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October 6, 2005
The Minaya Manifesto: Part IV: In-Season Evaluation
The bullpen on Opening Day, and the bullpen on the final day of the season: Braden Looper Braden Looper
Roberto Hernandez Roberto Hernandez
Dae-Sung Koo Heath Bell
Manny Aybar Danny Graves
Mike DeJean Tim Hamulack
Felix Heredia Aaron Heilman
Mike Matthews Kazuhisa Ishii
Juan Padilla
Shingo Takatsu
Nothing reflects the transitional nature of the team in 2005 as much as the constant changing state of the bullpen. Fitting, then, that last Sunday’s bullpen also reflects one of the negative aspects of the organization’s front office: their unwillingness to hand over the reigns to the youngsters, their constant desire to give veterans from outside of the team a vital spot. The Opening Day bullpen was much-maligned, and rightly so the fans voiced their displeasure. In order to give spots to the lefty trio of the unproven Koo and the useless Heredia and Matthews, as well as Manny Aybar - who had pitched a combined 41 innings from 2001-04 - two promising youngsters were left out to harvest in Heath Bell and Matt Ginter, the latter of whom was traded just prior to the season to the Detroit Tigers. Aaron Heilman and Jae Weong Seo, more than capable starters who can also hold down a spot in relief, were cut from the active roster despite injury concerns to Kris Benson and with the reliable Steve Trachsel already on the 60-day DL. It was a thoroughly baffling set of moves which left us with the possibility of 30-year-old minor-leaguer Jose Santiago taking the fifth start of the season when Benson eventually went on the 15-day DL on April 4th, retroactive to the 29th of March. “Fortunately,” Mike Cameron went down with a bad wrist, allowing the recently-demoted Heilman to be recalled to take the start. It’s a pretty minor issue, really, but it’s indicative of the organization, and it was a seemingly bad start for Omar Minaya. How he handled the rest of the season would be at times disturbingly short-sighted and at times surprisingly bold. The overhaul of the bullpen, as I mentioned, represents the organization and Omar Minaya’s first season as GM in New York perfectly. Gone are Heredia, Matthews and Koo, although the latter was given plenty of chances. Gone too is Mike DeJean, whom I had no faith in to begin with, and Manny Aybar, whose early-season peripherals foresaw the collapse that eventually came. Into the fold come Bell, Hamulack and Padilla, who threw a combined 154 innings with a 1.34 ERA and 149/31 strikeout-to-walk ratio over Double-A and Triple-A before hitting the big club. Along with them, however, come cast-offs Danny Graves and Shingo Takatsu, both of whom were given too many opportunities at the expense of others. Add in Kazuhisa Ishii and you’ve got about half of the bullpen spots taken up by dead weight. It’s this kind of division which has plagued the Mets for the last two seasons, and if Minaya truly has “full autonomy,” it’s about time that the problem is taken care of. Bell, Hamulack, Padilla and the host of strong arms in the minors is able to take over from the veterans immediately, and Braden Looper’s spot has to be reconsidered. It took a while to get as far as we have, but positive steps were made in the creation of a bullpen that, at the end of the season, looked half-decent. Roberto Hernandez (69.2 innings, 2.58 ERA, 61 strikeouts and a .228 opponents’ batting average) was a lucky hit, but it’s those low-cost moves that often work out best. Graves could have been such a move, but it shouldn’t have taken 20.1 innings to find out that he wasn’t. With some slight alterations and a little more trust in youth, the 2006 Mets could have a very strong, very effective relief team. We should be a little wary of the right side of the infield, though. The team’s inability to solve the second-base problem is damning, and their unwillingness to trial Jeff Keppinger and Anderson Hernandez earlier in the season is especially odd. In the middle of a tight Wild Card race as late as early September, their moves should predictably be more daring than trading away top pitching and catching prospects when faintly in the race at the trade deadline in 2004. The team was better prepared for a run at the playoffs this season, and they instead left Kazuo Matsui and Miguel Cairo out there to dry. Chris Woodward was an adequate backup, but he was exactly that. There are no foreseeable answers, especially given the minimal effort to get