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January 24, 2006
The Awesomeness of Aaron
When I was ten years old I would watch Bret Saberhagen pitch every start, and I loved him. I loved him because the fans seemed to like him, and the announcers raved about him, and it was fairly easy to get excited about his games because he put on a pitching clinic every time out. Then baseball went on strike, and when it came back, I was no longer just a casual fan. I remember 1994 clearly, for it was the last year of my baseball innocence. In 1994, I could love baseball for the game it was — I knew .300 was a good batting average, 96 MPH was an impressive speed and that Frank Thomas was a God amongst men. Other than that, I didn’t know much. I didn’t know that Doc Gooden was ever any good, I didn’t know that Jeff Kent and Jeromy Burnitz weren’t getting fair shots because Dallas Green was a moron, and I didn’t know that the Mets were paying Bobby Bo one of the biggest contracts in baseball — all I knew was what I saw. The problem with growing older and more closely following baseball is that you often lose sight of the things that drew you to the game in the first place. No longer can you just blindly and obliviously enjoy a game — now you sit and wonder why the manager made a stupid move, or why the shortstop is positioning himself that way, or how come the pitcher threw a fastball over the heart of the plate with a 3-0 count. That naivety is gone. You will never again open a newspaper to find out your team made a trade, and have that be the first time you ever heard of it. Or turn on the television to see some minor-leaguer you’d never heard of manning first. You are now an intelligent baseball fan, with your own thoughts and ideas on how the game should be played. That childlike obliviousness can return sometimes, in a Mike Piazza at-bat or a Pedro Martinez pitch, but it’s usually no more than a few seconds — and it takes a pretty special player to get somebody to watch a game without thinking of the other stuff. For me, that player is Aaron Heilman. I’d always liked Heilman. When he came to the Mets he was a dorky, unassuming right-hander with a reputation of working fast, throwing strikes and featuring a nasty changeup — so immediately the young Saberhagen fan in me went to work envisioning a career for Heilman that included his own two Cy Young trophies before all was said and done. However, fate — and a bizarre mechanics change in the minors (that took place before Peterson came to the Mets) — took Heilman from dominant, undefeated college pitcher to batting practice in the matter of a few years. In 2003 he was horrendous at his first shot in the bigs, and in 2004 he took a turn for the worse — both in Norfolk and New York. Before you knew it everyone had lost confidence in the Nerd from Notre Dame, and they were all giving Aaron the ol’ “+Aaron Heilman +Cash” treatment in every trade proposition they could think of. They even booed the kid at Opening Day. However, thanks to two men — Al Jackson and Guy Conti — Heilman’s career was revitalized. The story has since been told numerous times like a tall tale, with Jackson going to Conti and telling him of the similarities between Heilman’s delivery and Hall of Famer Don Drysdale’s. With a drop of the arm to a three-quarter delivery, and a more menacing attitude on the field, Heilman was born anew after a horrendous game against the Atlanta Braves. His fastball was now moving, his changeup was dancing, and he held a formidable Florida Marlins lineup to a single hit over nine innings of ball. A Mets number one draft pick pitcher, living up to his potential, who would have thought it imaginable? I, of course, always knew he had it in him, if only because I was never allowed to believe otherwise. With the trade of Kris Benson, the Mets are putting faith that Heilman’s 2005 season was not some big fluke. Though the numbers don’t indicate it, many scouts believe that Heilman becomes far more hittable as the game progresses. Others point to his one-hitting of the Marlins and two-hitting of the Braves as evidence that the kid’s got the ability get the job done. Looking at the stats, Heilman was admittedly pedestrian. At least as a starter, that is. When you take the time to add up all the numbers, he wound up allowing twenty-five earned runs off of thirty-two hits in forty-eight innings. While the hits allowed were surprisingly low — though that probably has something to do with the aforementioned terrifically pitched games — it seems as though if you got on base