Once again, a la Chris Capuano, Sandy Alderson has found an  oft-injured pitcher who has had great success when healthy. This approach could provide great bang for the buck as Young has signed a guaranteed deal worth about $1.0 million that could jump as high as $4.5 million if certain goals are reached. It’s a deal that could be win-win for both the Mets and Young as the 31 year old pitcher has much to prove having missed portions of the last three seasons. Certainly, the Mets would be more than happy if Young reached all of his incentive goals.

Besides being a good deal from the contract side, Young has had plenty of upside when healthy. Lifetime, Young possesses 3.80 ERA, having pitched 751.2 innings while allowing just 614 hits. Batters have hit just .225 off of him. And if you like that stat, here’s a sweet little nugget: Young’s career H/9 of 7.4 is tied with Tim Lincecum and better than pitchers, Felix Hernandez (8.2), Roy Halladay (8.7), Johan Santana (7.6), Cliff Lee (9.1), Josh Johnson (8.2), Chris Carpenter (8.9), Adam Wainwright (8.3), Zack Greinke (9.1) and Justin Verlander (8.3).

If there is one statistic that may be pause for concern is that Young has a very high fly ball percentage at 53%. More fly balls means more potential home runs. But let’s break this down a little bit. First of all, if a pitcher is going to be a fly ball pitcher, he better have good strikeout numbers. Young has a career K/9 of 7.82 which can definitely support those fly balls numbers. Looking a little deeper, of those 53% fly balls, Young has a very high percentage of infield pop-ups at 15.3%. So these are fly balls that never leave the infield.

Lastly, Young has spent the better part of his career pitching for the Padres in pitcher-friendly Petco Park. CitiField is equally as friendly to pitchers as Petco . He has compiled a 2.85 ERA for his career at Petco with hitters batting just .205. These numbers should translate very well to CitiField.

Of course, all of this is well and good. The real test, like Capuano, will be to see if Young can stay healthy. He’s only has three seasons where he has made 30 or more starts and has never pitched 200 innings.

Yes, Young has great potential and could reap great rewards for the Mets if he can stay off the DL and pitch like he has in the past. Either way, the Mets have not extended themselves very far with this deal. It’s a risk, but a calculated one that could payoff big.

But wait, it gets better. Not only will Big Mike be cashing bigger checks, manager Terry Collins has already announced Pelfrey as the opening day pitcher with the injured Johan Santana expected to miss the first part of the season.

With that little bit of suspense put to rest, the pressure of a new c0ntract and ace status puts Pelfrey squarely in the crosshairs with expectations of success. The sensitive righty put together a solid season last year with a 3.66 ERA rebounding from an inconsistent ‘09 where his ERA landed above 5.00. Despite having a fairly high fly ball percentage last season (32%), his success was largely due to his development of the split-finger fastball, throwing first pitch strikes 62% of the time and keeping the ball in the park. Armed with his heavy sinker, he allowed just 12 home runs all season with a HR/9 of  0.53.

Based upon Pelfrey’s 2010 stats, his wins above replacement value (WAR) was 2.9. Lately, the fair market value for a win has been going around $4.0 million. So doing the quick math, Pelfrey would have been worth around $11.5 million last year. So his 2011 $3.9 million salary comes as a relative bargain.

It also seems that Pelfrey has put his confidence issues behind him and with management’s recent vote of confidence, he should be able to put together another solid season. Certainly, they believe in him. He needs to continue to believe in himself.

Other good news: Johan Santana’s return is on track and scheduled for June. This may be optimistic as the Mets will certainly take a cautious approach and ensure they are not pushing him too quickly. But this news is positive as he continues to make forward progress with no setbacks.

With an expected opening day rotation of Pelfrey, R.A. Dickey, Jon Niese, Chris Capuano and Chris Young (OK, this may be a little premature as no official announcement has been made, but we’ll pencil him in), Santana’s return will push one of the above five out of the rotation. Fortunately, it’s a decision that is far down the road and depending on how the starters fair, Collins may or may not have a difficult decision at that time.

