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May 29, 2005
Bullpen Meltdown
Complete meltdown by the bullpen today, and though he’ll get second-guessed, and I don’t think it was all Randolph’s fault. 1. Bringing in Heath Bell. Defensible. Heath has been one of the Mets best relievers this season and he certainly is one you want pitching in that situation. I will, however, ask why he’s pitching in 3 of the 4 games against the Marlins. One of the reasons relievers are effective is because they usually go only once through the order, and thus they have a certain degree of mystery to their deliveries, and tendencies. By making Bell pitch to the Marlins three times in four games, Randolph certainly took some of that deception away. 2. Bringing in Dae-Sung Koo. Defensible again. Delgado is one of the best left-handed hitters in baseball. Generally speaking, left-handers hitters struggle against lefty pitchers. Delgado, while obviously still good, also does worse against LHP than he does against RHP. I really don’t have a problem with this move. Its not Randolph’s fault Koo’s control sucks. 3. Bringing in Mike DeJean. Okay, here we can blame Randolph. Mike DeJean is a complete waste of a roster spot. Coming into the game, he had allowed 38 baserunners in only 18 innings, which is obviously bad. Not surprisingly, he allowed even more baserunners to reach base. Of the 4 that reached, two scored and that was the ballgame. This is not a proven commodity that is just going through a tough time, he was this terrible last year in Baltimore, and the sooner the Mets release him, the better. 4. Where in the world is Aaron Heilman? Look, before being moved into the bullpen, he was the Mets’ 2nd best starter. He was a closer in college. He has a killer changeup, and he is a groundball pitcher, why wouldn’t you use him? 16 Responses to “Bullpen Meltdown”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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FREE AARON HEILMAN!
the bright side to this is that maybe this will make them realize that DeJean is not the right set up man. they need a set-up man, they’ve been trying everyone under the sun after hernandez choked, why not heilman? he certainly has looked strong in there. the only second guessing i have is when you go 3 and 0 on Delgado, put him on base or at least don’t give him anything that he can hit out of the ballpark. another baserunner is not ideal in a one run game but wouldn’t you rather take your chances with encarcion than delgado? maybe he hits into a double play. also another wasted glavine start. i guess thats what he gets for laying so many eggs the first part of the year. i honestly dont feel bad for him. but the sad part is this was a totally winnable game that was squandered.
Honestly, Scott Strickland has got to be better than any of the three pitchers brought in. I dont’ know if they let him go because they had a deadline as of this past week but I think that they should have/or should bring him up. At the very least get rid of Manny Aybar….who is, if possible, worse than DeJean.
Ricardo, you’re right that this time it wasn’t all Willie’s fault, but this is one of the first times it’s been possible to say that — you’re sort of pre-empting the second-guessers, but I don’t think that’s necessary; I don’t think these moves will really be second-guessed. Bell got some bad breaks, and then with Delgado’s splits you have to bring in Koo, who left one out over the plate. I would have brought in Heilman instead of Dejean, but I think this is fairly obviously not Willie’s loss…which is nice for a change.
And Robin, did you see Strickland’s AAA numbers? I’m having trouble finding them now, because minorleaguebaseball.com has pulled them, but his ERA was over 5.00. As a guy who relies so much on the slider, it’s very dangerous giving him the ball when he’s not on — a hanging slider’s the easiest pitch in the world to hit.
BTW, Jae Seo today: 7.2, 0 R, 6 K…FREE JAE SEO!
Well I just saw the news that Strickland has filed for free agency and already has a contract in the works with another team. I acutally haven’t seen his stats but hell, can he be worse than Manny Aybar? Also, has anyone thought of turning Seo or Heilman into setup men? I konw Heilman is in the bullpen but he’s shown the ability to come in for a few innings and shut the other team down. And when are we going to see Petit? Isn’t he being trained as a closer?
Bell did throw 26 pitches Saturday night.
Found the stats, Robin (combined AAA/A):
13.1, 0-3, 5 saves, 9 ER, 18 hits, 5 BB, 11 K, 6.77 ERA, 1.73 WHIP
Now I know that’s a small sample size, and he was on kind of on rehab, so you don’t really expect great numbers. But I don’t think the Mets in good conscience could have called him up. I certainly wouldn’t have faith in him yet, and as it is they got the play-me-or-trade-me deadline extended, only to see him get shelled again, so the front office did about as much as you can expect of them there. I like him and hope he succeeds somewhere, but the Mets were up against a wall.
I’d actually like to see Heilman as a closer. He’s got good sinking movement, and can throw 96 for one inning. Couple that with his good change and you’ve got a potentially dominant closer, and has college experience closing, as OFF points out. Not that I think it’s going to happen, but if wishes were fishes…
Oh, and Petit’s a starter all the way — they’re just keeping his pitch count low this season…I think because of a blister problem last year? Someone correct me on that if I’m wrong. If he can go 100 pitches, though, he’s got the stuff to be a very solid starter in the majors; I wouldn’t waste that in the pen.
On Petit: He pitched more innings in his last start at AA. I believe that he will do well there, pitching more innings each time out, and will get promoted by July to AAA. If he does well there, we could see him in NYC towards the end of the season. But the problem is that the Mets have lots of good starters, and Trachsel and Seo should be with the big team then too. What to do? Trading the resurrected Glavine would be my choice, along with Trachsel, after showcasing him.
