Pedro Feliciano
WHIP: 1.335
Chinese Zodiac: Dragon
Pedro Feliciano is, in my opinion, one of the more overlooked Mets. His value as a lock-down, late innings left-handed specialist is immense. One of the major criticisms of Willie Randolph’s management is his use of a bullpen, and a lot of what people mean by that is his habit of using Feliciano in random situations, for varying numbers of innings. According to occasional comments made in the media by other Mets, Feliciano is kind of a character in the clubhouse, but he gets fairly little attention of his own.
Aaron Hielman
WHIP: 1.274
Chinese Zodiac: Horse
For all the changes to the Mets rotation, both contemplated and made, using Heilman as a starter was never one of them. The theory is that Heilman has more value as a good reliever than a bottom of the rotation starter. However, even though everyone has been saying that for years, Heilman still admits that he would be happier starting. I wonder if a similar change, from the rotation to the bullpen, might be in the future of Mike Pelfrey (who has “won” the 5th starter’s job while El Duque continued to work in extended spring training), who might also benefit from it.
Scott Schoeneweis
WHIP1.463
Chinese Zodiac: Ox
Schoeneweis was a horrendous last year, although he was pitching with a severed tendon in his foot. He also claims, credibly, that the steroids he took were part of legitimate medical treatment. As I promised, if he has a good year, I will write him a letter apologizing for saying bad things about him on the internet. It still irks me that he got the deal they wouldn’t give Chad Bradford.
Joe Smith
WHIP: 1.556
Chinese Zodiac: Rat
Last season, his rookie year, Smith made the camp out of spring training, did ok for a while, regressed, got sent to the minors, and then came back to the big league team near the end of the year and was fairly unimpressive. Smith’s spring also had a disappointing start, but he heated up at the end of the Grapefruit league and made the team for a second year in a row. Apparently, he bet a stake dinner with Duaner Sanchez that he (Smith) would start the year in the minors, and Duaner would make the big league club. Aside from owing Sanchez steaks, things are looking up for Smith.
Jorge Sosa
WHIP: 1.455
Chinese Zodiac: Snake
Although Heilman remains stuck in the bullpen, Sosa is still part of the conversation about the 5th starting job. Last season, with El Duque injured and Pelfery pitching badly, Sosa came roaring out of the minors and won a nice string of games as a starter, before running into problems and being moved into the bullpen. In retrospect, Sosa’s weird little dominant streak went a long way towards masking the problems of the ’07 Mets.
Billy Wagner
WHIP: 1.016
Chinese Zodiac: Pig
Oh, Billy Wagner. On paper, Wags seems like one of the best closers in the National League, and nervous as he sometimes makes me, I am guess I am still happy to have him, over most other options. This season, the major concern with Wagner is a weekly radio spot that he has agreed to do with ESPN. Everyone’s thinly disguised fear is that it is only a matter of time before he does something like call out Reyes for a lack of hustle on the air, or otherwise lands the club in controversy.
Matt Wise
WHIP: 1.261
Chinese Zodiac: Rabbit
Came from Milwaukee in the off-season, seems pretty good. I don’t have much else to say about him.
Duaner Sanchez
WHIP: 1.374
Chinese Zodiac: Rooster
After Sanchez injured his arm in a taxi cab in ’06 they put it back together with screws. If Sanchez can get back, at any point, at anything like how he was pitching before he went down, it will be an immense asset for the Mets. So far, he seems ok given the circumstances: he is beginning the year in extended spring training, might be with the club shortly.
Showing posts with label Aaron Hielman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aaron Hielman. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday, September 24, 2007
Recent games
On one hand, the Mets have managed to survive any number of weird catastrophes and hang on to a two and a half game lead above the Phillies; on the other hand they seem to have chosen pretty much the worst time imaginable to slowly unlearn the game of baseball and expose the glaring, pitching-related weaknesses of the team. It’s funny, the team that we have been watching for the last week is pretty much exactly the team that we should have expected out of spring training—a rotation of question marks and old guys, neither of whom go that deep into games; a relatively -to- atrociously weak bullpen, that features Aaron Heilman as the strongest set-up man for Billy Wagner; and a potent enough offense to club their way past either of these shortcomings.
All of which becomes a lot less reassuring when you consider that the Mets have found their recent vindication against the Florida godamn Marlins who sort of seem like they are giving a presentation to their kindergarten class called “How I spent my summer on the bottom of the NL East.” People talk a lot about an obscure concept called fundamentally sound baseball, and that you need to play it, and the Marlins are a perfect example of why: whatever fundamentally sound is, the Marlins aren’t it. I’m mainly thinking of the eight unearned runs that the Mets were able to score behind Pedro. If the race stays close with Phillie, you really couldn’t ask for anything more than to close the season out against these guys, yet the Mets (chiefly the ‘pen) were still able to find ways to keep the Marlins in the games.