Hernandez at-bats in the last two weeks. First base was somewhat different, as were the issues in the outfield linked to Mike Cameron’s injury-plagued campaign. Doug Mientkiewicz started slowly and completely without power, hitting .219/.309/.388 through 201 at-bats before going down with injury in late June. Brian Daubach tore up Triple-A and earned a promotion, but did little when he was here. Jose Offerman was memorably signed to a minor-league deal, as was Wil Cordero. But an option was found in 2003 organizational minor-league player of the year Mike Jacobs, a catcher turned first-baseman who made his major-league debut on August 21st with a three-run home run in his first plate appearance, followed by three more homers in the next three games and 11 in just 100 seasonal at-bats. His .310/.375/.710 line is enough to secure him a spot on the team for 2006, surely, whether that be as a starting or backup 1B. He finished the season on a tear, belting four home runs with seven RBI in the final week. Mientkiewicz, who improved to hit .297/.358/.459 over portions of the last three months, was left far behind. The playing time afforded Jacobs is in direct contrast to Hernandez and the pre-injury Keppinger, but parallels Victor Diaz’s situation. Diaz took over from Mike Cameron to begin the season, and from Cameron again after his collision with Carlos Beltran, as well as taking up bench duties when the outfield was stocked. He hit a more than acceptable .257/.329/.468 with 12 home runs and 32 extra-base hits in 280 at-bats. His strikeout tendencies were a worry (82 times) but they were balanced by his ability to take a walk (30, .072 IsoD) and his power hitting (.211 IsoP). I don’t think we can complain about his production, especially given his age (23). With Diaz, Cameron, Beltran and Cliff Floyd, the outfield both disappointed and exceeded expectations, but there’s little doubt that everything was done to keep the best players on the active roster on most occasions. It’s encouraging that the left side of the infield and behind the plate wasn’t cause for concern this season. Mike Piazza was injured towards the end, but still hit 19 home runs and drove in 62 base-runners in 113 games and 442 plate appearances, great numbers for a 37-year-old catcher. He was backed up by Ramon Castro (.244/.321/.435, 8 home runs, 41 RBI). Jose Reyes played in 161 games and amassed 725 plate appearances, which is all that really needs to be said. And David Wright only had the best season by a Mets hitter in years, posting a .306/.388/.523 line with 27 home runs and 102 RBI, the first 100+ RBI season by a New Yorker since the pennant-winning 2000 season. Minimal management was needed here, and that was all the better – those concerns went in to the starting rotation. Omar Minaya’s greatest triumphs and tragedies came in the rotation. Opening Day saw Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine and Benson joined by Victor Zambrano and Ishii, and although Zambrano also started at the end of the season, he was well and truly a bullpen commodity by the time the curtains drew. Ishii, well… Ishii was just an unfortunate disaster. Traded for Jason Phillips in a pre-season move, Ishii replaced Steve Trachsel and quickly reminded us why Los Angeles didn’t want to keep him. Trading good starts with bad, he had a 5.48 ERA and 29/25 strikeout-to-walk ratio after eight starts. When not dealt by the deadline, he was dumped from the rotation until making a comeback in the bullpen on September 26th, finishing the season with a 5.14 ERA and 53 strikeouts against 49 walks, with 13 home runs allowed in 91 innings. Jae Weong Seo was given a few starts at the end of April after Ishii went on the DL on the 22nd, but was shipped back to Norfolk when Benson was reactivated. He had posted a 2.00 ERA in 18 innings over three starts, including an incredible seven inning, one-hit performance against the Phillies the night before he was demoted. He would make it back when Ishii was sent down on August 6th, making a further 11 starts with a 2.74 ERA, with 45 strikeouts and 13 walks in 72.1 innings. From the time of his recall through September 6th he had a six start period during which he went at least seven innings on five occasions, allowed two earned runs once, one earned run twice, and zero earned runs twice. It magnified the lost opportunities that would have been created had Seo been in the rotation for the entire season rather than Ishii, probably the biggest mismanagement of the