Phillies 11, Mets 3

It's about time the Mets deal with the Pedro Astacio (3-2, 7.36) issue. He's had a few good starts where it looked like he might be valuable this year, but overall he's been wildly inconsistent and sometimes downright awful. I think the best way for them to go would be to try to trade him, but I honestly don't know why anyone would be interested in picking him up at this point. The situation isn't so bad as to warrant thinking about just releasing him, and I don't know how useful he'd be in the bullpen. Perhaps a voluntary trip to the minors is in order. Such a trip worked wonders for Steve Trachsel a couple years back. Maybe Astacio could rediscover how to pitch away from the pressure of starting in the majors.

But really, the biggest reason I want to see the Mets do something with Astacio is that I think it's about time to do something with Aaron Heilman. The 24 year old starter is now 6-2 with a 3.15 ERA at AAA Norfolk. His 65.2 innings pitched lead the International League, and his 50 strikeouts (against 21 walks) are good for fifth in the league. Admittedly, these aren't the kind of blowaway numbers that necessarily demand an immediate callup, but the Mets have a problem in their starting rotation, and now's as good a time as any to get the pending youth movement in full swing. Heilman is one of the guys expected to play a big role in any Met success in the coming years, and of their future stars, he's clearly the one most ready to make the jump to the majors. Jose Reyes has missed some time due to injuries this year and isn't really pouding AAA pitching yet, and the rest of the Mets big deal prospects are still at the lower levels of the minors. But Heilman seems like he's learned about as much as he's going to at AAA, so why not give him a shot? What's he going to do, cost the Mets the division?  ¶ joe | 2:36 PM |