In the middle of all of this, Lastings Milledge went out and made himself tradable for a lot less pitching, by leaving the dugout to yell at the umps an unusually high (twice) number of times, following an ejection. You can almost say this is a good thing, since it might make them less likely to trade him in the first place, and then he might develop into a really good player, and then it will be good that they didn’t trade him. But, it is starting to get really obvious that someone needs to be traded for pitching, in fact, it seems more and more that they should have traded someone for pitching a while ago. Given that, Milledge is probably the guy to go, since they have Beltran signed to a long-term deal, Endy Chavez, perhaps Moises Alou, as well as the prospects Carlos Gomez and Francisco Martinez. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Milledge-- I want the club to keep him around, and next year he could be very important for them, since neither of the outfield prospects seem especially ready; but I am pro-pitching, and favor doing anything reasonable in the off-season to get some sort of reliable middle-inning relief.
But no one gets traded for pitching until the off-season, and the Mets have to handle the next week, and whatever might come after it, with the relievers that they have. And, we have the rest of the season (the part that wasn’t especailly important) to prove that those guys are, on occasion, capable of being effective.
All of which becomes a lot less reassuring when you consider that the Mets have found their recent vindication against the Florida godamn Marlins who sort of seem like they are giving a presentation to their kindergarten class called “How I spent my summer on the bottom of the NL East.” People talk a lot about an obscure concept called fundamentally sound baseball, and that you need to play it, and the Marlins are a perfect example of why: whatever fundamentally sound is, the Marlins aren’t it. I’m mainly thinking of the eight unearned runs that the Mets were able to score behind Pedro. If the race stays close with Phillie, you really couldn’t ask for anything more than to close the season out against these guys, yet the Mets (chiefly the ‘pen) were still able to find ways to keep the Marlins in the games.
In the middle of all of this, Lastings Milledge went out and made himself tradable for a lot less pitching, by leaving the dugout to yell at the umps an unusually high (twice) number of times, following an ejection. You can almost say this is a good thing, since it might make them less likely to trade him in the first place, and then he might develop into a really good player, and then it will be good that they didn’t trade him. But, it is starting to get really obvious that someone needs to be traded for pitching, in fact, it seems more and more that they should have traded someone for pitching a while ago. Given that, Milledge is probably the guy to go, since they have Beltran signed to a long-term deal, Endy Chavez, perhaps Moises Alou, as well as the prospects Carlos Gomez and Francisco Martinez. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Milledge-- I want the club to keep him around, and next year he could be very important for them, since neither of the outfield prospects seem especially ready; but I am pro-pitching, and favor doing anything reasonable in the off-season to get some sort of reliable middle-inning relief.
But no one gets traded for pitching until the off-season, and the Mets have to handle the next week, and whatever might come after it, with the relievers that they have. And, we have the rest of the season (the part that wasn’t especailly important) to prove that those guys are, on occasion, capable of being effective.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
DAMN IT!
Everything about the last two games completely sucks, but last night’s game…oh man.
First off: Endy Chavez is injured, and it looks bad. Well fuck. Endy was always the Met’s ace in the hole; Endy always got them the hit, or made the play that it seemed that they didn’t quite deserve to get; Endy is about 60% of the reason that I am thinking of moving to Venezuela. Endy was what allowed the entire starting outfield to go gimpy on us without anyone really freaking out or even noticing—in fact Endy’s presence on the bench, is probably what allowed Minaya to sign an outfield of brittle old dinosaurs, without anyone seriously questioning his sanity. Moises Alou makes a hell of a lot more sense if you can bring Chavez in for defense, days off, and the inevitable periods when Alou is injured—one of which we are in right now, and which does not seem likely to end anytime soon.
And Easely came up with a bum knee before the game, marvelous…the silver lineing is that this might exactly coincide with the return of Valentin.
Way to be injured right now, Lastings Milledge: the club is so strapped for outfielders that he’d be getting playing time even if he had been collaborating with Don Imus on the hip-hop adaptation of the works of the Marquis De Sade (instead of putting a track on his website that would only offend someone who had never listened to hip-hop). But he’s injured, so we’ll probably get to see some Ricky Ledee. Awesome.
Also, screw you, Aaron Heilman. I try real hard to like you, honest. I got much sympathy for the whole ‘I want to start but they won’t let me start’ thing, that seems like a bummer. But you gotta stop losing us games. Seriously.
