New York Mets 2005 Season Preview Part Two: Bastard Wants To Hit Me

The 2004 Mets' pitching and defense fared a little better than their offense, ranking eighth in the National League with 731 runs allowed. They started off the season with an old but solid starting rotation. In July they gutted their minor league system to acquire a couple of overrated starters nearing thirty, losing their best chance for young help from within the system in the process. The system isn't quite hopeless at this point, but Yusmeiro Petit is the only noteworthy prospect left who's actually thrown a professional pitch, and he's only started two games above A-ball. But just when it seemed like the Mets would never be good again, they made a big splash early in the offseason, effectively exchanging one veteran starter with a reputation for not pitching very deep into games for another. Most of the newfound optimism of Met fans springs from the offense, but Omar Minaya did manage to inject some life back into the other side of the squad as well. Later in the offseason, Steve Trachsel's back injury led them to make another less exciting move.

#1: Pedro Martinez

Martinez posted a career high ERA of 3.90 in 2004 on his way toward acquiring a shiny new ring. He also comes with the sort of medical concerns that make his four-year contract a little scary. And he's basically being asked to replace Al Leiter, who managed inexplicable success in the run prevention department in 2004, to the tune of a 3.21 ERA. That's the bad news.

The good news? Well, even if Martinez doesn't knock seven tenths of a point off his ERA this year, he's almost certain to outpitch the 2005 version of Leiter, who the Mets were wise to let walk. Leiter put up that pretty ERA in spite of a ghastly walk rate of slightly more than five per nine innings and his lowest strikeout rate since 1998, 7.15. Leiter got the job done last year, but did so by repeatedly escaping precarious situations, a skill that's not likely to persist. His ERAs in August and September (4.46 and 5.33) certainly don't leave one confident in his future success. Leiter also pitched over 40 fewer innings than Martinez who, torn labrum or not, hasn't pitched fewer than 186 since 2001 and pitched 217 last year.

And leaving aside the man whose job he's taking, there's plenty of reason to see Martinez's 2004 as an outlier. It's always dangerous to put too much stock in the one most recent season when projecting. And the tripling of Pedro's home run rate last year is one big reason to chalk some of the ERA inflation up to luck. While his strikeout and walk rates have been moving in the wrong direction for the last few years, his "decline" left him striking out 9.4 and walking 2.5 per nine innings last year. He can keep on sliding and be very effective for the life of this contract. His health is another matter, but at least in 2005, I think Martinez is by far the surest bet in the Mets' rotation, and not just because the other guys are so questionable. If the offense puts enough runs on the board to get him some wins, expect to hear his name in Cy Young discussions come season's end.

#2: Tom Glavine

Glavine bounced back from a disastrous first impression to post some solid numbers for the Mets in his second season with the team, winning 11 games with a 3.60 ERA. But looking more closely at the numbers, it wasn't so much a solid season as it was three excellent months and three poor months. Glavine was dominant before the All Star break, posting an ERA of 2.66. In fact, his highest ERA in any of the first three months of the season was the 2.59 he put up in May. This period included such thrilling moments as his one hit complete game shutout on May 23. But the second half was a completely different story, as his post-break ERA was 5.06.

He walked on the edge with a low strikeout rate the whole year (4.6 per 9 both halves). In the second half his hit rate went from the low, even for him, 7.5 per 9 all the way up to 10.4, which can be read as just his luck evening out. But he also saw a big jump in his walk rate, from 2.3 to 3.9, and his home run rate, from 0.6 to 1.3. So did he just tire out in the second half, or was the future Hall of Famer pitching over his head in the first half? Well, such a second half decline isn't unprecedented for Glavine, as he fell into a similar, if less dramatic, slump in the second half of 2002 after a great first half. But his 2004 first half was pretty extreme. He hasn't posted a walk rate as good as that 2.3 over the course of a full season since 2000. And he hasn't topped that first half home run rate since 1998. It's no shock that a pitcher with Glavine's resume could get on a hot streak be that good for a period of time, but I don't think he's likely to post an ERA under 3 over a full season again.

