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 Continue reading
Tag Archives: Francisco Rodriguez
Sean Green signs on with the Crew
Black Cloud Follows Mets
Where does it end? How much more embarrassment can one organization endure? The Francisco Rodriguez “incident” is the latest cherry on the sundae that continues to define the Mets’ organization as perhaps the most mis-managed and misguided baseball franchise around. Certainly, the Mets did the appropriate action by reprimanding K-Rod and putting him on the disqualified list. But the Rodriguez mishap is just another reason that gives credence to the Mets nickname as the “New York Mess”
Just last year, former special assistant Tony Bernazard verbally threatened minor league players to a fist fight that gave some disturbing insight that the Mets’ minor league system was less than nurturing and encouraging but run more like scenes from “Gangs of New York”. Appropriately, the Mets showed Bernazard the door and apologized for his inappropriate behavior. Shortly, after that Omar Minaya decided to throw Mets beat writer Adam Rubin under the bus since it was Rubin that broke the story on Bernazard. Once again a black mark on the face of the franchise.
It would be nice to say that it all stopped there. But over the past seasons there has been an onslaught of player injuries and some that have been mismanaged (concussion for Ryan Church and Jose Reyes’ legs) so much so that the mantra for the team during spring training this season was about health and injury prevention. There was the Willie Randolph firing that was handled with as much tact and respect as a back alley mugging. And there have been countless rumors of ownership’s money woes with varying reports on the extent how much the organization really has to spend. Of course the “company line” from ownership is that everything is fine but one has to wonder with some of the cautious approaches they have taken in the free agent market when they were obvious, specific holes that needed to be filled that just weren’t fully addressed.
Let’s not forget some poor long term contracts (Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo) and the teams’ struggles of late to attract free agents. Joel Pineiro and Bengie Molina were targets for the Mets this past off-season but they accepted reasonable offers from other teams, complaining that the Mets left them hanging and that they didn’t get back to them in a timely manner. The Mets were successful in securing Jason Bay, but one had to wonder if Bay would have preferred to play for other teams than the Mets but the offers were simply not there for his services. He said all the right things in news conferences about how the Mets were on hit “short-list”, but his play this year has been anything but inspirational.
Then there is the nearly depleted farm system. And while it’s true that the farm system strives to replenish itself, currently the Mets minor leaguers are generally not considered among the top prospects in baseball. This raises some questions as to the talent evaluators and the scouts the team has employed and whether they are really doing the top notch job they should.
And finally, let’s not forget about the two collapses in the past years that have branded the team with the “chokers” title (yes, there’s that “C” word). A moniker they have yet to shake. True, many of the players are not around anymore from three seasons ago, but it’s still a stigma that has followed the team around and seems to be permeated in its pores.
So there seems to be this perpetual black cloud that follows the team around. As much as they try to shake this perception of a disorganized organization, the more things happen that seem to strengthen and reemphasize this belief. It would be easy for me to say that they need to fire the coaches, fire Jerry Manuel, fire Omar Minaya and start from scratch. But this would do little to alter this “New York Mess” perspective. Perhaps the team needs to take a closer look at franchises like the Los Angeles Angels and the Minnesota Twins who seem to garner respect throughout baseball. These are teams that ballplayers seem to genuinely enjoy playing for and a look at their organizational approach might be beneficial as they seem to generally have success year after year.
But for now, the Mets continue to make decisions with no seemingly big picture in mind. They are certainly the Rodney Dangerfield’s of baseball, but whereas Rodney lamented not getting any respect, I’m unsure, at this point, the Mets are deserving of any.
Later, K-Rod
The Mets placed Francisco Rodriguez on the DL on Monday afternoon with a torn ligament in his thumb which was the result of him punching his fiance’s father. I won’t delve into K-Rod’s anger issues or use hindsight to criticize Omar Minaya for signing him – turn on 660AM if you want that. Instead, I’ll take a look at K-Rod’s season to date and contract status.
