In an attempt to stop the revolving door of fifth starters from the past few seasons, the Mets signed former Expo, D’Back and Brewer Claudio Vargas. Released by the Brewers during spring training as a way of clearing out some payroll—Vargas buyout option was under $1 million, while his contract asked for $3.6 million—he now finds himself in extended spring training for the Mets, a team without their second best starter (when healthy, of course) in Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez. What can we expect from the 30-year old journeyman if he is to join the big league roster? It depends on if you view the glass as half empty or half full, which is probably not what you want to hear.

Vargas is coming off of a 134.1 inning season with the Brewers, where he went 11-6 despite an ERA of 5.09 (and a spot-on 5.08 FIP). Omar Minaya, searching for something to say besides, “I wish I wasn’t holding this press conference right now,” was heard saying:

To be able to get a Claudio Vargas, who won double figures just last year and has won double figures the past two years, on a minor-league deal, is great insurance to be able to have…

Omar is apparently one of those “glass half full” people I mentioned earlier. Vargas won 11 games thanks to a Brewer offense that scored 4.94 runs per game during the season, not because he was able to give up 5 runs per nine innings with a healthy dose of veteran know-how. His Support Neutral Lineup-Adjusted Value over Replacement -— SNLVAR, which is nowhere near as difficult to understand as it is to memorize — was 1.5, meaning he was worth a win-and-a-half over a replacement level starter. Granted, replacement level pitcher is the role he’s going to be used in, but I wanted to make a point of squashing his Won-Loss record, something that should not even exist in the discussion about his merits as a major league starter.

This year, PECOTA has Vargas forecasted for essentially the same production, with a 1.3 SNLVAR and 4.99 ERA. That forecast is using Milwaukee’s park, though, so by pitching in Shea we could expect Vargas to do a tad better. There’s nothing wrong with that, though Vargas does have some issues that need looking into that I think offset a generous weighted mean projection. Namely, these issues are his homer rate, K/BB, and overall inconsistency last year.

Vargas gave up 1.5 HR/9 last season, close to his career rate of 1.6. His .324 BABIP seems high until you realize that hitters pasted his pitches for a 22 percent liner rate, meaning Vargas was somewhat hit lucky. Despite giving up 10.3 hits per nine, he probably should have given up more. The Mets defense is better than the Brewers, though, so we’ll give that a rest, and just say that Vargas is a pitcher who gives up a bunch of hits. He stranded 73 percent of his baserunners, which is pretty ordinary and not in need of serious adjustment.

Hitters like Claudio Vargas, to the tune of .285/.348/.471, which is like facing Josh Willingham or Ryan Church nine times through a lineup. They like him even more when he pitches from the windup: in 300 at-bats, opposing offenses put together a .320/.376/.523 line. That screams something about a mechanical flaw or tipping of his pitches from the windup, and it’s something that isn’t seen as well from the stretch. Mets’ pitching coach Rick Peterson may be able to work on that if he has time with him, but it’s still ugly to behold. In addition to the lofty batting average against Vargas deals with, he also hands out a few too many free passes. Despite striking out 7.2 per nine last year, his K/BB was just under 2.0 before rounding up; given the lofty hit rate, 3.6 BB/9 is far too many, especially for a starter with homer issues.

This brings me to his inconsistency in 2007. In April, Vargas threw 22 innings with a 3.68 ERA and 11.9 K/9 with 1.2 HR/9. In May, the right-hander had a 4.05 ERA and 5.9 K/9 with a 1.4 HR/9. For June, Vargas owned a 5.24 ERA, 7.3 K/9, 4.4 BB/9, and a whopping 2.8 HR/9. He recovered slightly in July with a 4.32 ERA and over 2 homers per nine fewer, but don’t worry, August came back with a vengeance: 9.00 ERA in 22 innings pitched, 5.7 K/9 versus 4.9 BB/9 and 2.5 HR/9. Surprisingly, he dropped his BB/9 all the way to 1.9 in September and pitched half-decently because of it, even avoiding homers.

This two-faced act could be problematic, and it’s mystifying that a pitching coach as good as Mike Maddux couldn’t figure it out. There’s also the possibility that Maddux did help, and those are the months we see Vargas drop his homers and walks; the effects just didn’t last long enough, though whose fault that is remains a mystery to me. Mets fans should hope that Peterson is capable of reaching Vargas more consistently or, if the problem is on the pitcher’s end, making him use more effective tactics more often.

It probably also doesn’t help that Vargas’s velocity has dipped slightly the past few seasons, according to the info at the excellent Fangraphs. Vargas has lost about one mile per hour on his fastball since 2005, which probably isn’t good for someone with homer and location problems, especially when he lacks a dominant pitch. Considering the way opponents manhandled him last year, I don’t want to see what happens if his fastball drops under 90 by much.

When you breakdown his performance and see that a few decent starts here and there were what brought up his K/9, the only redeeming quality of his numbers sort of flies out the window. Personally, I look to Vargas’s 40th percentile forecast for an accurate projection of his numbers: 5.53 ERA, 1.9 K/BB, 6.5 K/9, and a .310 BABIP. He’s better than replacement level, but not by much. Granted, maybe Minaya likes him a lot because of what he isn’t, which is Jose Lima or Chan Ho Park (the starter version, not the halfway decent relief option) but don’t expect him to beef up the back-end of the rotation anymore than the usual suspects over the long run.