It is somewhat curious that both of the Mets' top starters last year experienced excellent first halves last year only to fall off dramatically after the break. In fact, Steve Trachsel had a similar split. It almost makes me wonder if it had something to with Shea Stadium and the weather, as there wasn't any significant change in the Mets' defense mid-year that could account for it all. Of course, none of the three had a similar pattern in 2003, so if it was caused by something other than mere coincidence, it would seem that something was a one-year phenomenon.

So what should we expect from Glavine in 2005? Well, I don't think he's likely to sustain brilliance for as long a period as he did in early 2004, though he's sure to pitch a gem every now and then. But last year did show that he's probably not quite done yet, either. I think he's still got a year of an ERA around 4 in him, perhaps even a little bit more. The team's improved defense should help him out, given how many balls he puts in play. And the improved offense should be enough to get him some of those wins he deserved but didn't get in the first half of last year. I still don't think there's much chance that he gets those 38 wins he needs to reach 300 before his contract runs out next year, but he should be a useful if unspectacular piece of the Mets' rotation this year.

#3: Kris Benson

Kris Benson is thirty years old. By the time a pitcher is thirty, you basically know what you've got. In the case that a pitcher "puts it all together" this late in his career and becomes a dominant starter, he was probably striking out a lot of guys all along and finally managed to control his stuff enough to keep his walks down, a la Randy Johnson. I think we can agree that this scenario does not describe the career of Kris Benson, who has no middle name, very accurately. Kris Benson is what he is and will continue to be roughly what he has been.

So what is that? Well, Benson has a career ERA of 4.28; slightly better than league average. He has a career strikeout rate of 6.4 per nine innings; not too shabby. He has a career walk rate of 3.3; nothing to get excited about. He has a career home run rate of 0.9; perfectly acceptable. He's pitched more than 196 innings in a season three times, including once since his 2001 Tommy John surgery; pretty solid. Last year was his best post-surgery year as he pitched almost exactly 200 innings with a 4.31 ERA. Kris Benson is not a bad pitcher.

He is not, however, a great pitcher, a young pitcher or 7.5 million dollars worth of a pitcher. He would be a very nice addition to a rotation that had three or four pitchers better than him. The Mets do not have that rotation. The only real reason to get excited about the prospect of having Kris Benson on the Mets is if you believe that Rick Peterson is capable of "fixing" whatever it is that's wrong with him. But given that whatever that is has prevented him from posting an ERA below 3.85 over an entire season in his entire professional career, it's hard to believe that he's just a tweak away from dominance. As nice as his final year at Clemson looks (156 innings, 204 K, 27 BB, 2.02 ERA), that guy didn't show up in the pros. Kris Benson is just okay and will get paid very well to be so for the Mets over the next three years.

#4: Victor Zambrano

After the Mets acquired the American League leader in walks and his injured right elbow in exchange for their best pitching prospect last year, Zambrano started three games, posting a 3.86 ERA in fourteen innings while striking out fourteen batters and walking six. Those numbers, miniscule sample size or not, are the most encouraging thing about Zambrano's statistical record as far as his future with the Mets is concerned. Much of what I said about Benson applies Zambrano. He's not quite as old. But then, he's not quite as good. At least he's not nearly as expensive. He does sort of have the "wild, but with a bunch of strikeouts" profile that I mentioned before. But his strikeout rates haven't even reached one per inning over a full season since 2001, and that was just 87 Ks over 81.2 innings between AAA and the majors as a reliever.

That last part is where there's a little bit of room for hope. While Zambrano is twenty-nine years old and really should have figured out the whole "throwing strikes" thing by now if he's going to be a good major league starter, he didn't even start more games than he relieved in a season until 2003. So if he is just developing slowly, there's an excuse. And his K:BB ratio didn't start approaching the frightening 1:1 level until 2002, when he was 27, so there is some long-buried evidence that he can post acceptable walk rates. But he has yet to do so as a starter, and the thirteen walks he's allowed in thirteen official Spring Training innings don't really indicate that he's turned a corner.