Francisco Rodriguez acquired 25 saves and was worth 1.5 WAR before his season ended in dramatic fashion. Among relievers, 1.5 WAR to date was a top 10 mark, higher than Mariano Rivera, Jonathon Broxton, Joakim Soria, among others. He pitched 57.1 innings with a 10.52 k/9 which was his highest mark since 2007. He also sported a 3.30 bb/9 which was the lowest mark of his career (obviously not counting his 5 inning 2002 season). To summarize, K-Rod was having his best season since 2007.
According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, Rodriguez is signed through the 2011 season and has a 17.5 mil option(3.5 mil buyout) for 2012 that becomes guaranteed with 55 games finished in 2011, 100 games finished in 2010-2011, and if doctors declare Rodriguez healthy after 2011. He appeared in 53 games in 2010, finishing 45 games. It is feasible he could finish 55 games next year, which would put him at 100 and as long as he is healthy, the option would vest.
I am one that generally avoids writing about clubhouse chemistry and morality in baseball as I try to be objective as possible. We all know they are a PR mess and never want to make roster decisions that prove they made a mistake signing. With that said, they need to do whatever they can to prevent that option from vesting. In the meantime, with a month and a half left in a hopeless season, this is the perfect opportunity to see Bobby Parnell in high leverage situations and maybe, just maybe, audition for a future closer role on this or another team.
How Do the Met Pitchers Stack Up Against Quality Hitters?
We got our very first taste of Interleague play this past weekend with the Mets taking on the Yankees at CitiField. All in all, the Mets faired well, taking two of three and got some solid pitching performances from starters Hisanori Takahashi, Mike Pelfrey and Johan Santana. They were able to effectively keep much of the potent Yankee lineup in check, which led me to ponder the blessings and curses of Interleague play from the Mets perspective. Let’s face it, when the Mets can take a series from the Yankees, it’s at least cause for Met fans to hold their heads up high and have some pride in their team—at least for a little while. But when things don’t go the Mets’ way, we lament the unfairness of Interleague play, “Why do the Mets always have to play the Yankees two times every season? I don’t see the Phillies having to take on the World Champions as part of their regular season ritual.”
No Interleague is not fair. The schedule and match-ups are unbalanced, although it serves as a great marketing tool for MLB. From that standpoint, it works. Granted, it would be easier for the Mets to move to Toledo, Ohio and take on the Cleveland Indians every year, but that’s not the hand that’s been dealt and if the Mets are to be the talk of the town and grab the back page headlines, they have to take the fight to the baseball diamond where it counts. Fair enough.
But just how tough is the competition the Mets have to face compared to Phillies or other teams in the league? The Cub pitchers, being in the same division as the Cardinals, have to face Albert Pujols on a regular basis. That’s no picnic. Glad the Mets only play the Cardinals 6 times a year. But the Mets have their own problems, because they have to face the likes of Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Ryan Zimmerman, Hanley Ramirez and long-time Met killer Larry “Chipper” Jones on a pretty regular basis. Choose your poison.
So let’s break this down and take a look at the Mets pitching staff this year and identify not only what batters are hitting off of Met pitchers but also the quality of the hitters they face. First, take a look at this chart and then I’ll go into more detail about the numbers.