year. When he was here, he was brilliant. But he was only here for 14 starts, around forty per cent of a full-time starter’s responsibilities. Oh, what could have been… Aaron Heilman was another starting question mark. Taking Benson’s first missed start of the season after the Santiago scare, he threw a one-hit shutout in his second start of the season and followed it up with a four inning, seven-run disaster against the Marlins. After Ishii was activated from the DL on May 17th, Heilman went to the bullpen and didn’t allow a run, earned or otherwise, through his first 12 relief appearances, a total of 16.1 innings. He stayed there until the end of the season, posting a 2.20 ERA in 46 appearances and 65.1 innings in relief. His move was one of forethought, and it has given the team another viable closing option for the 2006 season, given Looper’s “tendencies.” Heilman and Seo are two youngsters who could be vital in their roles. Whereas Heilman has seemingly been given a multitude of chances to start and been very occasionally great but mostly subpar, Seo has proven his worth and continues to get shafted out of roles. How they were used in the final two months of 2005 was how they should be used in 2006. Once again, inferior alternatives were given too many options to pitch themselves out of their roles while pitchers like Seo (and Hamulack) languished in the minors. It’s difficult to assess Minaya’s impact in some of these moves, particularly the use of guys like Heilman, who were on the roster for pretty much the entire season. There are some successes (Seo, Bell, Padilla, Marlon Anderson in a pinch-hitting role) and some hideous failures (Ishii, Graves), and it’s just the nature of hindsight that the failures stand out ten-fold. That the team got to the end of the season with 83 wins when they tried their hardest to blow every lead is unfathomable. At times they looked far worse than an 83-win team. At times they looked far better. At the start of the season, I predicted somewhere between 82 and 86 wins, as most of us seemingly did. We got it. How do you appraise that? We met expectations? The ride was as thrilling as it was disheartening. But we ended up where most of us thought we would. Things go wrong (Beltran) as much as they surprisingly go right (Floyd). For every bad move, there’s a good one. They’re just not as easy to spot. The Season In Transactions April 2nd: Traded RHP Matt Ginter to Detroit for LHP Steve Colyer. April 4th: Placed RHP Kris Benson on the 15-day DL retroactive to March 29th. April 8th: Placed OF-R Mike Cameron on the 15-day DL. April 8th: Recalled RHP Aaron Heilman from Triple-A Norfolk. April 19th: Recalled RHP Heath Bell from Triple-A Norfolk. April 22nd: Placed LHP Kazuhisa Ishii on the 15-day DL. April 23rd: Recalled RHP Jae Weong Seo from Triple-A Norfolk. May 4th: Reactivated RHP Kris Benson and OF-R Mike Cameron from the 15-day DL. May 4th: Optioned RHP Jae Weong Seo and LHP Royce Ring to Triple-A Norfolk. May 17th: Activated LHP Kazuhisa Ishii from the 15-day DL. June 10th: Signed RHP Danny Graves as a free agent. June 20th: Released RHP Mike DeJean. July 2nd: Optioned OF-R Victor Diaz to Triple-A Norfolk. July 24th: Optioned RHP Heath Bell to Triple-A Norfolk. July 31st: NOTHING! August 6th: Optioned LHP Kazuhisa Ishii to Triple-A Norfolk. August 6th: Recalled RHP Jae Weong Seo from Triple-A Norfolk. August 11th: Placed OF-R Mike Cameron on the 15-day DL. August 11th: Recalled OF-R Victor Diaz from Triple-A Norfolk. August 17th: Recalled C-L Mike Jacobs from Double-A Binghamton. August 21st: Placed C-R Mike Piazza on the 15-day DL retroactive to August 17th. August 21st: Optioned LHP Dae-Sung Koo to Triple-A Norfolk. August 22nd: Recalled RHP Heath Bell from Triple-A Norfolk. August 23rd: Designated RHP Danny Graves for assignment. August 23rd: Activated RHP Steve Trachsel from the 60-day DL. September 17th: Recalled INF-S Anderson Hernandez from Triple-A Norfolk. 35 Responses to “The Minaya Manifesto: Part IV: In-Season Evaluation”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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I’m afraid it will take more than that. Only Heilman, Padilla and Hernandez proved adequate and Hernandez will be 41 next year. Omar will need to get a closer and two professional middle relief guys by way of FA and/or trades. I like Bell but a 5.54 ERA stinks and I really don’t know about Hamulack.
And this was a good thing…
Some good things happen, some bad things happen.
