Sunday, March 20, 2005
You'll Miss Me
It appears that the Mets are close to sending Jason Phillips to the Dodgers in exchange for Kazuhisa Ishii to fill the hole in their starting rotation left by Steve Trachsel's injury. There's not too much to complain about in this trade in terms of getting value for value. Jason Phillips is a backup catcher coming off of a terrible offensive year and Ishii is a slightly below average starting pitcher in terms of ERA through three years of his major league career. Of course, there's a wide disparity in salary between the two players, with Ishii set to earn about $2.7 million more than Phillips this year (thanks to Hardball Dollars). But all reports indicate that the Dodger will be sending some money the Mets way to make up at least part of the difference. So whether or not this is a good deal for the Mets basically comes down to whether or not you want Ishii in the starting rotation in place of the team's internal options. And in my opinion, no, not really.
Ishii's troubles with the the base on balls are well-documented. Last year he cut his walk rate slightly, issuing only 5.1 free passes per nine innings, a drop of about one walk from his rates the previous two years. Of course, his strikeout rate also plummeted from 8.6 per nine to just 5.2, giving him a Zambrano-esque 99:98 K/BB ratio on the year. This added up to a 4.71 ERA on the year, the highest of his career, which made for an ERA+ of 88 in Dodger Stadium. This wasn't out of line with his career numbers, nor is it anything to sneeze at from a potential fifth starter. Of course, he's only averaged 5.5 innings per start throughout his career, so he's not exactly going to save the bullpen. But how does this compare to the team's internal options?
Well, regardless of who fills the fifth spot, the team already has a pair of Rick Peterson "projects" taking the hill (unless you're putting a whole lot more stock in Kris Benson's Spring Training performance than I am). The Mets' CEO of Pitching will presumably be trying to work his magic on Ishii's control as well. The Mets don't really have a potential fifth starter who's not in need of "fixing", although if Peterson could undo whatever he did to "fix" Jae Seo last year, they might have something. But that seems pretty unlikely, so the Mets choices basically come down to Ishii vs. Matt Ginter.
Ishii has certainly provided more evidence than Ginter that he can hold up for a whole year under the strain of a starter's workload, although, as noted, he won't even do so six innings at a time. But Ishii's also older, wilder and more of a known quantity. There's not much reason to expect him to outperform what he's done in the first three years of his major league career, while Matt Ginter the starter is more of a newcomer out of whom improvement is imaginable if not probable. Also, given Ishii's "proven veteran" sheen, I'm somewhat concerned that he'll be given a longer leash than the Mets' other similarly mediocre but less experienced alternatives.
This trade is far from a disaster, but it's also hard to see a way that this makes the team better. The Mets are acquiring a little bit of depth at the starting pitching position in exchange for depth at the catching position where they didn't have much to begin with. This shouldn't make or break the team's season, but given the questions surrounding almost everyone in the starting rotation, we should hope that someone emerges from the minors to take Ishii's job. And if no one pitches well enough to do that, it probably won't matter whether or not the Mets have Ishii around. ¶ joe | 2:25 PM |
It appears that the Mets are close to sending Jason Phillips to the Dodgers in exchange for Kazuhisa Ishii to fill the hole in their starting rotation left by Steve Trachsel's injury. There's not too much to complain about in this trade in terms of getting value for value. Jason Phillips is a backup catcher coming off of a terrible offensive year and Ishii is a slightly below average starting pitcher in terms of ERA through three years of his major league career. Of course, there's a wide disparity in salary between the two players, with Ishii set to earn about $2.7 million more than Phillips this year (thanks to Hardball Dollars). But all reports indicate that the Dodger will be sending some money the Mets way to make up at least part of the difference. So whether or not this is a good deal for the Mets basically comes down to whether or not you want Ishii in the starting rotation in place of the team's internal options. And in my opinion, no, not really.
Ishii's troubles with the the base on balls are well-documented. Last year he cut his walk rate slightly, issuing only 5.1 free passes per nine innings, a drop of about one walk from his rates the previous two years. Of course, his strikeout rate also plummeted from 8.6 per nine to just 5.2, giving him a Zambrano-esque 99:98 K/BB ratio on the year. This added up to a 4.71 ERA on the year, the highest of his career, which made for an ERA+ of 88 in Dodger Stadium. This wasn't out of line with his career numbers, nor is it anything to sneeze at from a potential fifth starter. Of course, he's only averaged 5.5 innings per start throughout his career, so he's not exactly going to save the bullpen. But how does this compare to the team's internal options?
Well, regardless of who fills the fifth spot, the team already has a pair of Rick Peterson "projects" taking the hill (unless you're putting a whole lot more stock in Kris Benson's Spring Training performance than I am). The Mets' CEO of Pitching will presumably be trying to work his magic on Ishii's control as well. The Mets don't really have a potential fifth starter who's not in need of "fixing", although if Peterson could undo whatever he did to "fix" Jae Seo last year, they might have something. But that seems pretty unlikely, so the Mets choices basically come down to Ishii vs. Matt Ginter.
Ishii has certainly provided more evidence than Ginter that he can hold up for a whole year under the strain of a starter's workload, although, as noted, he won't even do so six innings at a time. But Ishii's also older, wilder and more of a known quantity. There's not much reason to expect him to outperform what he's done in the first three years of his major league career, while Matt Ginter the starter is more of a newcomer out of whom improvement is imaginable if not probable. Also, given Ishii's "proven veteran" sheen, I'm somewhat concerned that he'll be given a longer leash than the Mets' other similarly mediocre but less experienced alternatives.
This trade is far from a disaster, but it's also hard to see a way that this makes the team better. The Mets are acquiring a little bit of depth at the starting pitching position in exchange for depth at the catching position where they didn't have much to begin with. This shouldn't make or break the team's season, but given the questions surrounding almost everyone in the starting rotation, we should hope that someone emerges from the minors to take Ishii's job. And if no one pitches well enough to do that, it probably won't matter whether or not the Mets have Ishii around. ¶ joe | 2:25 PM |