|
Pitcher |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
Q-AVG |
Q-OBP |
Q-SLG |
| Johan Santana |
.243 |
.291 |
.364 |
.263 |
.339 |
.403 |
| Francisco Rodriguez |
.193 |
.284 |
.313 |
.257 |
.330 |
.401 |
| Hisanori Takahashi |
.235 |
.321 |
.348 |
.256 |
.331 |
.403 |
| John Maine |
.297 |
.398 |
.506 |
.256 |
.335 |
.409 |
| Raul Valdes |
.255 |
.308 |
.408 |
.255 |
.331 |
.400 |
| Fernando Nieve |
.215 |
.357 |
.380 |
.253 |
.326 |
.404 |
| Oliver Perez |
.269 |
.404 |
.440 |
.251 |
.328 |
.396 |
| Jenrry Mejia |
.278 |
.387 |
.392 |
.250 |
.327 |
.390 |
| Jonathon Niese |
.322 |
.392 |
.460 |
.249 |
.329 |
.390 |
| Mike Pelfrey |
.258 |
.325 |
.378 |
.246 |
.325 |
.394 |
The three columns after the pitcher’s name are pretty straight forward. They represent the batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage of opponents against that particular pitcher. We see that Francisco Rodriguez, so far, has been the toughest to get a hit off of with opponents batting average of .193 and Jonathon Niese has been hit pretty hard at .322. John Maine has been more prone to give up extra base hits with an opponent slugging of .506 and once again K-Rod has kept the extra base damage down to a minimum.
The last three columns represent the aggregate batting average (and OBP and SLG) of all of the hitters that pitcher has faced. “Q-AVG” stands for Quality Average which represents the quality of the batters that that particular pitcher has faced.
Let’s give an example. Hypothetically, let’s say that Santana is facing a team where every one of the batters, from top to bottom, is batting exactly .300. This would be a good hitting lineup and the aggregate batting average against this team would be .300. So the Q-AVG would be .300 which represents the difficulty of these hitters that Santana has to pitch to. If Santana were to hold this team to 6 hits after facing 25 batters, his opponent average would be .240. We can then identify that Santana did a really nice job containing this offense to just 6 hits when normally they would have done better since the overall quality of the hitters showed that they were .300 hitters. . But when we are talking about Q-AVG, we are not talking about just one lineup, but rather the collective aggregate averages of all the hitters Santana has faced so far this season.
So what conclusions can we draw from this? Santana, Rodriguez and Takahashi are the three Met pitchers who have faced the highest average of quality hitters. And it appears for all three pitchers that the numbers they have produced are lower than the Q-AVG, Q-OBP, Q-SLG, indicating they have done very well. Pelfrey has faced the lowest quality hitters at .246 and his opponent batting average of .258 suggest that he has not been doing as good of a job keeping them in check. But he has done well in the Q-SLG department keeping extra base hits lower than the slugging average of his collective opponents. John Maine has been mauled in the Q-SLG category and Jonathon Niese has been far too easy to hit in every category compared to the quality of batters he has been up against.
To help put this into context, of all pitchers in the N.L. who have pitched more than 50 innings, Zach Duke of Pittsburgh has faced the highest quality of hitters with a Q-AVG of .265. However, he has not done well as opponents are hitting .309 against him this year. Johan Santana is third on the list with his Q-AVG of .263, behind Jon Garland of the Padres (Q-AVG of .264). So we see what Santana has been able to achieve is very good when you consider the quality of hitters he has had to face.
Conversely, Bronson Arroyo (Q-AVG.234/ AVG.242), Brad Penny (Q-AVG.237/AVG.293) and Josh Johnson (Q-AVG .239/ AVG .201) have faced the lowest quality of hitters in the N.L. Lucky them.
Based upon the chart, we can derive some ideas about how good, poor or just plain lucky some pitchers have been. The data is subjective and can be interpreted a multitude of ways. Perhaps as the season moves along, Santana won’t face quite the quality of hitters he has been facing and therefore his ERA will improve. Perhaps because of his ace status, managers from other teams will continue to roll out their best hitters rather than give them a rest day knowing they will need to generate as many run opportunities against Santana as they can. Or perhaps he’s just gotten some bad luck thrown his way and he has managed to perform better than the collective average of these hitters, which reinforces Santana’s overall excellence.
But one thing we can confirm is that baseball is not always a fair game. Some teams will somehow avert having to face Roy Halladay or Tim Lincecum where other teams will have to face them two, maybe three times before the season is over. Some teams are in a weaker division. Some teams have the DH. Some teams will get a break because their opponent’s best hitter is on the DL or in a slump. And yes, some teams have to face a cross-town rival, with the highest payroll in baseball on a regular basis as their cross to bear through a long season. It’s not always fair but the game is definitely perfectly imperfect (or is that imperfectly perfect?—You decide.)