I’ll bet cash money that we 2006 sees a substantial regression from Hernandez compensated by improvements from Bell and Hamulack.
The thing about relievers is, they’re often a crapshoot from year to year. The gambling strategy is not as bad a plan as it seems; catching lighting in a bottle is often the only way to predict middle reliever success. By gambling, I mean Hernandez, not Graves.
A minor note from a writer/gramarian… you don’t hand over the “reigns,” you hand over the “reins.” (It’s a term that derives horsemanship, not royal succession.)
Otherwise, you’ve put together a thorough review of the season just ended. Like Uncle Bob, I’m not so sure about the potential of the current bullpen, but I take a lot of encouragement from this season — a big step up, no matter how frustrating it was to fall a couple of steps short.
Let’s hope Omar makes the smart tactical moves rather than the high-risk strategic ones this winter. Get another big bat but say no to Manny or Thome or Konerko, get a mid-priced relief arm (can we really expect another year like this from Bert?), give Jacobs the job at first, give serious consideration to a Mikey/Castro replay, and keep the bench players on the bench (i.e., don’t give too much playing time to unproductive vets).
Let the team evolve and grow with some key additions. Make 90 wins the goal, which would put us in serious playoff contention. But remember, it’s tough to follow a 10-game or bigger improvement with another equal step. We’re trending the right way, but we cannot force the issue or make rash moves…
Keep the faith! Ya gotta believe!
Whoops…
A gramMarian, but not a spell-checker.
Damien’s Australian, we give him a free pass.
Come on. You have to take a step back and look at the whole picture here. He was given I believe 12-15 at bats without producing, you have to take him out right there. That’s just a met fan being a met fan when in your assessment.
as for Hamulack… there’s a reason somebody’s a leftie, 29 and not in the majors….
The bottom line is met fans are so in love with prospects, especially the ones that prosper in AAA. The big show is completely different from AAA, look at guys like Brian Daubach. He lit up AAA and was slightly better than bad in the majors. It took that kid Anderson Hernandez how many at bats just to reach base? Take things with a grain of salt and remember that just because they are good in AAA doesn’t mean that they’ll make a tranisition into the big show, and just because the braves brought up Francoeur and he did well does NOT mean that it will happen wtih the mets. Correlation does not equal causation.
I think a 2b and a closer will really solidify this team and give them a shot at the NL East. Whether those answers are internal, Heilman, Hernandez, Keppinger, or external is a guess at best. We hope that Jacobs/Diaz/Reyes/Wright continue to be the young guns and Floyd, Beltran, Cameron all return. Catcher is a question, I don’t think we have a full timer in the organization but Piazza/Castro was effective. Bring them back I say. Also the Staff and Pen can be just short of Super with Martinez/Glavine/Seo/Benson/Trachsel and Zambrano, Heilman, Ring, Bell, and my personal new favorite because of those glasses, Padilla. Add an Arm or 2 to the Pen and the NL East is within sight.
Why not Benji Molina
Mat Stars - I think generally you are right when you say that we as fans clamor for young players and expect big things out of them. That is what hope does. But your assessment on Hernandez is patently wrong. There was no reason to continue giving Cairo at-bats in September when the Mets were woefully out of the playoff picture. Cairo got 300 at-bats during the year to prove, hopefully without a doubt, that he is not a long-term answer at 2B, and nothing more than a useful utility player. The Mets have a gaping hole at second base. Hernandez’s performance in the minor leagues earned him the right to be given a look at second base since the Mets had no playoff aspirations. Do you really think that 4 games gives an accurate read on a player? Did you think Mike Jacobs was a potential starter at first base after he belted 4 HRs in his first 4 games? Or do you think it now because he was able to club 11 Hrs in 100 ABs? Hernandez deserved more at-bats, and there is no reasonable argument otherwise.
Wow, I just realised how long it took the Mets to get rid of Mike DeJean…waaay too long, and they still havn’t gotten rid of Graves or Ishii. The actual deals aren’t soo bad, but the problem is keeping them too long.
Well difference between Francouer and Anderson Hernandez is that, one of them got a chance to play everyday.
