Steve and the Tank! - NY Mets Starting Pitching: Good Enough?

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Now that the season is two weeks old and we got to see the rotations of the teams cycle through two or more starts for each starter it is time to address the Mets’ greatest weakness: starting pitching.

The Mets’ staff is old, Tom Glavine is 41, el Duque is in theory 38, and an injured Pedro is 36. Last year all the starters went down, and all the replacements went down at some point. To address this problem the Mets went after Barry Zito, but the price was too high. So the Mets have to rely on Glavine and el Duque as well as some young kids. The young kids are John Maine (26), Oliver Perez (26) and Mike Plefrey (23).

Mets’ fans first reaction in late spring after the amazing GM Omar did not trade or pay for arms was outrage. Sure the Mets need a young stud first starter who can give them 200+ innings and 18+ wins. But they don’t need him now!

Given Glavine and el Duque’s ages, they will have to miss a few starts in August and September to stay tuned for the post season. Our good friend Pedro should be back by then to have some starts and by September Omar and Willie can bring up some AA and AAA arms to fill in the blanks.

So what about John Maine, Oliver Perez and Mike Pelfrey? I like these names better than Victor Zambrano, Jose Lima, Geremi Gonzalez and Alay Soler. These back end starters made 20 starts last year with a combined 3-9 record. Toss in Brian Bannister and that goes to 26 starts and the record goes to 5-10. Maine proved himself this year in his first two starts with a 1-0 record and a 1.54 ERA and 10 strikeouts. He is the same pitcher who pitched very effectively in the NLDS and NLCS. Perez had an amazing first start against Atlanta, going 7 innings and not walking a single batter before he returned to his old struggle with command ways earlier this week. I believe that he can regain his control (I won’t give him a free pass due to the weather). When Perez is on, he is unhittable. When he is off, he struggles with his command and walks a lot of batters and gives up home runs. The Mets worked with him this offseason on his command and I think he now has the confidence to be effective after his heroic performance in NLCS Game 7.

That brings us to 23 year old hard throwing Mike Pelfrey. He has some nasty stuff, an overpowering fastball and according to Paul Lo Duca, Pelfrey can throw his other pitches for strikes at any time. He can force the ground balls. Pelfrey had 4 starts last year and posted a 2-1 record with an ERA 5.48. After working in the winter leagues and an impressive Spring, Pelfrey had his 2007 debut on Friday. Despite a few walks, Pelfrey pitched effectively in his debut and kept the team in the game. He forced a lot of ground balls to get him out a bunch of walk inflicted bases loaded and no out situations. Pelfrey has the guts to go after the batters and is willing to do so. Steve and the Tank expect him to be a reliable starter this year.

All teams around the league struggle with starting pitching. With the Mets’ lineup and bullpen, the starters are just fine. The nature of the game has changed, the Mets only need 6+ innings where the starter keeps the team in the game while the offence tags the inferior bullpens. I would like to see a trade deadline pickup of a young stud to lead the 3 man rotation into the playoffs as well as be a #1 starter in 2008. We don’t need him today.

Posted By Steve in New York

MLB | Mets Analysis (MLB)

Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:48:59 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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