Heilman, Gonzalez, Pelfrey, and the State of the Mets Rotation
As some of you may have seen, there were fireworks on the comment board yesterday when Happy Will posted a polemic about the "criminal" pitching decisions that have been made by Willie, Omar and Co., and which have, for the most part, been endorsed by Y2K.
It goes without saying that the Mets rotation is currently in shambles. The injuries to Brian Bannister and Victor Zambrano have left us with gaping holes behind the Pedro-Glavine-Trax triumvirate.
When the injuries first occurred, I advocated patience. Keep Aaron Heilman and the rest of the bullpen intact. It was the principal strength of the team through the first month, I argued, don't mess with it.
As for the holes in the rotation, I said give Jose Lima and Jeremi Gonzalez a chance, and if they fail, consider other options.
Let me start with Gonzalez. As much as I don't like the prospect of him pitching against the Yankees or the Cardinals this week, he turned in an altogether serviceable effort on Saturday.
We can all agree that Gonzalez's final line would have looked a lot better had that ball that Prince Fielder Timo Perez'ed off the top of the wall not been ruled a home run. Take that away and Gonzalez's ERA drops from 5.40 to 3.60, the latter being altogether acceptable for a 5th starter.
As for Lima, he's had two tests and he's failed both of them. Luckily, his turn in the rotation will come only one more time given that Brian Bannister is expected back after the weekend.
What to do in the meantime, namely, Thursday? This is where the HW's and many others scream START AARON HEILMAN!!
Look, I'm a big Aaron Heilman fan. I think he's got a bright future in the organization, and I'm determined to give him another opportunity to be a starting pitcher.
But I don't like moving him to the starting rotation so long as the team remains as currently constituted. If we package Victor Diaz and Jeff Keppinger for an effective reliever, that’s one thing, but as for now, moving Heilman would mean replacing him in the bullpen with someone like Heath Bell, a guy who's never gotten it done at the major league level.
So for now I don’t want to cut off our nose to spite our face by strengthening our rotation at the expense of our bullpen.
It's not because I'm part of the criminal conspiracy devoted to destroying the Mets' season, it's that I don't think doing so is the right move.
Why not?
1. Heilman-Sanchez-Wagner is the key to the Mets' bullpen.
Jorge Julio. Chad Bradford. Darren Oliver. Pedro Feliciano. What do all these names have in common? If you're like me, none of them inspire confidence.
The Mets bullpen lives and dies with Heilman, Duaner Sanchez, and Billy Wagner. Call it poor team construction or whatever else you like, but that's the way it is.
It's not that Bradford or Julio are altogether incapable; they show flashes every once in a while. But they're not lights out the way Heilman, Sanchez, and Wagner are, and if you’re going to be a top-flight team, a top-flight bullpen is part of the package.
We can talk about trade possibilities all we want, but of this I am near certain: No one we could find to replace Heilman in the bullpen would be as effective as he has been.
2. Heilman, Sanchez, and Wagner are as vulnerable to slumps as anyone else in baseball.
We like to think of relievers as being automatic, but they're like any other ballplayer – they have their ups and downs.
Sanchez is perhaps the best example of this. He started the season on fire. He was perfect in April and the first week of May. Zoom forward from May 8 and Sanchez has allowed 6 earned runs in 2.1 innings.
You've gotta give Sanchez or any slumping reliever a chance to work out of his troubles, but having a complement like Heilman gives Sanchez an opportunity to get back on track without having to be called on in the eighth inning of a tight ballgame.
Imagine this bullpen right now without Heilman. Sanchez is getting knocked around like a rag doll, who are you gonna turn to? Jorge Julio?
3. Yes, the bullpen is important.
Of everything Happy Will said in his comment yesterday, I found the following statement to be the most confounding: "now they [me and Sip] can see what such an insane fascination and obsession with this [the bullpen] ABSOLUTELY minor aspect of regular season baseball does to a ballclub and how it destroys your team."
Reading that, it's almost as if 2005 never happened. It's almost as if HW didn't see the Mets' postseason hopes fade with a bad bullpen. It's as if he didn't see the debacle that was Opening Day 2005, post-Pedro.
The bullpen is an incredibly important part of any team as far as I'm concerned. Frankly, I didn't realize there were people out there who considered the bullpen an "ABSOLUTELY minor aspect of regular season baseball".
But if you take a step back from HW’s overzealousness, the question is whether the team is better served by the effective relief work it’s enjoyed thus far or by improving the starting rotation.
No one is arguing that a top-flight team doesn’t need a top-flight rotation. But as far as I’m concerned, a top-flight team can get away with two excellent pitchers (Pedro and Glavine), two average pitchers (Trachsel and Bannister) and one piñata (Gonzalez), for a certain period of time.
And that leads us to the question at the heart of the debate…
4. Are we looking at a short- or long-term problem?
Happy Will seems to believe that a 2-week stretch is going to ruin our season. I’m not as worried.
But are we dealing with a 2-week problem or a 2-month problem? If it’s a 2-week problem, keep Heilman in the bullpen.
Bannister will be back in a week. He didn’t dominate by any means earlier in the season, but he was effective, and getting him back eliminates the need for Lima.
What about No. 5? Consider the Mike Pelfrey factor.Bob Klapisch is reporting that the Mets have internally decided that Pelfrey’s next jump will be to the majors, not Triple A. As Joel Sherman wrote today, that confirms that Pelfrey’s arrival is a matter of when, not if.
If the Mets keep Heilman in the bullpen, that would seem the surest sign that Pelfrey will be with the big club come June, roughly two or three more Jeremi Gonzalez starts from now.