against Heilman, you were going to make it home eventually. As a starter, his ERA wound up being 4.68 for the season. However, when winter came Heilman made an important decision, one that I feel was one of the most important things that happened to the Mets this offseason. Instead of simply complaining to management and the media about a starting role while sitting at home, he decided to do something about it. So he went to the Dominican Republic — where Omar Minaya must be watching with all the signings that have taken place there this winter — and pitched lights out ball for Licey. In six starts, he was 4-1 with an earned run average of 2.27. In the thirty-one and two thirds innings he pitched he wound up striking out twenty-six and walking eight, while allowing twenty-seven hits. Thirty-five baserunners allowed in thirty-one innings. And this time he kept those runners from reaching home. Seriously, I could write pages and pages on the merits of Aaron Heilman and his Changeup of Carnage, as most of the Geeks will attest. Everyone’s got a favorite player that makes no sense. Even you have one that you hide away from the masses. My sister was a huge fan of Roger Cedeno. My college roommate loved Rey Ordonez. My grandfather still talks about the wonder that was Danny Darwin. The game is littered with these types of people that despite all statistical evidence still command a fan following. Heck, Armando Rios almost got voted onto the All-Star team in 2002. But usually these guys don’t play huge roles with a team for long. Heilman, on the other hand, will. He’ll either be a starter or a reliever, but either way he’s in it for the long haul. And because of this, it’s important to try and figure out which Heilman is showing up next season. The kid who got lit up by the Nationals? The guy who shut down the Marlins? The man who threw 16 1/2 scoreless innings of baseball in relief? The person who went to the D.R. and was one of the best pitchers in the winter leagues? Or the dude who just can’t make it through the fourth inning without giving up four runs? But that’s up to you to judge. Because it’s already been decided for me. 185 Responses to “The Awesomeness of Aaron”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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Erik, where’ve you been? I’ve been posting for 3 weeks now. You’ll remember me as Blackfish.
Fire Willie are you left coaster?
I just wanted to let every one know Omar is going to be on Mike and Maddog tomorrow and talk about his reasons for trading Seo and Benson should be intresting if they ask the right questions.
For 10 yrs, now am bicoastal, but trying to get back out full time. All of which were in OR.
If the way they roast Cashman is any indication… they will.
I was just looking back at the 2005 Cy voting, and I was a little distressed to see Pedro didn’t even receive a vote. The man had a lower WHIP than any of the guys who did get votes, including Chad Cordero, who not only was a reliever on a losing team, but a beneficiary of RFK. Thats poop.
Apparently they are going to ask about the Hispanic element of these trades, Franco signing etc. He has a patented response by now, nothing new will be given on anything, you know what I mean Harry, execs are mostly PR machines.
Glad to know I’m not alone, were you at any of the Seattle games last year? If so I’m beginning to gain an understanding of the derivation of your handle.
Thats funny. No for all the years I wanted the Mets in SEA, I was on the east coast for those. Take those games multiply by 162 and you have complete understanding… Sadly, I was for his hiring, I thought Tom Kelly, who is NEVER mentioned anymore, would be ideal, but barring him I thought Willie would do alright. I didn’t interview him or listen to him speak before I thought that though.
I really came face to face with it with the Dejean move, as well as his peculiar fascination with seemingly having everyone on the team fake a bunt at some point during every at bat. And then there’s Brian Daubach hitting 5th, I think the batboy had a better shot at getting a base hit.
I went to sea and watched that series. My mom’s family lives up there and one of my cousin’s has season tickets, so I tagged alone. The most depressing game was Glavine getting two swings and misses the entire game he pitched. it was sad.
My fav. Mets have been Desi Relaford, Piazza, Mookie, Olerud, fonzie and david wright.
I was a big Desi fan too, along with Timo (I know, I know, 2000, but what do you expect from an Anthony Young fan) and Mora.
