This is the fifth installment of season preview videos that I did with Kerel Cooper of On The Black and Joe Janish of Mets Today. You can see the other videos on offseason grades, catchers/Daniel Murphy/Luis Castillo, Jose Reyes and David Wright, and the outfield.
In this video we talk about the starters, Francisco Rodriguez, and the set up situation.
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This is a first in a series of videos that I did with Kerel Cooper of On The Black and Joe Janish of Mets Today. We met at McFadden’s in NYC to talk Mets, which is what we all love to do. The subject of this video is grading the offseason moves by the Mets.
As you’ll see, and I’ve written before, the Mets filled their biggest need with Jason Bay. They had a big mess in left field last year with Daniel Murphy and Gary Sheffield, not to mention they had no power. The Mets finished dead last in baseball with 95 home runs. Some may argue that you don’t need a lot of power to win, the Cardinals did it in the 80’s. But the Mets were tied for the league lead in average and led the league in steals. So they had average and speed, even without Jose Reyes, and the Mets’ offense was still awful. They need some power and someone that can play left field. Bay isn’t a great fielder, but he’s a heck of a lot more stable out there than Murphy and Sheffield were.
I’ve also talked to some fans that thought starting pitching was the Mets biggest offseason need. That may be true, but they’re pretty much locked into Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez contractually. The only flexibility they had was to non-tender John Maine and go in another direction. I wouldn’t have minded that move, but he’s still a young guy with decent potential. It’s time to show that potential in 2010 or find another team to ride the disabled list for next season.
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The Mets had six players file for arbitration today and John Maine was the first player to agree to a new contract. Maine will return to the Mets on a one-year/$3.3 million deal plus bonuses that could go to $225,000 based on the number of starts that he makes.
The other players are: Pedro Feliciano, Jeff Francoeur, Sean Green, and Angel Pagan.
I thought it was time to move on from Maine and non-tender him. I don’t think anyone would have thought that Maine deserved a raise coming off his 15 start 7-6 season last year. But he will be getting a raise from his $2.6 million 2009 salary. It’s funny how baseball contracts work sometimes. Or maybe the Mets are just that desperate for starting pitching.
There are some huge names on the arbitration list this year including Tim Lincecum and Felix Hernandez. It should be really interesting to see where they end up.
The Mets players in arbitration had 2009 salaries of:
Image by ddoyle1112 via Flickr
There’s only one certainty when it comes to the Mets starting pitchers for 2010: Johan Santana. As long as he’s healthy, there’s no reason to think he won’t be one of the best pitchers in baseball. He’s had some minor injury problems but I don’t expect to see any decline in his performance. After Santana, the situation gets very murky, very quickly. This is about to get ugly, so Mets fans hold onto your hats.
Mike Pelfrey– In 31 starts Pelfrey finished the season at 10-12 with a 5.03 ERA. 2009 was a serious regression for him from his 2008 line of 32 starts 13-11 and 3.72 ERA. Pelfrey had some disgusting performances like June 4th in Pittsburgh giving up 8 runs in 3.2 innings and giving up 9 runs in 4.1 innings in Atlanta on July 17th. There were other ugly games but you get the idea. Often Pelfrey looked uncomfortable and frustrated, but who wouldn’t be while pitching poorly? He had a bad year but the Mets have too much invested in him for him not to be back in the rotation. He’ll be there. You can bank on it. But I doubt that he’ll be considered the #2 starter. He should be demoted in the rotation. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have a bounce-back year in 2010.
Continue reading “Mets 2010 Starting Pitchers- Question Marks Everywhere”
We’ve been waiting for months now for the injured Mets to heal and get back to help this team to a miracle playoff run. But if the current Mets can’t, at least, hang on there won’t be a chance at all. The Mets need to go 40-18 over their final 58 games of the 2009 season to reach the 90 win plateau. That’s the number of wins that it took the Milwaukee Brewers to beat out the Mets by one game in 2008 for the wild card spot in the National League. It should take about that same number of wins to take the wild card spot this year.
The Mets had a good little run going against Houston and Colorado over the last week. But that will come crashing down quickly if the Mets lose tonight to the D-Backs and Dan Haren. Losing three out of four games at home to a team that’s completely out of it, like the D-Backs, is going to hurt the Mets badly this late in the season.
Even if Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, J.J. Putz, John Maine, and Billy Wagner are playing for the Mets in September, will it really matter? September could be a very quiet venue for the Mets. And the season ticket holders that are trying to sell on Stubhub and eBay will be taking a big loss in the secondary market.
I understand why Mets GM Omar Minaya chose to stand pat at the non-waiver trading deadline. The team often looks dead and spending resources appears to be a lost cause. But it would have been nice to bring in some much needed offense that would be here next season too. Say a Victor Martinez. But that didn’t happen. So we’re still watching and waiting. Watching this impostor of a big league team. Waiting for the players to heal. The same high-priced players that are drawing their salaries from the pricey seats at Citi Field.
The list of Mets injuries is still pretty long and includes some of the players that are key to the team having a successful season. Omar Minaya had a review of player statuses with reporters yesterday prior to the Mets return from the All-Star break in Atlanta.
Fernando Martinez: Out 6-8 weeks. He had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee.
Carlos Beltran: He had another MRI during the All-Star break. He still has a significant bone bruise in his right knee. Team medical staff still hasn’t cleared him to begin jogging.
Jose Reyes: He’s running lightly and hitting. Reyes could be back by the end of July
John Maine: He threw live batting practice yesterday. The plan is to get him into rehab games within the next 10 days and back with the Mets by the end of July.
Carlos Delgado: He’s been hitting lightly. The plan is still for him to return in August.
The injury situation is so bad that I see it hampering the Mets motivation to make a big trade this month. There’s so much uncertainty about how these critical players will perform during this season that it doesn’t make sense to unload big prospects to make a run this season.
For the last two months, since Carlos Delgado went on the disabled list, I felt that Mark DeRosa was the best fit from a trade perspective for the Mets. That possibility was gone yesterday with the announcement that the Indians traded DeRosa to the Cardinals for Chris Perez and a player to be named later. Perez is a 23 year-old reliever with a very good fastball. That’s a better package than the Mets could have offered the Indians.
DeRosa can play any infield position and the outfield corners. He’s a right-handed hitter with power that would’ve been perfect for the Mets current needs. I don’t like Aubrey Huff or Adam Dunn for the Mets this season. Dunn has too much money coming over the next year and a half. And I never liked his “walk-strikeout-home run” game.
The more limiting possibilities are Matt Holliday and Maglio Ordonez. Holliday doesn’t have the versatility to play first base until Delgado gets back from the DL. And Ordonez is having a terrible season and has a huge contract with the possibility of vesting options guaranteeing future years based on plate appearances.
My guess is that the Mets try to acquire someone like a Ty Wigginton type of player. I don’t think they’ll make a splash by acquiring a big name. There’s too much risk this season with the Mets players that are currently injured. If Delgado, J.J. Putz, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Oliver Perez, and John Maine can’t come back to the team healthy and make significant contributions, the season is over for the Mets anyway. Making a major investment in a trade for a big name would be completely useless. Holliday couldn’t carry this current Mets team to the playoffs… And that’s the bottom line.
Omar Minaya should wait for as long as possible to pull the trigger on any trades until right before the non-waiver deadline on July 31. That’ll give him time to evaluate the health situation of so many key players on this team. No matter what happens with the currently injured players, I don’t expect the Mets to become sellers at the deadline. But I think they would stand pat and ride out the season if they aren’t going to get some of their premier players back this season.
The Mets Report 