Manuel's Misfirings
I just finished a piece for ESPN about Tony LaRussa’s big mistakes in the game last night, so it seems only fair to point out the blame on the other side of the ball. It was an epic game that was fun to watch, and Jerry Manuel deserves some portion of the credit – and some of the blame for letting the game go as long as it did.
1) The Angel Pagan / Gary Matthews Jr Debacle
Look, I know this team is going to run with Manuel at the helm. And Pagan can steal a base. But Sarge Jr is striking out 40% of the time this year so far, 20% career, and was facing a left-hander. He’s striking out 60% of the time against lefties this year, 21.6% career, and has a career .324 OBP against lefties. Alex Cora hasn’t struck out this year, has a 12.4% career strikeout rate which drops to 11.1% against lefties. He has a .321 career OBP against lefties. IF you were going to pull some base-stealing shenanigans with Pagan out there, Cora would have been the better guy to have at the plate. And you’d have GM Jr on the bench later.
2) Luis Castillo bunting in the 19th
Seriously?!! A position player is pitching and you need to bunt the fastest guy on your team to second base? You’re going to give their centerfielder-as-pitcher a free out? That’s crazy talk. Jose Reyes must be hurting more than we think, because you either steal second there are just wait for the position player that is pitching to make a couple hundred mistakes. He was throwing 70 MPH! This one is a real forehead-smacker.
3) Waiting so long to put Francisco Rodriguez in the game
Why would you pitch Fernando Nieve, Hisanori Takahashi, Jenrry Mejiia and Raul Valdes before you put your best reliever in the game? Seriously, you don’t have last licks in this road game – what are you waiting for? Are you really trying to get Rodriguez a save in this game? How about the win? Is that stat worth less than a save? Enough questions. Here’s an answer: It was stupid. Not only was it stupid to save him so long, it was stupid to warm him up so often. K-Rod said his arm felt ‘dead’ when he entered the game because he had thrown what felt like 100 warmup pitches. Not surprising then that he blew the save. Hey, he got the win!
I’m sure there’s more gaffes to be pointed out, and surely Manuel did a little better than LaRussa because he didn’t take his cleanup hitter out of the game too early and he didn’t have to resort to position players pitching… but he didn’t manage a great game. Just good enough to win.
PS: Props to Cora for that big catch. That was Jeterian.
Pedro Feliciano as K-Rod's Set-up Man
In Wednesday’s 7-6 loss to the Marlins, we saw something in the game that we may see happen quite often during the course of the season. While the popular answer may be poor starting pitching, that’s not the direction I’m going in. There will be plenty of opportunities over the next 159 games to bash the #2 to #5 spots in the rotation. We’ll leave that for another day (perhaps tomorrow?). No, what I am referring to is the hand off of Pedro Feliciano working the 8th inning to Francisco Rodriguez working the 9th.
Rumor has it that Jerry Manuel will be using Feliciano, the lefty specialist, in a more expanded role this season as the set-up man. It’s a role that Feliciano indicates that he is ready for as he feels his stuff is good enough to get left-handed hitters out a well as right-handed hitters. Since Kelvim Escobar was originally signed with the intent of taking on those duties and he is on the DL, it seems that it’s worth a try to slot Feliciano in the role.
Feliciano’s effectiveness was put the test in his first appearance of the season facing 4 batters of which 3 were right-handed. He was able to get Wes Helms to fly out and then Chris Coghlan, the sole lefty that he faced, to softly line out. But after losing Cameron Maybin on a walk, he was able to get the tough Hanley Ramirez on groundball 5-3 putout to end the inning. All in all, he threw 17 pitches with 8 going from strikes with the one walk his only blemish.
