the record that a seven-man bullpen is a ridiculous use of roster space and is completely unnecessary, even in today's ultra-specialized game. I'll write a separate entry about this topic down the road, but the seven reserve arms in the Mets' pen are keeping them from carrying even six infielders this season. I will respectfully suggest that every team in baseball can get more use out of a sixth infielder than they can out of a seventh reliever.

Billy Wagner is the closer - one of the few relievers in baseball who I firmly believe should be utilized ONLY with a lead of three runs or less in the ninth inning of a game. Wags is one of those guys who "needs to have a role" - remember that ninth-inning meltdown against the Yankees two years ago? Both his ERA and WHIP have increased from the 2005 season (the year before he signed with the Mets), always a cocnern for a reliever in his mid-30s. Wagner is also my least favorite Met on the team, mainly for this type of garbage. He didn't even have the balls to admit it was him at the time; it was only after Milledge was traded that he admitted to doing the deed. Here's hoping Lasto goes deep on you three times this season, Billy - and that he slaps hands with the hometown fans after each and every dinger.

Aaron Heilman is a victim of his success. He desperately wants another chance to be a starter but at this point, he's one of the more underrated set-up men in the game. A few unfortunately timed home runs tend to overshadow the fact that Heilman has pitched 229 highly effective innings out of the bullpen over the last three seasons - with a ERA of 3.14 and a 1.161 WHIP. You'd be hard=pressed to find another middle reliever in baseball with those kind of numbers over a three-year span. Sorry Aaron, you're just too good at your current job to let you go back to starting.

I've been a big fan of Pedro Feliciano ever since the Mets re-acquired him two years ago, but I have to admit I soured on him a bit in 2007. For a second straight year, the overall numbers were good, but Feliciano was less effective after the All-Star Break. He's another guy that Willie tends to misuse - typecast as a situational lefty despite holding right-handers to a .241 batting average over the last two seasons. Still, Heilman is clearly the top set-up guy and while Feliciano is more than equipped to handle the entire eighth inning, it would be better to use him in innings where he was assured at least one left-handed batter.

Matt Wise was a terrific under the radar signing by Minaya last off-season. This guy was shutting down everyone until accidentally fracturing the cheekbone of Pedro Lopez with an errant pitch on July 25. The league hit a mind-boggling .466 off Wise after that incident, most decidedly taking the shine off Wise's early numbers. Wise features an excellent changeup and a season of sharing a locker room with Johan Santana will hopefully make it even more devastating. As long as he's gotten over the emotional trauma of the beaning, I really like him as the fourth reliever in the pen and I think he's primed for a great campaign.

Memo to Omar Minaya - don't sign middle relievers to three-year deals. Memo to Willie Randolph - don't use lefty specialists against right-handers. It ain't rocket science, people.

Jorge Sosa should be in AAA or in the #5 starter role. Instead, he's the seventh reliever on a team that only needs six. There's no reason Schoenweis couldn't function as a lefty specialist AND the long man - you don't have to worry about striking out a tough left-handed batter in seventh inning if your team's already down by six runs in the second. But when it comes to roster construction, the lack of creativity shown by Willie and Omar never ceases to amaze. And so we have Sosa, one more mediocre arm at the back of the bullpen waiting for the call that may never come - all at the expense of the pinch-runner, the platoon partner or the defensive specialist far more likely to have a significant impact on the outcome of the game.

Joe Smith is the man benefitting the most from Randolph and Minaya's short-sightedness. He barely beat out Brian Stokes for the last spot in the bullpen and will have to replicate his early-season success in 2007 if he wants to stick with the big club this time around. The sidearmer has already been typecast as a righty specialist, but learning to shut down left-handers will be the key to long-term success.

Summing up: A good bullpen, on balance, even if it is too big. When Wagner isn't lecturing us all about playing the game right, he's still a Top 10 closer. Heilman is the best set-up man in baseball and Feliciano is a competent fill-in, with Wise lurking if Pedro needs to be re-calibrated into a lefty specialist. Schoenweis is here, for better or worse, but can be useful if used solely against tough-lefthanders and in mop-up duty. Joe Smith belongs in AAA, where he can work on getting out lefties - Sosa can do the long-man thing AND get out a tough righty in the sixth inning.

Stupid Decisions, Part 1

Welcome to the segment of my new blog that I like to call "Stupid Decisions." These segments will be dedicated to all the times the Mets do something stupid to piss me off, which invariably leads me to question how much longer I can remain a fan of this team.

I wrote about the dumb decision to release Ruben Gotay late last night and I had made my peace with it as best as I possibly could. So I get home from work today and just as I'm about to make some dinner when Joe calls me with the latest news: Gotay is going to be practicing his tomahawk chop this year.

Well, that's just terrific. It took the Braves less than 24 hours to swoop in and sign a guy who was actually in tears about the idea of having to leave the Mets, and to disprove the old adage that "you can't get something for nothing." The Mets didn't attempt to work out a deal with the Braves - hell, as far as I can tell they didn't attempt to work out a deal with any team in the league. They just let Gotay go, 72 hours before the final rosters were due, and ended up handing him to Atlanta for nothing.

Joe put it very well. "Jack," he asked me, "if any other team in the league had Ruben Gotay, and the Mets offered them Fernando Tatis in a trade, do you think they would do it? And we kept Tatis, and gave away Gotay!"

So let's recap: our hated division rivals just filled one of the last holes on their roster by grabbing a 25-year-old infielder who can play three positions and who just came off a season where he nearly hit .300 - all at the expense of the Mets! Bold prediction: Gotay and Lastings Milledge combine for 10 home runs against the Mets in 2008.