Casey Stengel once remarked that “good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice versa.” Right now, both his old teams are built primarily around that “vice versa,” and this season (along with, oh I don’t know, THE ENTIRE GOD DAMN HISTORY OF MAJOR LEAUGE BASEBALL) is serving to prove that this is a seriously flawed premise. The Mets are where they are because their pitching has been outstanding, through no fault of the general management. Going into the season the odds that either Maine or Perez would show themselves to be a major bum were more than decent; the fact that they have both been excellent so far (knock on wood… oh please god don’t let me jinx those poor kids) is a serious piece of luck. The hell there was any sane reason to think that Jorge Sosa was going to stroll out of the minors and be lights out, but that happened and that has been huge. Going into the season everyone said that the bullpen was the club’s weakness, but it has been outstanding and one of the club’s major strengths; at the same time, the fact that it has lost two games in a row to the Phillies (who hardly even have a bullpen) shouldn’t actually shock anyone, given the initial doubts about it.
The strength of the Mets, and the Yankees, is supposed to be their offence. Delgado, Reyes, Wright, and Beltran are supposed to be coming up with key hits, and they are not. The Mets had chances to win last night’s game and score more runs, but they did not do that. The main difference between the Mets and the Yankees is that with the former the pitching has been far better than expected and with the latter it has been far, far worse.
Billy Wagner and Paul Lo Duca have apparently been calling the team out, and saying that it is not playing with the ‘fire’ that it had last year. Perhaps. Lo Duca is the same old singles machine that he ever was (knock on wood again), so I guess that he can say whatever he wants. Wagner has also been technically brilliant, converting all of his save opportunities. He’s still either a disturbing adrenaline junky or not quite the pitcher that everyone thinks, because he makes it interesting and puts runners on base, or gives up any runs that he might have to spare. I hate to do this, but I predict Wagner’s first blown save for either tonight, or sometime on the upcoming inter-league road trip. Again, sorry. Hope I’m wrong.
First off: Endy Chavez is injured, and it looks bad. Well fuck. Endy was always the Met’s ace in the hole; Endy always got them the hit, or made the play that it seemed that they didn’t quite deserve to get; Endy is about 60% of the reason that I am thinking of moving to Venezuela. Endy was what allowed the entire starting outfield to go gimpy on us without anyone really freaking out or even noticing—in fact Endy’s presence on the bench, is probably what allowed Minaya to sign an outfield of brittle old dinosaurs, without anyone seriously questioning his sanity. Moises Alou makes a hell of a lot more sense if you can bring Chavez in for defense, days off, and the inevitable periods when Alou is injured—one of which we are in right now, and which does not seem likely to end anytime soon.
And Easely came up with a bum knee before the game, marvelous…the silver lineing is that this might exactly coincide with the return of Valentin.
Way to be injured right now, Lastings Milledge: the club is so strapped for outfielders that he’d be getting playing time even if he had been collaborating with Don Imus on the hip-hop adaptation of the works of the Marquis De Sade (instead of putting a track on his website that would only offend someone who had never listened to hip-hop). But he’s injured, so we’ll probably get to see some Ricky Ledee. Awesome.
Also, screw you, Aaron Heilman. I try real hard to like you, honest. I got much sympathy for the whole ‘I want to start but they won’t let me start’ thing, that seems like a bummer. But you gotta stop losing us games. Seriously.
Casey Stengel once remarked that “good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice versa.” Right now, both his old teams are built primarily around that “vice versa,” and this season (along with, oh I don’t know, THE ENTIRE GOD DAMN HISTORY OF MAJOR LEAUGE BASEBALL) is serving to prove that this is a seriously flawed premise. The Mets are where they are because their pitching has been outstanding, through no fault of the general management. Going into the season the odds that either Maine or Perez would show themselves to be a major bum were more than decent; the fact that they have both been excellent so far (knock on wood… oh please god don’t let me jinx those poor kids) is a serious piece of luck. The hell there was any sane reason to think that Jorge Sosa was going to stroll out of the minors and be lights out, but that happened and that has been huge. Going into the season everyone said that the bullpen was the club’s weakness, but it has been outstanding and one of the club’s major strengths; at the same time, the fact that it has lost two games in a row to the Phillies (who hardly even have a bullpen) shouldn’t actually shock anyone, given the initial doubts about it.
The strength of the Mets, and the Yankees, is supposed to be their offence. Delgado, Reyes, Wright, and Beltran are supposed to be coming up with key hits, and they are not. The Mets had chances to win last night’s game and score more runs, but they did not do that. The main difference between the Mets and the Yankees is that with the former the pitching has been far better than expected and with the latter it has been far, far worse.