It's not fair to hold Zambrano personally accountable for being on the wrong side of a horrible trade. There's plenty of people for that--Fred & Jeff Wilpon, Jim Duquette, Rick Peterson, Al Leiter, Al Goldis, Bill Livesey, Steve Phillips, George Steinbrenner, Derek Jeter, God, Satan, etc. But it is perfectly fair to hold him accountable for being an ineffective pitcher. Last year he averaged 5.64 innings per start while posting a 4.37 ERA with the Mets and Devil Rays. Neither of these numbers was out of line with his career history. Zambrano has shown himself, in two-plus years as a major league starter, to be a mediocre one at best. His improving to become more than that is not outside the realm of possibility, but neither is it a very likely outcome.

If the Mets are able to find five pitchers better than Zambrano to occupy their starting rotation in the coming years, they shouldn't hesitate to dump him. Holding on to him to justify a bad trade would only further compound the mistakes of the past. Right now they've got three superior, healthy major league pitchers, all of them signed through at least next year. Yusmeiro Petit is making his way steadily through the minor leagues and could be ready to give it a shot in the majors before long. I'm hesitant to put too much stock in the Philip Humber "college pitcher fast track" talk with memories of the rise and fall of Aaron Heilman and the sliders from Notre Dame so fresh, but if reports out of Spring Training are to be believed, he could see the inside of Shea before 2007, too. If he proves more capable than Zambrano of retiring major league hitters, I hope Zambrano isn't allowed to stand in his way. The team's infatuation with Zambrano robbing the fans of one young potential star is quite enough.

#5: Kazuhisa Ishii

Steve Trachsel's injury and subsequent surgery may have been fortuitous in that the Mets will be saved from having to pay his seven million dollar option for 2006 which would have kicked in had he pitched 150 innings this year. And the thirty-four year old may not have been likely to sustain his recent level of adequacy had he stayed healthy. But still, I would have felt more comfortable with him rounding out the Mets' rotation than I am with this guy.

Ishii and Zambrano are a lot alike. Neither of them has been starting in the major leagues for very long (Ishii 86 starts over 3 years, Zambrano 64 over 3). They both have proven capable of posting good strikeout rates in their careers. And of course, they both walk a ton of guys, leading both of them to exit games before the end of the sixth innning on average. Ishii brings the added bonus that his strikeout rate fell significantly last year, to just 5.2 per nine innings from 8.6 the previous year. And he doesn't even have Zambrano's excuse of being new to starting, as he did it for ten years in Japan, walking 4.7 batters per nine innings along the way. Ishii isn't a terrible pitcher, but he's another below average starter in need of some serious "fixing" from Rick Peterson to be worth getting excited about. And Peterson's probably got even less to work with than in the cases of Benson and Zambrano.

The grouping of Zambrano and Ishii in succession raises the issue of over-reliance on the bullpen. Neither of these guys goes deep at all, Kris Benson isn't exactly Livan Hernandez and Tom Glavine is thirty-nine years old. Pedro Martinez's durability concerns are both overblown and likely to be mitigated somewhat by the switch to the National League, but he's still not the guy you want to have to step up and save the bullpen every five days. The Mets faced a similiar problem last year, with only Glavine and Trachsel averaging over six innings per start for the entire year and had to rely on a subpar bullpen to work a lot of innings. Having Martinez, Glavine and Benson for the whole year in 2005 should lessen the strain somewhat, but this is still a team that will need a significant number of good innings out of the bullpen to be successful.