Everything about that series was sad. I hadn’t been to a game in years, due to being in Portland, then seeing them get swept by the worst team in baseball was just heart wrenching. Perhaps worst of all, the saving grace of that series, the Wright diving catch into the third baseline seats was about two rows from where I was sitting and I was up getting a beer. Foolishness.
So, Bannister has decent curve and change, good cutter, mediocre fastball? Sounds like Seo if you switched the cutter and the change and subbed a split for the curve. (Well, okay, I guess that’s a fairly substantial difference…)
Personally, I love guys who live off their cutters. The wisdom with a cutter is, “It’s hard to throw it right. If you throw it wrong, it’s a bad fastball. If you throw it right, it’s one of the toughest pitches around.” Makes sense to me that if you’re gonna throw it at all, you should throw it a LOT to really get the feel for it. Leiter and Rivera built careers off that pitch, I’m psyched to see a guy in our minors attempting the same.
As for Maine, sounds like if he learns to locate his curve and change better he might have a very respectable arsenal in short order. “Fastball moves” and “slider = out pitch” are good signs…
Of course thats why I through in the words if they ask the right questions. I actually didnt know that 15 is it? of the 25 man roster are hispanic. thats the most in the league not that I have a prob with it but its like 6 more then the next team. Hey Fw what coast is better has to be west right ?
i think alot of people wouldn’t have minded the benson deal if it were not after the seo deal. So as for giving up seo, believe me i had always liked jae seo and was rooting for him the moment i saw him pitch his first mlb game and i really didn’t support omars trade but I don’t think it is as bad as it was because look at our starting rotation depth that will replace him is Bannister,Maine,soler,irik and i know none of these guys are proven but neither was seo last year so personally our back up starters aen’t that bad.
He had never been phenomenal but he had MLB experience (as had Heilman) including a decent 2003 campaign.
188 Innings, 9-12, 3.82 ERA
how many days till pitchers and catchers report
yea but PDX did you really expect Jae Seo was gonna have a good year coming into last season(or even mid season for that matter)he was actually the thid backup starter last year and if we had any confidence in him would we have traded for that bum kaz iishi
Piazza in Philly rumor
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2304496
Its dangerous to get into the pattern of, “hey this happened last year, I guess we can expect it to happen every year”. Lots of people sound like they think someone is going to emerge this season simply because someone did last year.
Speaking of cut fastballs… we should teach one to Julio. If his arm is as live as they say, and his fastball is as straight as they say, why not teach him to cut it? Does he have control problems? Is he too stubborn to learn a new pitch and somewhat pitch to contact? From what people are saying, he sounds pretty close to useless until he changes up his appproach.
Wouldn’t be bad if there was a reliever throwing 95-mph cutters over on this side of town…
West coast livin’ is the best if you can make it work right. Although NYC has its ups too, but I’d trade it all for the west coast in an instant.
Mookie’s swagger and smile is all time cool. I loved Mora, who has one yr left in his BAL deal and is FA after the season but has gotten extension offers this week ~~ I was hoping Mets grab him next FA yr to play 2b ~~we’ll see. Another trade that goes into the files marked “Worst Met Trades”. Keith and Darryl, but they weren’t the underdog types.
I certainly won’t say that I would’ve predicted what Seo did, but nonetheless, expecting him to do 2003 over again wasn’t an insane idea. My point is that we had two young starters with major league experience and that at some point were considered top prospects that weren’t even factored into the opening day starting rotation, and could be called upon when the inevitable injuries occurred. My concern is that when Glavine and Trachsel both go down, who are they going to call on? Either you have to go with someone with no experience, or you have to overpay for someone else’s mediocre starter because they know you’re in trouble. I would just like to see more depth there.
quick question, if you had your choice where would you rather have Piazza play, The yankees or the Phillies
Me personally the yanks because if he is a succsess story than it doesn’t hurt us as much and there is less of a chance I got to root against him because we would play the phills more
I think the Phillies, so I wouldn’t have to listen to Yankee fans gloat about him if he hurt us. There’s few things in the world more obnoxious than hearing Yankee fans go on an on.