In the past, Feliciano was always brought into a game to face that one left-handed batter (i.e. Ryan Howard or Chase Utley) but now, he will be asked to be counted on outside of situational circumstances. Going forward, what can we expect from Feliciano as the owner of the 8th inning? Looking at last years splits, we can identify patterns on how he approaches right-handed hitters as opposed to left-handed hitters. Against lefties, Feliciano relies heavily on a fastball/slider combination, throwing the two pitches 89% of the time. He almost never throws his change and why should he? He has a devastating slider against lefties that has a substantial break, taking just enough off the pitch inducing swings and misses at a rate of 18% against lefties. He only throws his fastball at around 87 mph, so it’s a pitch that he won’t be able to throw by many batters but uses it to set up his slider.
For his career, Feliciano owns left-handed hitters. Lefties are only hitting .215 against him with a K./9 of 10.16 and a BB/9 of 2.50. Doing the math, that’s better than a 4:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Muy caliente! (OK, that’s about as far as my Spanish is going to go—I’m such a gringo).
But the unfortunate part about being the 8th inning set-up guy is that you don’t get to hand-pick favorable pitching match ups. You’re expected to be effective enough to handle hitters on both sides of the plate. So how does Feliciano fair against righties? A lot less caliente (hey, the little Spanish I know, I’m going to make the most of it). Historically, right-handed batters are hitting .274 against him with a K/9 of 6.36 and a BB/9 of 5.03. That strikeout to walk ratio is much less impressive and not very good at about 1.26:1.
It would seem that Feliciano “loses” the plate against righties. Why is this? Well, remember Feliciano’s fastball tops out at around 87 mph. Most major league hitters are going to get some good cuts at a fastball coming in at that velocity. In fact for 2009, right-handed hitters only missed on Feliciano’s fastball 4% of the time. Definitely not very Lincecum-ish (esque?). His slider is not going to fool right-handed hitters the way it does with lefties since right handed batters are going to get a pretty good look at that pitch. Feliciano’s swings and misses on his slider drops by more than 4% against right-handed batters. So he has to give righties something more to think about. Enter change up, stage left. Feliciano’s pitch breakdown against righties is fastball 37.8%, slider 30.8% and change up 29.9%. This is a completely different approach than what we saw against lefties where the change up made an appearance less than 10% of the time. It’s because of this change up that sneaks into the pitch sequences that right-handed hitters swing and miss on it 17.3% of the time. That’s almost as good as his slider against lefties. But here’s the problem: Feliciano hasn’t been able to control that change up with the same effectiveness as his other pitches. He is only able to throw the change up for a strike half the time against righties.. Because he misses the plate so much, he will tend to give away walks against righties, hence the BB/9 of 5.03. Case in point, Wednesday night he walked Maybin, a righty, on 4 pitches (3 fastballs and a change). But last night, Feliciano had some payback as he was able to handle Maybin with more success. He threw 8 pitches to Maybin which consisted of 5 change ups and 3 fastballs. 60% of those change ups found the strike zone and he did get Maybin to ground into a double play which is not easy to do against the fleet-footed outfielder.
Much of Feliciano’s success in the setup role will depend on how he handles right-handed hitters. Lefties are certainly not the issue. He will need to get better control of his changeup against righties to ensure success. Otherwise, he will be walking a tightrope, putting runners on base and having to work out of self-made jams. This is an experiment that’s worth trying, since there isn’t a clear-cut front runner for the role. Judging from Feliciano’s history, it’s an experiment that is risky and leaves the Mets without another lefty in the bullpen to get those situational outs. In the meantime, we’ll cross our fingers and hope for the best because with the spotty starting rotation, it may not even matter who pitches the 8th inning.
What do you think about Feliciano owning the 8th? Can he do the job against right-handed hitters? If not, who would you slot in there to be the set-up guy for Frankie? Let’s hear what you have to say.