The left-handed Tankersley comes to the Mets via Florida having bounced back and forth between the major league club and the minors, He own a career 4.58 ERA and a pretty hefty WHIP of 1.52.

Ideally, the Mets will have Tankersley take a crack at the left-handed specialist role since Pedro Feliciano has moved cross-town and is now wearing pinstripes for that other team. Somewhat more encouraging than his total career stats, Tankersley has faired better against left-handed batters with lefties hitting just .217 career-wise off of him. He’s also been effective with strikeouts with a K/9 of 8.72.

Typically, those lefty specialists find themselves in high-leverage situations with runners in scoring position. Looking at those stats for Tankersley, for his career, hitters have batted just .139 against him in high leverage situations and .208 for his career with runners in scoring position. With these kind of numbers, Tankersley could fill the role nicely if he can control his walks.

Willie Harris on the other hand is the kind of player that’s nice to fill out the roster with as extra window dressing. Aside from spot starts, he will most likely be relegated to pinch-hitting duties and defensive substitutions assuming he makes the team out of spring training. Harris has a career .239 batting average, with very little pop (just 37 career home runs) and some decent speed (101 stolen bases). He hasn’t fair well at CitiField the past couple of seasons collecting just three hits in 38 at-bats for a 0.97 average.

Though Harris’ versatility to play both the outfield and the infield with serve him well giving manager Terry Collins the opportunity to make double-switches and pinch hit were needed.

Overall, Harris and Tankersley could prove to be adequate role players for the upcoming season. Certainly, not the big-name players that Mets fans dream about, but with limited payroll flexibility, these minor additions and small moves could round out to be wise maneuvers at a small price.

This deliberate and tactical approach the Mets are using is the equivalent of looking for those bargain deals at Filene’s basement. Amongst all of the castaway items, perhaps a diamond in the rough may be found at a low price.

Capuano is certainly the more attractive pitcher of the two, having put together an 18 win season with Milwaukee back in 2005. That year, his innings pitched were 219 which represented more than the cumulative total (121.1) of his previous two years of major league experience. The following year in 2006, he pitched another 200+ season making him a prime candidate for injury a la the Verducci effect. Capuano was 26 at the time of these inning increases which puts him outside of the Verducci effect rules for 25 years of younger, but it’s close enough. And so, sure enough, Capuano has been bogged down with injury issues ever since.

On the plus side, Capuano has shown strong components stats with a K/9 of 7.40 for his career and solid BB/9 of 3.02. However, his propensity for fly balls (40% career rate) and a 1.3 HR/9 has danger written all over those numbers.

But here’s the silver lining: Capuano has spent much of his career in Milwaukee which is a very favorable home run hitters’ park. Last season Miller Park ranked 6th overall with a 1.233 home run factor out of all Major League stadiums. Pitching at Citifield, Capuano could benefit tremendously. Citifield ranked 27th out of 30 as the most difficult park to hit home runs in with a HR park factor of 0.719.

While all of this is speculation, the first step will be to ensure that Capuano is able to get out to the mound with consistency and avoid further injury. He pitched well enough in 2010 with Milwaukee going 4-4 with a 3.95 ERA in 66 innings. Hopefully, this is a positive sign.

If it works out, Alderson and company could have found a real winner at bargain prices as the Mets continue their off season tag sale approach.

Let’s take a quick look at each:

Antonini:
The good – lefty, 7.0 K/9 : 2.1 BB/9
The meh – doesn’t throw hard, is hittable (9.2 H/9), and isn’t great at preventing homeruns (.9 HR/9),

Hu:
The good – BA’s #55 Prospect prior to 2008 season, makes a lot of contact with a good average, provides up the middle depth, and can steal some bags
The meh – doesn’t walk, little power, and turns 27 in Feb

My take:
I think I’m the only person on the planet who thinks Luis Castillo should start at 2B. Tejada belongs in AAA. Murphy needs to earn his burn. Hu provides some depth at 2B/SS, but his skill set doesn’t appear much different than what Castillo can provide, especially since Luis will walk more. Whoever plays 2B will probably bat 8th (Paulino 7th? yikes), so defense should take priority. Organizational depth is important with the tenuous 2B/SS crop they have behind Reyes.