I forgot about this recent interview of Bannister, Milledge has one on this page too:
http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/milb/events/rookie_career.jsp?mc=index
From the RCDP, nothing revealing, but a way to see how these guys handle themselves nonetheless.
Splitter, slider, cutter, slurve, whatever. He needs something with more break than a 2 seamer or changeup and sits in between them velocity wise. Every pitcher needs to stay ahead of the scouting report, so might as well get a jump on it now and develop his repotoire to more than 2.5 pitches (the 1/2 being the diff. between 2 seam and 4 seam).
Of course, another pitch is not as important as working both sides of the plate keeping the ball down, and not overthinking (as AH is prone to do); but I’m greedy, and I believe adding a few more variables to his gameplan and confuse hitters a bit more would make Heilman just straight nasty.
These clips claim to be .wmv files, but it appears that they are not. What application did you get them to play on?
NOOOOOOOOOOOO god Piazza with the phillies this sucks why couldent he take limited playing time with us. but i can understand it is his hometown
Has anyone taken a good look at our sched for next year?
I mean we open with 9 games against the Nats and Marlins — there is NO excuse not to have a blistering start.
In all, I think we have a pretty easy April and early May. It would be nice to see some out of the gate momentum.
Piazza will not go to the Yanks — they already have three DHs. He ends up in So Cal somewhere - all three teams could use him.
we start off at home against who nats?
Just read about Juan Samuel becoming the manager in Binghampton. He was up for the detroit managerial job this yr too. Any thoughts?
bmc this is true in theory but is not the case for every SP.
some guys have so much raw unhittable stuff that they don’t need to add another pitch and sometimes it screws up their mechanics.
I agree Heilman should probably add another pitch.
But Mel Stott thought Doc Gooden needed to add a change to his devastating 1,2 heater, curve combo and it threw his mechanics out of wack so badly going into the ‘86 season.
That and several lines of coke a week will do it to you every time!
sweetlew you got it all wrong. Mel Stott’s tinkering with Doc’s arm sent Gooden into a depressed, insecure state.
Causing him to visit strip clubs and do lines off stripper booty on a weekly basis.
So yes Mel Stott is the real reason Doc is not a hall of famer right now.
I think Mex had the right mix:
Coke+call-girl+busted condom+paternity suit=Excellent lawyer and a damn good time.
My fav play of the yr was Castro’s HR to go ahead…Anyone have that one?
PatrickO
http://www.geocities.com/nymets4575/CastroHR_Radiocall.wmv
Ask and ye shall receive…
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH1!!!!! it didnt work. thanks anyway Emad
http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/multimedia/tp_archive.jsp?c_id=nym&ym=200508
Castros Decisive Blast Aug 30th vs Philly
Well, if that’s the main reason for the interview, the Hispanic element, then shame on Mike and the Puppy! Ask him about baseball, the MLB roster, the health of the minor league system, etc. But then again, the average FAN listener will eat up the racist slant .
Personally, I’d rather see Steve Sommers interview Minaya. And why in the world did they take him off daytime?? The guy was always entertaining and I love the way he mixes in Met play-calls by other announcers.
To the poster who alluded to Piazza’s future: I will vomit if I see Mike in a Yankee uniform.
Random ideas front: Now that the Red Sox have blocked Pedroia at short with the Sea Bass, I think it might be worthwhile to see what it would take to acquire him to play second.
Also, sad to think that that Castro home run was pretty much both the high point and the end of the season….
Mets network airs March 16, they should have a space for Steve Sommers I love his show he gives the yankees fans the business :-)
Hmmm…are you in the entertianment field? maybe some artistic profession (freelance writer, photog, designer?). I only ask because I’m in the arts field and many of my colleagues are bicoastal. Just curious.
