At a charity event Wednesday at Citi Field, manager Terry Collins named Mike Pelfrey as the 2011 Opening Day starter.
This should come as no surprise to most since Johan Santana wont be back until June from his surgery.
Big-Pelf named Opening Day starter
Jan 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Ollie Watch: In mid-season form
Jan 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Good old Oliver Perez. He is nothing if he isn’t consistent.
Ollie had himself a light night in the Mexican Winter League Semi-Finals. He was pulled trailing 3-2 after 2 innings giving up three hits, three walks, three earned runs, a home run, a wild pitch and 3 K’s. How about Big Game Ollie?
Best I can find has Ollie so far in the Winter League giving up 32 walks in 39.5 innings, which has helped him to a 5.22 ERA.
Word is that instead of an extra pitch of overall refinement, he has developed 3 new facial hair styles and reports he’s ready for the team picture!
Mets sign Chris Young
Jan 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Mets have signed 31 year old starting pitcher Chris Young, previously of the Padres. Reports are that the deal is just a one year deal for a base of about $1 million with incentives. The Nationals were believed to be in play for the pitcher as well.
Here is a quote from the Padres coach Jim Malone (via MetsBlog.com):
The Mets are getting a good pitcher (in Chris Young), and a phenomenal person. … Chris exemplifies everything that a professional athlete should strive to become. … It seems like this fall, he got over the hump, and if he pitches back to form, he could be the steal of the 2010-11 off-season.
My feeling is this is exactly the type of moves the Mets should be making at this point. Low risk, low financial investment, potentially big rewards. Young was an All-Star in 2007 playing on a bad Padres team.
The best part is this is a one year deal. This will not effect the plans down the line for the front office. Worst case scenario he eats innings for the Mets in 2011, best case is we have to pay more money to resign him after a successful 2011 campaign.
Everything about this Mets is being done with 2012 in mind unfortunately. This deal should upgrade the rotation without hindering the club moving forward.
It’s time to worry about Johan
May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
This blog was submitted to us by “Billy” and he brings up a lot of great points. I hate to say that as I love Johan, but it really does make you wonder. I think we all hope Billy is wrong, but it’s a great piece of writing.
It seems like just yesterday that the Mets made the huge acquisition of Johan Santana, giving up nothing except a mediocre Carlos Gomez, some pathetic prospects, and a contract extension. It was amazing to have an ace of Johan’s caliber at the top of the rotation. A Cy young award winner in the AL? He would kill the national league and be an easy 20 game winner. Well, we got 1 Cy young type season, but since then boy were we wrong!!!
A few Santana stats:
2008: 16-7 2.53ERA 34GS 234IP 206K/63BB
2009: 13-9 3.13ERA 25GS 166.2IP 146K/46BB (injured last third of season)
2010: 3-2 4.5 ERA 6GS 34IP 29K/11BB
Now I am a firm believer that the W-L stat for a pitcher is the most overrated stat there is in baseball and that “Quality Starts” are much more important so lets look at how many quality starts Santana has had.
2008: 34GS 29QS – 85% of his starts were quality
2009: 25GS 17QS – 68%
2010: 6GS 4QS – 66%
If we compare Johan to just our division aces, he might arguably be the third best.
- Roy Halladay: 5-1 1.47ERA 49IP 5QS 39K/4BB 3Complete Game Shutouts
- Josh Johnson: 3-1 3.16ERA 37IP 4QS 42K/16BB
- Johan Santana: 3-2 4.5ERA 34IP 4QS 29K/11BB
- Jair Jurrjens: 5 GAMES- 0-3 6.38ERA 24IP 15K/11BB
- AND WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT THE NATIONALS
While sitting in Port St. Lucie with my brother, uncle and cousin, we watched through the distance Santana pitch to the Cardinals minor league team and stand on the mound for about 30 minutes giving up 8 earned runs in one inning.
Johan Santana used to be talked about as one of the top 5 pitchers in baseball and now I truly believe he may not even be in the top 10 in the game. There are clearly 5 better then him; 5 that can be arguably better and then 10 that can have his name right in the middle. Although that is just one spring training example, I would also look at the ESPN ticker during spring training games and these same 10 pitchers listed below would throw an average of: 6IP 4-5H 1-2ER 7-9K’s.
TOP 5 include (no specific order): Halladay, Lincecum, Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Sabathia.
Johan does not even compare to these pitchers anymore. If you took two of the exact same lineups and had Santana pitch against these guys, there is no chance you would give him the chalk as the favorite.
NEXT 5 (in no specific order): Josh Johnson, Carpenter, U. Jimenez, Greinke, Liriano.
These 5 pitchers listed here are just guys who are consistent and ALWAYS give their team an unbelievable chance to win game after game.
SAME AS JOHAN CATEGORY: Verlander, Haren, Lackey, Oswalt, M. Cain, Garza, Kuroda, Burnett, Y. Gallardo, Jurrjens.
Of course you can argue that Johan is better then some of these players, but then take a step back and think about it, are you thinking of Johan from 08 and part of 09? Or are you thinking about the Johan we have now? Now think about that category and ask yourself if you would trade for those players straight up for Johan. Now I want you to ask yourself another question. If this trade were on the table would you accept it? Johan Santana for: Matt Cain, Matt Garza, David Price, Jair Jurrjens, Yovani Gallardo, Ubaldo Jimenez, Phil Hughes.
Now think to yourself, if Perez or Maine were pitching that game last night having 2, 3 run leads and blowing both of them what would we be saying today? It was just a bad day? Stop excusing Santana for what he is now!!! Not the dominant pitcher he used to be. You would think that after watching Halladay embarrass our lineup the way he did, that Santana would want to go out and do the same exact thing. But he’s not Halladay, he’s not Lincecum, he’s not Hernandez, Lee or Sabathia. He’s just a low-end number one, very solid number 2 starter.
We really need to open our eyes as Mets fans and stop thinking Johan Santana is the Johan of 08 or the Johan of the Minnesota Twins. He is on his way to being DONE with his lame 90mph fastball and predictable changeup. He is not even comparable to the pitchers who shine today. Hopefully the front office will see this and know that we need a legit number 1 starter like Cliff Lee who will be a free agent and possibly available at the deadline if the Mariners continue to play this way.
It is no longer a guaranteed win when Johan is on the mound and last night, although only one game, really showed it.