Mets Start Off With a Bang
Wow, that was somewhat unexpected, no? Eno touched on the horrid lineup the Mets were going to throw out there for opening day, and even if you didn’t watch the game, you can take a quick glance at the box score to see that the two glaring questions with the lineup have some merit. I’d like to continue the lineup conversation but I’ll try to keep a positive tone going forward because we can’t ask for much more than what the Mets gave us today, as they went on to beat the Florida Marlins 7-1.
Alex Cora had a career .270 BABIP and a .291 wOBA heading into the 2010 season. Needless to say, he should never be batting at the top of the order. Considering his lack of power and table-setting skills, he should be batting 8th, or maybe even 9th if Santana is on the mound. The other major beef many fans had was Mike Jacobs batting cleanup. Jacobs and Cora combined went 0 for 8 with 1 RBI, leaving 5 men on base. Cora saw 18 pitches at the leadoff spot in 5 plate appearances and only got on once via a HBP. Jacobs struck out twice and only saw 12 pitches in 4 plate appearances. I’m not going to go crazy on one game, but they did pretty much what was expected of them based on their historical tendencies.
David Wright’s first inning homerun did wonders for the Mets’ energy as he filled in admirably as the igniter during Jose Reyes’ absence. Luis Castillo, David Wright, & Jason Bay saw a combined 61 pitches in 13 plate appearances. Johan Santana, Fernando Nieve, and Francisco Rodriguez all pitched very well as the Florida lineup did practically nothing. Angel Pagan had a nice pinch hit RBI single in the sixth and then stole second and later scored.
It’ll be interesting to see what Jerry will do with the lineup vs RHP Ricky Nolasco on Wednesday. We would all love to see Ruben Tejada get a look while he’s still up and I think it’s safe to say that Alex Cora’s vesting option will be avoided, as management clearly thinks highly of Tejada. I have a feeling we will see Manuel use Jacobs again in the cleanup spot to avoid using two right-handed hitters back to back, especially since the Marlins bullpen only has one LHP in it. There will be plenty of at bats all season for Pagan, so I wouldn’t mind seeing Matthews, Jr. rewarded for a fine first game as a Met.
You can’t start the year off much better than this, and I’ll try to keep a cool head on lineup decisions until Reyes is back, but there really is no excuse for batting Cora first or Jacobs fourth. We’ll see what happens once Pagan is in the lineup. I hope everyone enjoyed the game today and it looks like there is plenty to look forward to – just do yourselves a favor and avoid watching the Braves and Phillies.
Opening Day Lineup and Team
It looks like we have the opening day lineup and the final construction of the 25-man roster. From Jon Heyman, the lineup:
1. SS Alex Cora
2. 2B Luis Castillo
3. 3B David Wright
4. 1B Mike Jacobs
5. LF Jason Bay
6. CF Gary Matthews, JR.
7. RF Jeff Francoeur
8. C Rod Barajas
9. SP Johan Santana
That’s pretty upsetting. Not only is Mike Jacobs making the team, he’s batting in the cleanup spot ahead of Jason Bay. Does that make sense to anyone? I’m sure this is some stupid R/L/R handed thing, but you can set this lineup differently so that Jason Bay gets more plate appearances than Mike Jacobs. It’s possible. If this is the lineup against lefties (Jacobs has a .643 OPS vs lefties), Mets management needs to be fired. The day after.
Let’s tackle the idiocy of Gary Matthews Jr over Angel Pagan some other time. It’s just too depressing.
The bench should be Fernando Tatis, Angel Pagan, Ruben Tejada, Henry Blanco and maybe Chris Carter until Daniel Murphy comes back. I’m happy Tejada made the team and I hope they keep him up when people return from injury. I’d rather have him than Alex Cora, whose defense is slipping and whose offense never really existed.
The pitching looks to lineup like this:
1. Johan Santana
2. Jonathon Niese
3. John Maine
4. Mike Pelfrey
5. Oliver Perez
I love the fact that Jon Niese is pitching the second game, if only if it’s a symbolic gesture. Niese deserves a little atta-boy and a positive push in the right direction. Let’s hope he responds better than Mike Pelfrey did a similar moment last year.