Glad to see someone else appreciates Steve! I like him also because he doesn’t fit the mold of your typicak shock jock ranter like so many of the FAN hosts. AND, he doesn’t take himself so seriously, another admirable quality.
i prefer diaz to get the job over nady because i love the guys with any met homegrownness in them. if we can get diaz to hustle like this than his fielding wouldn’t be a huge liability either
should be all the way at the bottom, trhe one on september 1st
I had to paste the link into the Real player and it worked.
I keep hearing about Diaz’s problems, didnt he only have like 3 errors and 153 put outs last yr, and I dont remember them being in any crutial situation? He does seem to not hustle to every ball, Strawberry like. More time in the majors will change that with a little fielding confidence.
I have been a fan of the mets since the early 70’s and i would have to say my fav player was Ray Knight (aka Mr Nancy Lopez lol). He was an emotional spark plug , someone to get the team going. Thats what the mets need now. We have to many low key guys in the clubhouse.
3 weeks til pitchers and catchers baby!!!!!!!
Minor notes; many know about these but Roto just put them up, C Bobby Estalella (When Jon Miller used to say his name it was like a poem), Jose Santiago resigned, and Jeremi Gonzalez, all to minor deals. Hopefully Santiago is strictly out of the pen, as well as Gonzalez. I guess w Bobby E, they had their other top 3 Cs in the WBC so, need a body. He may be good, or I may just like the way his name sounds. Other than Boone and Perisho, I think all Omar’s NRIs are Latino.
Are you offering me a position?
And the Schmooze is the best one on the radio anywhere, with the Cptn Midnight, and the Metropolitans already. There is an Omar ~Somers interview from August which is funny; Omar wants to hype the Brooklyn AllStar game and Schmooze delays it and asks good questions (its in the FAN archive). I don’t think Dog and Mike are good; other than Tennis and Horse Racing. It sucks they re the prime NY radio guys so at times you have to listen, but they suck at their jobs. They talk to Omar bc of the Caravan, prob whoever else is at the Caravan too, so it isn’t just about race. There has been a distinct element to their recent moves though, so I think they feel like asking. I can’t wait to hear all the ‘duhs and uhs’ between Omar and Willie tomorrow, and isn’t the Bush speech soon too? The Three Stooges.
LOL, no, I have enough people beating down my door for work!
No argument here.
Before I go on a little rant, I like Diaz and I think he can be a good offensive forse someday but Nady will beat him out. It has been suggested by a few geeks that they think the reason why Nady was acquired was to push Diaz. I agree. He has plenty of confidence, probobaly too much. The effort and the heart is lacking in my opinion. I think, with all the comparisions to Manny, he became aloof like Manny. He doesn’t hustle or he hustles when he is doing well at the plate. The day he hustles is the day he becomes an everyday player even with suspect defense. For someone who has been an outfielder for 2 plus years now, he sure is cocky in the field. Your right Wdwrkr35, he didnt make a crucial error but I’m sure his lack of range came into play in some crucial moments. I hope he learns from being pushed this year because, if he doesnt, his chance will go out the window. Instead of becoming a solid everyday ballplayer, he will be a hired bat for the rest of his career.
Bobby Estalella is a good NRI for the Mets. He is insurance plus he may push Castro a little also. He is pretty comparable to Kelly Stinett. Calls a good game, arm’s not that strong, and he can hit a fastball real far.
Breaking left when the fly is to his right doesn’t help either. The intial jump or break is more crucial than “range” or speed since he has to backtrack and circle. Its like a vaudeville act w a routine fly to right.
sorry to be so off-topic, but I am very distraught about the SNY/cablevision situation. All of you out there who subscribe to cablevision: you may not be able to watch your beloved Mets. A contract has not been reached between SNY and cablevision, the company who sued Wilpon to keep him from starting SNY and a bitter rival of Time Warner. Obviously, Wilpon won the lawsuit.