Antonini is probably destined to be a LOOGY. He only has 44 IP at AAA, so I’m inclined to think he’ll need another full season there. He’ll turn 26 in August and one would think he will probably get a chance to start if he produces in AAA.

What do you guys think?

sean green

As a Met from 2009 to 2010, Green logged just 79 innings and appeared in 90 games as a reliever with a 1-4 record and a 4.44 ERA. He spent the majority of last season on the DL with a right intercostal muscle strain.

With Francisco Rodriguez (most certainly his last season with the Mets) and newly signed D.J. Carrasco assuredly in the bullpen, there will be a motley list of candidates to fill out the rest of the pen. Look for Pat Misch, Bobby Parnell, Dillon Gee, Ryota Igarashi, and yes, even Oliver Perez to compete for spots. Believe me, I am biting my tongue right now from making some snide Perez comment. Sandy Alderson and company will certainly be looking for additional bullpen help, so as spring training draws closer, the picture will begin to crystalize.

Stay tuned.

Joe Petruccio Artwork

I’ve already been asked a few times about the artwork to the right in our header banner. It’s a custom sketch that artist Joe Petruccio did for GodBlessBuckner when he and I sat down for an interview last season. He was gracious and kind enough to provide a sketch for our website capturing perhaps the  most memorable and historic moment in Mets history in a most humorous way that is quintessential Petruccio.

You can read the interview with him here. But with our new site design it seemed an opportune time to display his sketch once again and thank him for his custom art. You can also see Joe’s work here and here. Even in the off-season, Joe is still consumed with the Mets. But then again, aren’t we all?

You’re the man, Joe!

We’d like to take a moment to thank Fanball Sports Network for taking us on to blog about our favorite team, the New York Mets. Also, a big thank you to Bryan Douglass who gave us the opportunity to continue this blog transferring the name GodBlessBuckner over to us.

So what did we miss? Let’s see, Zack Greinke is now on the Brew Crew. Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzales have added their talents to Boston, while Jayson Werth took the big money with the Nationals.  Adam Dunn signed with the White Sox and Victor Martinez is heading to the Motor City. Am I forgetting any big names? Oh yeah, some guy named Cliff Lee decided to sign with Philadelphia giving the Phillies arguably one of the most formidable starting rotation we have seen in baseball for quite some time.

So what about the Mets? The Angels grabbed Hisanori Takahashi, while the Yankees signed Pedro Feliciano after he declined arbitration giving the Mets a type B free agent pick in the amateur draft in 2011.

As for signings, the Mets filled one spot in the bullpen with D.J. Carrasco and found a back-up catcher for Josh Thole in Ronny Paulino. They also signed former Minnesota Twin Boof Bonser to a minor-league contract. Who knows? He could be the next R.A. Dickey.

Off the field, the Mets revamped their front office with the dream team of Sandy Alderson and assistants Paul DePodesta and J.P. Ricciardi. They hired manager Terry Collins to light a fire under the team’s butts and get them in gear while rounding out a coaching staff adding the player-friendly Ken Oberkfell as bench manager and fan favorite Mookie Wilson.

They will be more moves most likely that will be in the same vain as the Carrasco and Paulino signings, but Met fans should expect nothing earth-shattering until the Mets gain payroll flexibility.

For now, we’ll keep the hot stove burning and hope for the best in 2011.

Happy Holidays to all our dedicated readers who have stuck with us through this transition. We are glad to be back and look forward to a terrific upcoming season.