Babying Starters

I'm stealing from the great Joe Posnanski here (and Joe probably stole it from someone else!) but let's play a game and compare two pitchers for a moment:

Pitcher A: 33 years old, 6' 2" and 220 pounds (a generous underestimation of weight)
Pitcher B: 37 years old, 5'11" and 170 pounds

Pitcher A: has made 30 or more starts in each the last 10 years
Pitcher B: has made 30 or more starts three times in the last 10 years

Pitcher A: pitched "just" 180 innings in 2008, his lowest total since his rookie year in 1997
Pitcher B: has not pitched that many innings since back-to-back 217-inning campaigns in 2004 and 2005

Pitcher A: has topped the 200-inning mark in every year of this decade except 2008
Pitcher B: has topped the 200-inning mark twice in this decade

Have you figured out who we're talking about yet? Player A is Livan Hernandez, who takes the mound tonight for the Mets. Player B is Pedro Martinez, who is still waiting for the economy to rebound so someone will pay him what he thinks he's worth.

What this little exercise was meant to show is that, throughout their respective careers, Hernandez has been far more durable than Martinez. Pedro has been infinitely more successful, of course; Livan doesn't even belong in the same conversation if you're talking about career accomplishments. Perhaps the only thing Hernandez does better than Martinez, however, is to pitch deeper into games and to make more starts per season.

Why then, would Jerry Manuel publically commit to expecting the same workload from Hernandez as he did from Martinez last season? From the article:

"Jerry Manuel plans to treat Hernandez as he did Pedro Martinez. Namely, be thankful if the veteran pitcher can successfully navigate the opposing lineup two or three times, then get him out after five or six innings."

If there's one thing you do not need to do with Livan Hernandez, it is protect his arm. If Hernandez somehow manages to successfully navigate the opposing lineup two or three times tonight, then Manuel would be insane to take him out before he shows any signs of fatigue. The only thing Livan does well is eat up innings - why on earth would you put a cap on that?

If anything, the Mets should be praying for seven innings out of Livan tonight, considering the way that the bullpen has been overworked so far. (Oh, and is it too early to start calling the "new-look" bullpen The Arson Squad again?)

Cut-Rate Ghetto Team

When you have writer's block - and I do - sometimes you have to let someone else say the words for you. Tim Marchman, as usual, says something I wish I had said first.

Andrew Beaton: Do you believe Omar Minaya and the Mets had a successful off season just because of the revamped bullpen that now features Francisco Rodriguez and JJ Putz, or do you believe that they needed to acquire another front end starter or another top of the order hitter?

Tim Marchman: All Minaya has to do is spend ownership’s money as well as he can, so he had a terrific winter because the easiest problem to fix was the bullpen and he fixed it as well as he possibly could have. The team as a whole had a really lousy winter. Given the way the last two seasons ended and that they’re moving into a new park that’s largely financed with public money it’s just embarrassing that the Wilpons didn’t give Minaya more money for another starter and an outfielder, even if it meant taking a loss. This was their big chance to get rid of the idea that the Mets are a cut-rate, ghetto team and they totally botched it up. A team with four of the top dozen or so players in baseball, the second highest franchise value in the game and a new park, and they’re too cheap to buy a pennant in the best buyer’s market in years. It’s really bizarre.

Fury

Oh, for Christ's sake.

NEW YORK -- Despite all the expectations, the what-ifs and the could-have-beens, Mets CEO Jeff Wilpon managed to muster a few positives Sunday on the final day of his team's 2008 season.

"I think we overachieved based on what we had," Wilpon said ...

"I think we underachieved last year, and I think we overachieved this year," Wilpon said. "Look who our second baseman was. Look who our left fielder was. Look who was in our bullpen. No Billy Wagner, no John Maine. You can go right down the list of what happened."

And so the Mets, Wilpon insisted, had succeeded simply by being in playoff contention on the season's final Sunday. Though he stopped short of lauding manager Jerry Manuel, saying he needed first to discuss the issue with general manager Omar Minaya, Wilpon indicated that he was quite pleased with the bulk of his uniformed personnel ...

The Mets might not see any momentous personnel changes between now and April, but that's not grounds for pessimism.

So when asked if the Mets are planning on making any significant changes in the coming months, Wilpon simply grinned.

"We are," he said. "We're moving to a new ballpark."

How could Fred Wilpon have made so many millions of dollars in real estate while simultaneously producing a human being so tone-deaf and out of touch? How can you say something like this just hours after the second straight mortifying collapse to end your franchise's season? When is someone finally going to lock Jeffy in the converted luxury suite/ apartment that Daddy made for him so he can stop embarrassing himself and his family?

If this the type of thinking we can expect from the man allegedly in charge of baseball operations, then as fans we may as well just burn this entire franchise to the ground. Hey Sonny Boy, who gave guaranteed contracts to the second baseman (Luis Castillo) and the left fielder (Moises Alou) that you're referring to? Better yet, who counted on Orlando Hernandez to be the #5 starter or signed Marlon Anderson a two-year deal in the offseason? Who put together this $138 million band of "overachievers" that suddenly stopped overachieving in mid-September for the second straight year?

The guy you're about to give a four-year contract extension to, that's who.

Oh, and Billy Wagner was actually on the active roster for four months, Jeffy, and he led the league in blown saves while he was trying to close out games. John Maine only missed the final month of the season, and the Mets went with a four-man rotation nearly half of the time. Why are you making excuses for these losers?

It looks like the manager is coming back, too, although Jerry Manuel's return is far more justifiable than Omar Minaya's. No changes from above, and now the owner's kid is saying not to expect many changes from below either. Exactly what, then, is going to prevent this particular trend from continuing?

2007 Mets: 5-12
2007 Phillies: 13-4

2008 Mets: 7-10
2008 Phillies: 13-3

Quotable Quotes - 8/19/08

"The only reason I'm a closer is because I sucked as a starter." - Billy Wagner, in the middle of a crybaby rant about media scrutiny in New York.

Hey, has this guy been reading Productive Outs recently?