What I’m saying is, I can live with that. Remember earlier when I said no one we would acquire for the bullpen would be as effective as Heilman? I don’t believe this is true about the starting rotation.
Yes, Heilman would be better than Gonzalez. But I'm not entirely convinced that Heilman would be better than Pelfrey, and given the issues of arm strength and endurance that Heilman would have to work through, I'm not convinced that it makes sense to move Heilman on a short-term basis.It's also worth considering that these arm strength issues would put added pressure on an already weakened bullpen in Heilman's first several starts. Knowing you need the bullpen ready for Heilman's start effects the day before (can't use too many arms), the day of (gotta use a lot of arms), and the day after (have a lot of tired arms). That's a lot of strain for a short-term move of Heilman to the rotation.
If you told me, however, that we were looking at 5 or 7 starts from Jeremi Gonzalez, then I agree that Heilman should be moved to the rotation. Asking for 12 to 18 innings from Gonzalez is one thing, asking for 30 to 42 is another.
If what we need over the next 2 months is 3 starts from Gonzalez to be followed by X many starts from Pelfrey, keep Heilman where he is. If we're going to need 5 starts from Gonzalez, move Heilman to the rotation.
Unfortunately, I don't know what the team's timetable is. My guess for Pelfrey all along was mid-June, but reading Klapisch and Sherman today, I'd believe it if he were starting June 1.
- A.F.O.M.G.
posted by A Friend of Mr. Glass' at 2:35 PM
4 Comments:
A bullpen is about half as important as starting pitching, and with good starting pitching a little bit less than that.
As a starter, Heilman pitches 180 innings. As a reliever he pitches 80. So by choosing to leave him in the bullpen you are making a conscious decision to take away 100 innings pitched by him. It seems to me that Heilman has to be a LOT better than Heath Bell to justify that. I've always been a Heath Bell fan so I don't really see how you can justify that. Especially as the difference between Heilman and our replacement bullpen arm is much smaller than the difference between Heilman and our replacement starting pitcher.
Nails and Happy Will are pretty much the opposite person in every single way, but we're Rumsfeld/Cheney on this one.
ps. I'm watching Scott Kazmir throw a gem on the ol' MLBtv right now. I can only imagine how excited Omar/Jeff Wilpon/Willie/AFOMG/Sippy Momo would be to have him on our team right now as the setup to the backup to the setup to the closer in our bullpen.
my favorite part of this post is how much its tone is going to piss off afomg
If Scott Kazmir had 3 bad years as a starter (say, ERAs of 6.93, 5.46, and 4.71 like Heilman had) and then excelled as a reliever, emerging as one of the best in baseball in that capacity, I probably wouldn't be anxious to move him back into the rotation.
Nothing about your tone bothers me. What bothers me is your disregard for the terms I set for keeping Heilman in the bullpen. If it's an issue of that fifth starter getting 180 innings, I said Heilman should be moved to the rotation over Jeremi Gonzalez (as a matter of fact, I said if it was a matter of 30 innings Heilman should be moved back to the rotation).
If you're saying that Heilman should have been in the rotation to begin the year, well, I agreed with that once upon a time -- I argued for making him the fifth starter over Bannister at the start of the season. Now that the team has the second best record in the National League, I'm anxious to exercise a little restraint.
If you want to say that Heilman should be moved to the rotation right away so that he can bridge a possible 3-start gap to Mike Pelfrey, then that's a disagreement. As it is, you and I are on the same page based on what you wrote and what I wrote.
But that said, if disagreeing with you two means I'm not part of the Rumsfeld/Cheney cabal, so be it.
It seems to me that at some point this season we should give Heilman 4 starts to see what he can do. He's been a trooper and it's clearly what he wants. If we're going to keep one eye on 2006 and one eye on building a dynasty (which the Mets never do, but as you know is my approach) then the only way Heilman fits into a dynasty is as a starter. He simply will not agree to be a reliever for years to come.
We are extremely thin as an organization pitching wise (as we all know from recent weeks). Tampa Bay has 9 major league quality arms at the AA and AAA level. So at some point we need to figure out what Heilman is for the long-term.
So there are a couple of points:
a) As you say, all other things equal, if Heilman can be equally (or close to equally or, frankly, roughly equally) effective as a starter than as a reliever, he should start. Let's find out.
b) At some point this season, let's solve the Aaron Heilman mystery once and for all. If not now, when?
c) I think there is some serious over-stating of the importance of the bullpen on this message board. It's obvious human psychology... the 7th inning seems really important in a 4-3 game. But if Jose Lima is your starter and 4-3 games in the 7th are out of the question, your bullpen isn't useful. If Heilman gets us to 4-3 in the seventh and Julio gives up 2 in the seventh, we're still better off down 5-4 going into the 8th than we would have been down 9-4 if Lima-time had gone 4 innings before giving way to Darren Oliver.
4) It would be the best possible situation for the Mets if on June 15 we knew that Bannister was back and pitching like he started the season, Heilman turned into a gem in the rotation, and Trashel returned to the Trachsel I've been a booster of for years. If that's the case, and we're sold on Pelfrey's progress (L-rd knows it's not difficult to get me sold on a prospect, so I"m there already) then we have the great position of being able to trade a dependable starting pitching for whatever need we have, which might very well be a bullpen arm.
If one of those three situations does not work out (likely) than we have put ourself in a position of knowing exactly what our hole is and plugging it with Pelfrey.
I think a winning strategy for 2006 and the future is to know exactly what our hand holds by July 1 so that we can rationally make decisions about what road to travel down.
Of course, my guys has never been known to be stellar on the intelligence-gathering side of things.
Don't know how my alpha-numbering system turned into a numberic-numbering system, but there ya go.
Post a Comment
<< Home