Bullpen: Braden Looper, Mike DeJean, Roberto Hernandez, Manny Aybar, Mike Matthews, Dae-Sung Koo, Felix Heredia

It seemed like the decision about the last spot in this bullpen would come down to Matt Ginter and Heredia, but the Mets have just traded Ginter to the Tigers for lefty reliever Steve Colyer, who walked 24 batters and allowed eight home runs in 32 innings last year. Heredia stunk last year, in ways more obvious from looking at his stat line than the ways in which Mike Stanton, for whom he was acquired, stunk. It will be a bad thing if the Mets need to or choose to entrust him with pitching a lot of high leverage innings. Ginter is an adequate long man and spot starter who would have been useful to have around as long as Kris Benson's pectoral problems persisted. But the Mets have made another curious bullpen decision in choosing Heredia and Colyer, who'll be sent to Norfolk, over Ginter. Of course, none of them, nor Aybar, nor Hernandez, is as interesting as Heath Bell, who didn't make the Opening Day roster. Bell basically lost his job to Aybar on the strength of thirteen spring innings despite Bell's strong 2004 and relative youth and the fact that Aybar hasn't pitched a full season in the majors since 2000. I know it's early and it's just a couple of relievers, but Randolph and Minaya's desire to go with the "proven veteran" in the face of contradictory statistical evidence is disappointing. Roberto Hernandez hasn't posted an ERA under league average since 2002 or under 4.00 since 2000. Mike Matthews has bested league average once in his five year career.

Mike DeJean was awful for the poor, mistreated Orioles last year before coming to the Mets and pitching 21 1/3 excellent innings. That doesn't tell us a whole lot, but he at least has some history of success in the major leagues. Dae-Sung Koo is the interesting question mark in the bullpen. He had a solid spring after coming over from Japan, where he was a starter. He had good strikeout rates over there, although he did allow a lot of home runs. It's hard to know what to expect of him, and it's unlikely that the Mets have found their own Akinori Otsuka, but Mister Koo should be able to retire some hitters, especially fellow lefties, with the advantage of their never having seen him on his side.

Braden Looper is the only guy who really inspires confidence in the bullpen as he was excellent in 2004 by cutting down significantly on his walks. His 1.7 BB/9 was down more than a full walk over anything he'd ever done in a full season, even in the minors, so we can't quite bank on him repeating it, but maybe he is an actual Rick Peterson success story. Even if he regresses a little bit, Looper should still be a very good closer for the Mets.

Summary

The Mets should have a little more depth in their starting rotation this year, as while Zambrano and Ishii aren't a whole lot better than the guys the team trotted out in the fouth and fifth spots last year, they are at least capable of sustaining their mediocrity over more innings. I expect Pedro Martinez to post an ERA at least a little bit better than Al Leiter's from a year ago and pitch more innings than the Senator as well, but other than that, this staff will probably look very similar to the 2004 version. The bullpen is still a collection of unimpressive veterans, but at least none of them are named Mike Stanton or John Franco. The reinforcements in Norfolk seem slightly more impressive this year as well. This won't be one of the league's elite staffs unless Benson and Zambrano improve dramatically, but it should again be in the league's upper half.

Overall, this is not a great team. It is, however, a team in better shape to take advantage of the apparent decline of the Atlanta Braves than the last couple of incarnations. My guess is that this team wins about 85 games, which probably won't be enough to win the division or the Wild Card. Some lucky breaks in terms of health and pitching could push them into serious contention, but I'm not counting on that. The team is certainly going in a better direction than it was eight months ago, with a growing collection of good young players who'll be around for a while contributing to the major league team's success while more good players start arriving from the minors. This team's proximity to contention is a little scary in that it's the kind of situation that might lead ownership to want to "go for broke" and mortgage the future again in search of a veteran or two to put them over the top. Omar Minaya's mostly been saying the right things regarding building from within so far, but then, Jim Duquette and the Wilpons were saying the same things a year ago. Minaya certainly seems seems to be more in charge of this team than Duquette ever was, but given the franchise's history, we'll just have to wait and see.  ¶ joe | 11:24 AM |