Billy Wagner and Paul Lo Duca have apparently been calling the team out, and saying that it is not playing with the ‘fire’ that it had last year. Perhaps. Lo Duca is the same old singles machine that he ever was (knock on wood again), so I guess that he can say whatever he wants. Wagner has also been technically brilliant, converting all of his save opportunities. He’s still either a disturbing adrenaline junky or not quite the pitcher that everyone thinks, because he makes it interesting and puts runners on base, or gives up any runs that he might have to spare. I hate to do this, but I predict Wagner’s first blown save for either tonight, or sometime on the upcoming inter-league road trip. Again, sorry. Hope I’m wrong.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Some Thoughts
The problem with the Mets right now, is not so much the starting pitching, the bullpen, or the defense but that they aren’t getting the key hit with runners in scoring position. Several Mets have said as much themselves, but sports writers seem to love blaming Aaron Hielman.
While hanging out at the beer garden, and keeping half an eye on the Red Sox-Yankees game, my friend Andrew, a New Englander, became increasingly afraid that the Sox would come away with a win. He is not a sports person, but, having grown up in the company of Red Sox fans, his only desire from sports is that it bring those people misery. There is a basic similarity between this and my feelings about the Yankees- but the consensus is that Red Sox fans really do leave something to be desired. My boss, a Californian who attended Harvard, became a Yankee fan as a result of indignities that he suffered while attending a game at Fenway in an A’s hat.
Perhaps what Beantown really needs is a scrappy, yet historically incompetent, National League team, to distract them somewhat from their overbearing, history-rich AL franchise; to remind them that it is just a game, played at different levels of competence- and that charm, eccentricity, and heart can be nearly as rewarding as success. It’s a pity that the Expos didn’t end up in Boston.
I think it was nice of Major League Baseball to schedule rivalry series for both New York teams for the weekend Basketball playoffs started; it was as if they knew (and, lets face it everyone did) how miserably the Knicks would do, and that, come playoff time, New Yorkers could use some cheering up.
Apropos of the Knickerbockers, I would like to make it known that ‘Sam’s Mets Blog’ supports Coach Thomas. Basketball is definitely a second favorite sport, and I don’t have any particular team loyalties- especially since the Pistons lost Big Ben Wallace. But for a dilettante fan, the Knicks were a great team to be able to watch on cable during the crappy months where there is no baseball and seasonal affect disorder sinks its teeth in: they were amusing, scrappy, and it was easy to cultivate a low-intensity, love-hate relationship with them. I think Isiah Thomas did a nice job coaching the dubious players that he had- the irony, of course, being that he assembled these dubious players himself. Also, in Clyde Frazier they got by far the best of the “Just For Men” color commentators (sorry, Keith). I wish them luck, and hope they make the playoffs next year: but if the Mets are playing the Braves again when the games start, don’t count on me to be watching.
One last word about hoops: I predict that at least one of the three most heavily favored teams, the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, and San Antonio Spurs, won’t make it out of the first round.
While hanging out at the beer garden, and keeping half an eye on the Red Sox-Yankees game, my friend Andrew, a New Englander, became increasingly afraid that the Sox would come away with a win. He is not a sports person, but, having grown up in the company of Red Sox fans, his only desire from sports is that it bring those people misery. There is a basic similarity between this and my feelings about the Yankees- but the consensus is that Red Sox fans really do leave something to be desired. My boss, a Californian who attended Harvard, became a Yankee fan as a result of indignities that he suffered while attending a game at Fenway in an A’s hat.
Perhaps what Beantown really needs is a scrappy, yet historically incompetent, National League team, to distract them somewhat from their overbearing, history-rich AL franchise; to remind them that it is just a game, played at different levels of competence- and that charm, eccentricity, and heart can be nearly as rewarding as success. It’s a pity that the Expos didn’t end up in Boston.
I think it was nice of Major League Baseball to schedule rivalry series for both New York teams for the weekend Basketball playoffs started; it was as if they knew (and, lets face it everyone did) how miserably the Knicks would do, and that, come playoff time, New Yorkers could use some cheering up.
Apropos of the Knickerbockers, I would like to make it known that ‘Sam’s Mets Blog’ supports Coach Thomas. Basketball is definitely a second favorite sport, and I don’t have any particular team loyalties- especially since the Pistons lost Big Ben Wallace. But for a dilettante fan, the Knicks were a great team to be able to watch on cable during the crappy months where there is no baseball and seasonal affect disorder sinks its teeth in: they were amusing, scrappy, and it was easy to cultivate a low-intensity, love-hate relationship with them. I think Isiah Thomas did a nice job coaching the dubious players that he had- the irony, of course, being that he assembled these dubious players himself. Also, in Clyde Frazier they got by far the best of the “Just For Men” color commentators (sorry, Keith). I wish them luck, and hope they make the playoffs next year: but if the Mets are playing the Braves again when the games start, don’t count on me to be watching.
One last word about hoops: I predict that at least one of the three most heavily favored teams, the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, and San Antonio Spurs, won’t make it out of the first round.
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