Yes, you’re point is well taken, however it is very flawed. If you continue to give a guy at bats after he’s 0 for 12 in his first 12 at bats (or whatever it was) it starts to take a hit at his confidence (remember we’re not playing MVP2005 baseball here). (I hate Cairo, don’t get me wrong, I was upset when we got him bc i figured hed end up being our starter and suck (which he was…)) But AH was taken out as a starter for confidence reasons and it was what needed to be done at that time. With all this considered, it renders your final sentence wrong.
Cairo should not be on the roster next year. Omar may have to use a crowbar to separate him from Willie but too effing bad. Omar should check in with the Dodgers and see if he can weasel Jeff Kent away from them. Think about 100 rbi’s coming from second base. Against tough lefties you sit Jacobs, play Kent at first and Woodward at second. Am I wrong?
yeah you’re wrong, kent is a club house cancer, the mets got rid of him once already for a reason.
Matstars, I think your reasoning is flawed. What would give you confidence if you were new to the bigs and you were on an 0-for-run. your coach pulling you and making you watch, or keep running you out there? When did you ever hear Heilman say he wasn’t confident in himself? Please post the link so we can all see it, I don’t believe he would say it after a one hit shut out (the one hit would’ve been fielded by Hernandez rather than Matsui who couldn’t make the moderate play). You’re entire ratinale is wrong. Furthermore, if Keppinger was brought up when Cairo went down in June, you’d have seen a guy who proved he could do it briefly last year, tore up AAA again this year, and we fans did clamor for him rather than just let terrible known quantities continually contribute to our Mets ulcers. After a while, enough is enough, Matsui/Cairo aren’t going to show you something new, wow you and make you think, that’s something I have never seen before from them, they are known. When you have youth, they have the ability to reach out and inspire a club, out-perform their prospect status, because when anyone is given an opportunity in life, it is their time to rise. Someone who has yet to make it has a lot more to play for than someone who can go back to Japan, or is already locked in at 7mil a year.
With Lamar out in Tampa, Omar should be the first to call his replacement and offer Victor for Kazmir…
And I’m sure benching Hernandez after 12 AB’s, TWELVE AB’s, helped his confidence.
If I may quote the great Fran Healey….Willie Mays went what? 0-24 before his first hit?
it’s spelled rationale
You don’t need to quote him if you are going to state a fact
and comparisons of Willie Mays to Anderson Hernandez… well that just put you in the dog house!
I know how to spell, I didn’t think reposting an ‘o’ was worth it. But thats all you can bring, since you just got shut down and got nothing, that’s what you bring. I’ll wait for you to post Heilman’s quote. thanks
It should be ‘your’ point, not “you’re point”. You’re is a contraction of you are.
Oberkfell named manager of the year. http://norfolktides.com./news/?id=8718
Only Terry Francona has a ring from previous winners. With the best in the minors in the wings, would Omar do it? I doubt it, but if he did, Ken O is there. FIRE WILLIE
Yeah, saw that earlier fire willie. Just put it up now.
Agreed, I think what happens is the manager has an opinion as to what a player can or cannot do, whether he is ready or not etc.- We all have these opinions- but managers get to act on them (within reason).
If the manager believes in a player he is not going to yank him after 12 hitless at bats. If the manager does not believe in a player, but is curious about the player he may or may not leave him in there a little longer.
If the manger does not believe in a player, resents being told to play a player, he’ll pull him after two straight 0 fer 4s.
My guess (and it’s only a guess I have zero inside knowlege) is that Willie and Omar do not see eye to eye, and that never ends well for the manager. Several times this season we’ve seen Willie get asked something (usually somthing pretty logical imho) and he’ll say, “no he has no intention of playing Jacobs”… “no he doesn’t foresee getting Anderson Hernandez up from AAA and giving him some at bats” and then what Willie said wouldn’t happen- happens.
Brad, are you actually praising the Mets for dumping Kent? Uh, hello, he’s going to Cooperstown. The Mets really prospered after that move didn’t they. As far as club house cancer goes that is a term that very often is given to players who don’t get along with the media. Yeah, he didn’t quite get along with Barry Bonds and Milton Bradley two of the biggest aholes in the majors. Pedro was supposed to be a cancer in the clubhouse too. I think two of the most overated factors in MLB is the manager and clubhouse harmony. Do you want your team to sing Kumbaya and lose? I don’t. Kent is a redneck who busts his ass on the field every game and doesn’t brook teammates who don’t very well.
