Good F***ing Riddance or Salt?
So Thursday was a big day in Mets baseball. Why, you ask? You mean you didn't read about it in the Friday morning tabloids? Indeed, you didn't. It wasn't quite backpage material. What happened on Thursday, however, marked the formal conclusion of an important era in Mets baseball.
It marked the end of shitty as closers at Shea. That's the good news. But did it mark the end of our shitty bullpen era? Read on...
B Poops signed a 3yr, $13.5 mil contract with the National leage powerhouse St. Louis Cardinals. Honestly, I'm sad to see him go.
Bloopy was that closer that came into the game and you said, "This guy just isn't a closer, this is a disaster." He has one and a half pitches. A plus 94 mph 2 seamer and an average slider. Do you want him in the game with a one run lead in the 9th inning?
Hell fucking no.
But the truth is this. I would love to see the Poops setting up games for Billy Wagner. There is a reason the Cardinals chose to sign him over Julian Tavarez, considered by many to be the top setup man on the open market.
This is because the Poops can be a heck of a setup guy. He is Dan Wheeler with 4 mph on his fastball. He's a guy who's normally solid, but sometimes he just doesn't have it. That was a big problem when he was the last line of defense, but when you've got a fireballer like Billy Wagner there to clean up his mess if need be, well, he becomes a lot more attractive.
But now he's gone and the boobirds got their wish. What do we have to show for his departure? That's where things get dicey. The fact is, as the bullpen stands now, the bullpen in '06 may not be better than it was '05.
It reminds me of the acquisition of Valarie Malone to 90210. When Kelly Kapowski signed on board to replace Brenda as Beverly Hills' newest vixen, Fox had acquired a gem. We were getting a star.
But at the same time we lost Brenda, Donna was turning into "Donna the holier than thou virgin" and Dylan was giving up being a student. Essentially, we got the big ticket but missed out on the smaller parts.
This is what concerns with me the New Mets. Whatever the slogan is, "Yeah we have stars," ask AFOMG for that one, and that may be true. This pen has Billy Wagner. But we lost Poops and Roberto Hernandez, who was far and away our most effective reliever last year. Over Looper and over Aaron Heilman, on the whole at least.
Everyone is penciling Aaron Heilman in as the messiah which worries me. This guy never pitched the "big" innings. At the start of the second half he was a 6th/7th inning guy. It was only once the Mets were out of contention that Heilman saw crunch time.
As a result, his numbers are somewhat skewed. Yeah, the stuff is there, and of course he had great second half numbers. But the Mets can't put all the eggs in Aaron's basket. It'd be like assuming Slater could carry Saved by the Bell without Zach. Sure it's possible, but you'd have to see it to believe it.
The Mets have made all the neccesary moves to sell tickets, they've made slogans to ram it down our throats, and even have Bob Klapisch is writing articles about how the Mets may be NewYork's best team.
But we need a bullpen and right now we don't have one. We have Aaron Heilman, Billy Wagner and a bunch of Jimmy kids. Teams don't win that way. The Twins traded JC Romero for a prospect or two. Why couldn't we have been involved in that move?
I'm curious to see what "Wheel and Deal"Minaya will do. There's a lot of different directions he could go in (trade Benson for bullpen arms, a Heilman for Danys Baez swap is often whispered about, sign a Julian Tavarez, etc.), but one way or another something more needs to be added to the pot.
It's a dire necessity because our rotation doesn't have a single true innings eater. Across the board we are solid, but there could be a week where a starter doesn't see the 7th inning. We need a bullpen. SM Sr. swears it and god knows I trust that man.
That's all I got.
Tonight I went to a dinner party. San Fran is a little weird like that. I felt like my brother talking economics over some latees. Who knows.
I moved here from Ohio,
SM
It marked the end of shitty as closers at Shea. That's the good news. But did it mark the end of our shitty bullpen era? Read on...
B Poops signed a 3yr, $13.5 mil contract with the National leage powerhouse St. Louis Cardinals. Honestly, I'm sad to see him go.
Bloopy was that closer that came into the game and you said, "This guy just isn't a closer, this is a disaster." He has one and a half pitches. A plus 94 mph 2 seamer and an average slider. Do you want him in the game with a one run lead in the 9th inning?
Hell fucking no.
But the truth is this. I would love to see the Poops setting up games for Billy Wagner. There is a reason the Cardinals chose to sign him over Julian Tavarez, considered by many to be the top setup man on the open market.
This is because the Poops can be a heck of a setup guy. He is Dan Wheeler with 4 mph on his fastball. He's a guy who's normally solid, but sometimes he just doesn't have it. That was a big problem when he was the last line of defense, but when you've got a fireballer like Billy Wagner there to clean up his mess if need be, well, he becomes a lot more attractive.
But now he's gone and the boobirds got their wish. What do we have to show for his departure? That's where things get dicey. The fact is, as the bullpen stands now, the bullpen in '06 may not be better than it was '05.
It reminds me of the acquisition of Valarie Malone to 90210. When Kelly Kapowski signed on board to replace Brenda as Beverly Hills' newest vixen, Fox had acquired a gem. We were getting a star.
But at the same time we lost Brenda, Donna was turning into "Donna the holier than thou virgin" and Dylan was giving up being a student. Essentially, we got the big ticket but missed out on the smaller parts.
This is what concerns with me the New Mets. Whatever the slogan is, "Yeah we have stars," ask AFOMG for that one, and that may be true. This pen has Billy Wagner. But we lost Poops and Roberto Hernandez, who was far and away our most effective reliever last year. Over Looper and over Aaron Heilman, on the whole at least.
Everyone is penciling Aaron Heilman in as the messiah which worries me. This guy never pitched the "big" innings. At the start of the second half he was a 6th/7th inning guy. It was only once the Mets were out of contention that Heilman saw crunch time.
As a result, his numbers are somewhat skewed. Yeah, the stuff is there, and of course he had great second half numbers. But the Mets can't put all the eggs in Aaron's basket. It'd be like assuming Slater could carry Saved by the Bell without Zach. Sure it's possible, but you'd have to see it to believe it.
The Mets have made all the neccesary moves to sell tickets, they've made slogans to ram it down our throats, and even have Bob Klapisch is writing articles about how the Mets may be NewYork's best team.
But we need a bullpen and right now we don't have one. We have Aaron Heilman, Billy Wagner and a bunch of Jimmy kids. Teams don't win that way. The Twins traded JC Romero for a prospect or two. Why couldn't we have been involved in that move?
I'm curious to see what "Wheel and Deal"Minaya will do. There's a lot of different directions he could go in (trade Benson for bullpen arms, a Heilman for Danys Baez swap is often whispered about, sign a Julian Tavarez, etc.), but one way or another something more needs to be added to the pot.
It's a dire necessity because our rotation doesn't have a single true innings eater. Across the board we are solid, but there could be a week where a starter doesn't see the 7th inning. We need a bullpen. SM Sr. swears it and god knows I trust that man.
That's all I got.
Tonight I went to a dinner party. San Fran is a little weird like that. I felt like my brother talking economics over some latees. Who knows.
I moved here from Ohio,
SM
posted by Sippy Momo at 2:35 AM
1 Comments:
While I agree with most of what you wrote about our girl Val and the loss of those key small parts, you neglected to mention that her addition coincided with the emergence of the most underrated singer/songwriter of the 90's... Ray Pruit.
It needed to be said.
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