Hey Tim,Where the hell was i when heilman started throwing 96mph for an inning??
Heilman has been effective as a starter, and the Mets still need those.
Ideas:
1) Kaz Ishii to the pen, Heilman as a starter. They’re not using Heilman in crucial situations, and it’d be nice to have more than one LHP option.
2) If we’re considering turning a starter into a closer (and I don’t know we should be—IMO, Looper hasn’t hurt us too badly—but Tim brought the issue up…), why not try Victor Zambrano? For all his other (myriad) faults, he’s got stuff, and he’s usually good for one inning before the wheels come off.
3) DeJean has to go. If your WHiP is worse than Zambrano, and it’s going up, that’s my limit. Juan Padilla, come on down!
Btw, nice game for Mientkiewicz. Hang in there, Doug.
I dont think the move of Zambrano to closer would be too smart. I was watching Baseball Tonight and Larry Bowa was saying that he would move Carlos Zambrano to closer if he were in that situation. Carlos Zambrano has a lot better stuff and is a lot more fearless than his namesake Victor Zambrano.
Erik, it was May 5th in Philadelphia. I was shocked, too — I guess the gun there could be off, but he was consistently throwing the heater 94-96 in that game, where he struck out 5 in 3.1. Ever since I’ve been thinking of him as closer…Looper’s improved a lot recently (himself finally getting up into the mid-90s), so it’s not as much a need anymore.
And Dan in LA — the reason I like Heilman as closer is specifically because he only has two pitches, but both are good. A good fastball/change-up combo is great for one inning, and he’s got me thinking Trevor Hoffman. Zambrano has way too many control problems — I’d have problems using him as anything but a longman in blowouts, at this point.
For the record, I like Heilman starting, too. Thing is, I also like Seo. We have a lot of decent starters, and an under-utilized bullpen. If Aaron’s taking the ball every 5 days I’m happy; I just hate how they’re using him now.
Has anyone seen Strickland pitch? I doubt the Mets would have released him if they thought he could pitch. I am sure they are kicking themselves for signing DeJean to a 1M contract this year off such a small sample. BUt if Strickland was better I think they would have bitten the bullet. I expect to see DeJean gone in the next two weeks. He is useless. He fails every appearance. Use Heilman in DeJean’s spot and recall Ring. He is a lefty who can get righties out as well. And what is this talk about Koo having to pitch a lot to stay sharp. Was he or was he not a startter in Japan the last few years? He has come into too many games this year and started lefty hitters off with a 3 ball count. A guy warms up in the bullpen and then throws eight warmup pitches when he comes into the game off the mound he is going to use. Shouldn’t control be a consideration? I suppose it is impolite to swing at a 3-0 pitch in the Orient. Has he been watching the games from the bullpen? It happens all the time here.
the extra week Strickland gave them after the May 15th deadline, he got rocked (gave up 5 ER in his last appearance) and i think that sealed the deal. i read on the Mets MLB site that they would rather call up one of the other relievers in AAA before they would have signed him. Plus its probably cheaper not that that should factor in, but we all know it does. In order to keep Strickland, they would have had to sign him to a contract for the rest of the year and he didn’t show them enough to warrant that. the last thing they need is to be on the hook for another veteran contract for the rest of the year. although i expect we’ll start hearing matt herges rumors soon enough. I don’t think they’ll put Ishii in the pen cuz he hasn’t been pitching all that bad and they already have Heilman there. Unfortunately they made their decision on who they’d rather have as a starter. So if Heilman is there, they should use him in crucial situations. Someone mentioned Bell threw 26 pitches Saturday. Is it me or does it seem like Willie likes to wear guys out? First Hernandez, now Bell. And Hernandez has hardly pitched lately (probably because his arm was starting to fall off). I guess thats what happens when you have a patchwork bullpen but jeez spread it around a bit. Three days in a row only if its absolutely necessary and they haven’t thrown a ton of pitches. If they are people you are avoiding in pen (Ahem….AYBAR?) then should they be on the roster???
Again, I have little interest in seeing Zambrano close, myself—I was just trying to cobble together a solution that would fit two criteria that the discussion had brought to my mind:
1) Tim’s interest in replacing Looper
2) Omar’s apparent disinterest in relegating Zambrano to long relief/AAA/an abbatoir, much to my own dismay
I think Zambrano would be a Don Stanhouse-type of closer (two walks, three K’s), but I do think that his pitch-count troubles would be minimized in relief, and that his occasional five-run innings would have minimal impact in situations where the emphasis is more on not giving up the one run. I guess the downside is that there’d be less chance of recovering from his disasters, but I don’t recall the Mets being so good at getting him off the hook so far, so…
OTOH, relievers pitch in more games than starters do, and I hardly want to see Wrong Zambrano affecting the outcome of more games. So maybe we just leave him be and hope that Willie finally gets a clue when his record dips to 4-13, or whatever. Oy and vey.
Maybe we could trade Zambrano for Scott Kazmir? No? A cashmere sweater? An mp3 of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”? Ex-White Sox SS Cass Michaels (real name Casimir Something-Polish-that-starts-with-”M”)?
(Note: Cass Michaels would be in his 70s, and he also may be dead. Still, I think it’s worth a thought…)