Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

 
Thanks for bearing with us. Regrettably, I'll be out of the country over the weekend and through Wednesday, so I'll be unable to post anything during that time. It's very possible that Dan will chime in with posts here and there, but it'll be all quiet on the Barnard front until that time. That being said, we've got a few days to go before then, so I'll do what I can to sate your voracious appetites in the meantime.

A little bitching about Met pitching
Before I leave, I'll be taking in my first baseball of the season at Shea on Friday night (Mets vs. Marlins, which looks like it'll be Leiter vs. Redman), which should be great. Leiter's been terrific thus far in terms of wins/losses (2-0) and run prevention (3 runs in 18.2 innings, good for a 1.45 ERA), in three starts against the Cubs, Marlins and Expos. His other numbers (12/8 BB/K ratio) are a bit troubling, but hey, as long as he can continue to give up 6.3 hits per 9 innings, it's all good.

Looking at the bigger picture, the Mets' top two starters are Leiter and Tom Glavine (2.91 ERA in 21.1 innings pitched over 4 starts), both of whom are 37. Beyond them, you've got three starters who have looked pretty bad at times: Steve Trachsel (who, to his credit, has been better in his last two starts), Jae Seo and David Cone.

I'm not sure why Seo is in the rotation to begin with. I don't particularly understand Cone either, but he's a reclamation project, is a way of sticking it to Steinbrenner and at least has had success in the past, even in a Met uniform. Seo's real major league career (he pitched a perfect inning as a reliever last year) has begun with 8 runs allowed (6 earned) on 19 hits over his first 10.1 innings. He's struck out six and not walked a batter, but that's not nearly as significant when you're giving up that many hits. Obviously, we've got a pretty small sample size to work with here, but early returns (a .900+ OPS against) aren't encouraging. He's 25, has a career AAA ERA of 3.83 with significantly more than one hit per inning pitched (198/176.0) and a BB/K ratio of 28/112. Those aren't terrible numbers by any means, but they also don't demand an opportunity at the major league level.

While the Mets don't have a ton of alternatives yet (Astacio is on the way back and they don't want to bring Heilman up yet), they do have a guy who performed reasonably well in a starting role last year in Mike Bacsik. Yeah, he's sucked even worse than Seo thus far in relief and his BB/K ratio so far is over 1...he's been very bad. I'd just hope he would get a shot though as a starter again if Seo continues to be unimpressive. The bigger issue is that the Mets have a whole bunch of mediocre-at-best pitchers at the back of the rotation, and any noise that they'll be a competitive team this year (if it hasn't been debunked already with their start) is just that. If I were Steve Phillips and were serious about saving my job, I'd be doing what I could to sell off the marketable chips (Alomar being at the top of the list, even with his rapidly declining value) for younger, cheaper players who can make some contribution now. Of course, Phillips might get fired if he takes that course...but with this team, he's pretty sure to get canned anyway.

I don't really want to get into the struggles of Armando Benitez at the moment, everyone goes through bad stretches and it'd be foolish to do anything with him right now. But I've said for several years that the Mets should really deal him (after he has a run of successes, as he invariably will) to a team that wants a big time closer, which Benitez certainly is. It's been said many times before, but a closer is of very little value if you can't get to late in the game with a lead, and right now the Met lineup and pitching staff really suck. There are gaping holes on the team which could be addressed by moving Benitez, and it's gotta be done. This is a baaad team right now.
posted by VZW Watcher at 2:52 PM -