When did I talk about Heilman? oh i didn’t, kkthxbye.
and by the way Anderson Hernandez was just a defensive+ who had a good year hitting in AAA. He earned himself a look in Spring Training. The mets did not want to put him in the majors at 2B until he had a full season at his new position in the minors. Responding to the hype that was buzzing in NYC they gave him a chance and after 12 AB’s it appeared as if he wasn’t ready, hence the benching. 12 at bats vs. 20 at bats would not have made much of a difference, sorry guys. He’ll get a look in ST and we’ll assess from there what we are to do. Sorry to burst some bubbles around here.
Heilman and Seo turned out to be “more than capable”, but nobody could have guessed that at the beginning of the season. Lets not forget that they were both total flops before this year. Seo didn’t even pitch all that well in AAA this year. So I think its a little unfair to complain about them not making the team to start the year. The collection of misfits who started the season in the bullpen were pretty pathetic. We all saw the bullpen problems coming a mile away, yet for some mysterious reason Minaya decided not to seriously address the problem during the off season. Hopefully he won’t make the same mistake this year.
That’s simply not true. Seo didn’t pitch well at the beginning of the year, but he was flat-out dominant the rest of the year. His overall season numbers with the Tides are skewed by a start in which he allowed 13 runs in 5 or so innings just before the Mets called him up. His wife give birth during that week, so I think its a little unfair to hold that start against him, especially considering how well he pitched before and after it happened.
I think Anderson Hernandez should have had more at-bats at the end of the season. Despite what matstars, he would not have had another 8 at-bats, he would have had another 40. Is that enough to determine his worth? Of course not, but it would have helped. And I didn’t want to see him because I expected big things, I wanted to see him to see if he could produce big things. Big difference. Expectation is not the same as curiosity.
Besides, Cairo is an absolutely horrendous player. He’s half a step up from Tony Womack. Willie loves him so he played him which, in typical Willie style, is pathetically stupid.
Oh, and nice article Damien :)
jpf - I agree with your statement about Willie and Omar. I’ve heard Omar on WFAN say that he wants youth - yet Willie has a tendency to play the vets and let the youth sit - like Heilman and Padilla in the bullpen until Looper totally imploded. I believe that since Willie spent all of those years with the Yanks, he fell in love with the idea of bringing in one veteran after another until they hit lightning in a bottle. George has the bucks to do that and as much as I hate to admit it, most of the time it works for the Yanks. The Mets don’t want to go that deep into their pockets and therefore have to bring in youth. This could end up being the sticking point where the manager loses as you suggest — that would please fire willie and myself.
Just to play devil’s advocate here: does the rotation need an upgrade? Pedro will be Pedro, but Glavine and Benson are both No.3 types at best, Zambrano is maddeningly inconsistent, Seo is still something of an unknown quantity despite his roughly month-and-a-half success in the rotation, and Heilman would probably help us more in the ‘pen than in the rotation.
If you think the club is going into ST w/ positions unresolved, you need to revise a lot more than just english. Sure Omar will wait to the end of ST to find a 2b, makes sense.
the whole point of my argument is that all anderson hernandez is, is a Marcos Scutaro-(minus) at best, not a starting 2b.
I’m sure you mean Marco Scutaro. Everyone else’e point has been you play the kid to find out what he is. Noone will likely know now what he really is since Cairo got the time ending the season. Omar liked him enough to bring him here by trading a veteran, give him the chance to show why he is liked. You maybe the only one who wanted Cairo to finish up. Whereas the spring will be too late to find out what Omar has in this prospect as a pro since Omar will need to fill the whole in the offseason. If Willie did play Hernandez down the stretch, he’d be better able to ascertain his skills. And although in your skilled and watchful eye he is worse than MarcO Scutaro, alot of us seem to disagree. I remember him having a cannon for an arm, very unlike Scutaro, for starters.
Wow, who are you, and why should I care?
And as I said….twelve AB’s is hardly enough time to decide to bench someone. Imagine if Wright or Reyes were on 12 AB leashes.
I meant hole, not whole.