Does anyone know how we can influence cablevision into signing a contract with SNY? An online petition? A letter with tons of online signatures? Is anyone down? or worried?
A) Doc is not a good comparison to Heilman. You think Heilman has “so much raw unhittable stuff”? I don’t think he’s quite there.
2) The biggest change Mel Stott made to Doc’s mechanics was messing with his leg kick. That high kneee to the ear during his windup took so long that guys could walk to 2nd base. But what Stott didn’t understand, is that NOBODY WAS GETTING ON BASE! So cost the 4 seamer velocity and movement, and it made Lord Charles act less like K-Rod’s slider, and more like a 2nd rate 12-6 curve.
iii) Drugs are bad… BAD ASS YO! But seriously, athletes should probably save the narcotics for game time.
I couldn’t agree more, Chris. I posted such a comment recently saying that Diaz had to prove to everyone he was worthy of being an everyday player. He simply hasn’t. Period.
Well, I do still believe there weren’t many other viable trade options for Cammy, but this point is well-taken. Why not bring in a cheap alternative to Diaz (in Nady) and see how Victor responds? If the Mets did have this mind, then it’s a good plan for both players because it creates competition between two guys who haven’t proved themselves to be everyday-worthy players (not yet anyway). I am very intrigued to see what Nady brings to the table AND equally curious to see if Victor will step up his game and actually start hustling ALL the time.
not quite aaron heilman, but i thought this article was decent. a bit out dated at this point due to the benson trade, but still a good article about soler. i’m confident he’ll be on our 25 man this year at least at some point.
http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/gen/articles/printer_friendly/milb/y2005/m12/d16/c36509.jsp
please dont remind me JK im hoping that dolan will get off his ass and work something out> Because like everyone I Need My Mets
The channel is going to open around mid-march…. Whether they have a contract with cablevision or not. It’s unacceptable if they don’t show the mets.
Thats what I thought too. I actually thought he’d be good for that role back in early FA.
Thanks AH
bmc if u reread my post I never compared doc to aaron
in fact I agreed that aaron can use an extra pitch in his arsenal
how I disagree that everyone needs an extra pitch via doc gooden
I had read recently that the biggest problem was the addition of the changeup to Doc’s arsenal. Since everything else was so disgusting, the poor hitters would sit and wait on the change to come through since they didn’t have a shot at the fastball or curve anyway.
My favorite of all time is Doc Gooden
I was lucky enough to grow up in the Tidewater area from 78-88 and I got to see a lot of my favs coming up, my fav has to be Kevin Mitchell because when I asked for his autograph he was as cool as could be
I used to have most of the 80s roster down so pat that my friends would always ask me to do the Doc Gooden windup and in the front yard in wiffle ball games I always had to do everyone’s stance and windup exactly right, with my fav being Gene Walter, I could throw a heck of a slider with that windup, not that throwing a slider with a wiffleball is hard
Great piece Andrew, I have so many favorite Mets its unreal, my dog’s name is Mets if that says anything, had she been a boy it was gonna be Mookie, so yes I’m a geek too!!!
From Roto: I thought this was funny; 3/4 former farmhands for Mets:
Just in csase anyone didn’t follow the link to the interviews with Bannister and Milledge at the RCDP… Bannister basically said “I am better than Soler, firewillie was wrong”. You guys dont have to go listen to the whole thing now.
Does anyone know anything about Soler, has he pitched winter ball, if so how has he done?
I see you are a master baiter, JRRM. No thanks.
PDX, very well, winter stats are linked in top right corner.
Recently pitched his team to a win in game 6 of the PR series, I think he went like 6-7 ip, 0r, maybe a hit or two.
Thanks fw, just checked them, really impressive, many of the pitchers have been.
Ha, I was a master debater at college too. I just can’t get away from that it seems.