The bullpen is Francisco Rodriguez, Pedro Feliciano, Sean Green, Hisanori Takahashi, Ryota Igarashi, and Jenrry Mejia. I personally think Takahashi will take a spot in the rotation (Oliver Perez, I’m looking in your direction), but this bullpen looks pretty good, and with the upside Mejia provides, could be dominant if their good years line up this season. As long as the long-term plan is still to make Mejia a starter, I think Mets fans should be happy with this bullpen.
All in all, the team looks like it will have a decent bullpen, a shaky back end of a rotation, and a poor offense. They really need to get lucky with someone at first base, or Ike Davis will be needed a little earlier than they’d hope. Maybe we’ll just start banging the Ike Davis drum so that he replaces Jacobs. Almost anyone would be better than Jacobs.
The Case FOR Omar Minaya, Cted
We recently started the list of moves that have worked out in Omar Minaya‘s credit. At first, the focus was on single moves that he made this year that seemed to have worked out well. Those were signing Angel Pagan, signing Gary Sheffield, and signing Francisco Rodriguez.
Those three moves, though, are indicative of some larger positive trends on Minaya’s side of the ledger. One thing that Minaya has shown he can do is go get the big star. Whether it was Carlos Beltran or Francisco Rodriguez, Minaya has shown the ability to identify the best player at a crucial position and go the extra mile to recruit that free agent. He’s gone to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico while in this capacity, and he has, in the past, had the power of a big checkbook behind him. He’s won those battles.
Of course, just getting big stars at the right positions is only half the battle. Inevitably, free agents will decline because most players don’t hit the free market until after their peak (age 25-27 by most of the research), but the trick seems to be to find the players that will stay healthy and productive longer. The jury is out on most of Minaya’s acquisitions, but now that Johan Santana is meeting with elbow specialists, the question becomes salient.
K-Rod is on the way down – you can see it in his declining strikeout rates and burgeoning walk rates. Beltran was playing some his best ball recently, before hitting a knee injury that has been rumored to need microfracture surgery. Santana was pitching well without incident, but today his teammates speculated that he will need surgery. Yeah, Minaya can put the dog-and-pony show on to get them in, but has he signed the RIGHT free agents? We’ll see.
The Pagan and Sheffield acquisitions are indicative of his ability to find some value on the scrap heap. Before Pagan, there was Endy Chavez. Before Alex Cora, there was Fernando Tatis. These old veterans have provided high return on low investments. There’s no belittling this skill – it’s an actual, bonafide skill that a general manager should have. Minaya can actually find serviceable veterans to fill holes at low prices.
Another point in Minaya’s favor was the Johan Santana trade itself. None of the prospects he gave up in the deal look as enticing now as when Minaya sent them packing. The jewel of the trade, Carlos Gomez, now looks like he could be a fourth outfielder. Despite his great defense, his ever-impatient ways have made him a one-trick pony on offense (all speed, but you can’t steal first!). Philip Humber went from a first-round draft pick to clearing waivers and unwanted by the league. Deolis Guerra’s strikeout rate took a nose dive in Minnesota until he went under the knife recently.
Is this the case with most of the prospects Minaya has given up? Actually, he’s been very good at not trading prospects that have not ended up being diamonds in the rough. The list of flawed players that were once Minaya’s is long: Mike Jacobs, Jason Phillips, Kris Benson, Jeff Keppinger, Evan MacLane, Victor Diaz, Royce Ring, and Henry Owens have all been worse than advertised for their new teams.
In fact, as the Mets GM, Minaya has only let Heath Bell, Yusmeiro Petit, Matt Lindstrom and Brian Bannister slip from between his fingers. And though these guys have been useful to their new teams, Minaya has had much more value on his side of the ledger (from Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca to Shawn Green and Xavier Nady). Minaya wins his trades, for the most part.
So how do you still have a bad minor league system if you haven”t been trading away your best prospects? Ah, now we are getting back into his faults, and another post for another day.