Anyway, I thought you guys all should know that its Scott Kazmir’s 22nd birthday today. 22. He’s barely drinking age, and he’s already had a better career than 99.9% of people who have played organized baseball.
Brian, Marist must have low standards for “Master” since you are still learning facts from opinions and don’t research your points.
PDX, I think you asked about Bannister earlier. I found this videa clip of him striking out the side at the EL all star game (I’m bad at posting links ~~ if anyone has a tip, post it). I’ll try it, if it don’t work, I’ll give directions to it.
mms://a1272.v10869e.c10869.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1272/10869/v0001/mlb.download.akamai.com/14668/2005/allstar/eas/video/071305_easasg_bannister_reel_350.wmv
I had to use Real.
OK directions:
http://minorleaguebaseball.com/app/news/article.jsp?ymd=20051104&content_id=32873&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp
Several vid/aud links here, but the one of BB is cool.
My goodness get over it. Besides, what I said wasn’t opinion either. It was a factual statement about Contreras that ended up being false. I was mistaken. If I said 2+2=5 it wouldn’t be my opinion either. Besides, youre just using that one mistake to invalidate an entire argument you had no answer to.
Also… a run scored on Bannister in that inning? Worst striking out the side ever.
Brian, facts are true statements, by definition. Your diploma from Marist perforated and scented? I’m supposed to argue a point w you that you admit is wrong/false? Is that how debate works in Marist? I’ll be sure to be impressed w you and your education there sometime real soon. Your arguments are fallacious.
It was at an allstar game. Can you k 3 AA allstars?
I am actually enjoying this a little bit.
I made a mistake. It was a statement of fact though. Have you had enough?
Maybe in a thousand starts, I could strike out the side once. Actually no, probably not even then.
You did not demostrate anything to be true or exist, just recycled media hyperbole. Even in your highlighted case, the facts were “mistaken”; so again you did not assert anything but opinion and hope they were facts until a 3rd party showed you that what I had claimed was in fact to be evident.
On Diaz:
Chris, is this something you observed with your own eyes, or just what you’ve heard? I heard some interviews where he sounded overconfident about his hitting, but as for his fielding, what I observed was more like what FW said:
That is not a lack of hustle, that is a lack of OF experience. The guy never played the OF before late 2004, IIRC. I saw him botch several plays, I saw him make two stupid mistakes on the bases, but I didn’t see him look lazy at any point.
The only thing I dislike about the guy’s approach is his penchant for waving at balls out of the zone. If he improves that even a little, I GUARANTEE you a .500 SLG.
argon (who is always sensible) beat me to the punch a bit on diaz but I would just like to ask, when exactly did diaz get a chance to prove he was an everyday player? Only after Cameron’s injury — you cant really blame him for being rusty. I just dont get where this he doesnt have heart thing comes from. Is it cause he is pudgy — fat asses dont have heart. Spare us the non quantifiable bs on this count until we have a full season of everyday Diaz in which he’s proved he’s a stiff. I think if he can find the walks he had in the 8 hole he could be a force.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/story/385639p-327263c.html
Off topic but Piazzas signing with an american league team and its not the yankees.
[...] Andrew’s gushing fanboy revelations aside, what can we reasonably expect out of the starter-turned reliver-turned starter? Well, here’s what he did last season: [...]
I love Heilman too, kid’s gonna be a star, bet on it.
I can think of one Met at least that no one would ever claim to love or even like, for he is quite simply the worst pitcher in the history of the universe: Mel Rojas.
[...] Anybody who knows me knows that I’m a huge Aaron Heilman supporter — or, as my good buddy Eric Simon has referred to me, “a gushing fanboy”. So, obviously, I want whatever’s best for Aaron, and if Aaron wants a starting spot then by all means I feel he should get it. Honestly, if I thought somebody might actually listen, I’d have written an article about how the clubhouse might get in a funk now that Juan Padilla’s magic tricks were no longer part of the daily routine. [...]