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Why Santana Will Be Just Fine

I wonder how people back before pitch counts and speed guns were able to tell when their ace pitchers were in decline?

Statistical analysis and all the technology of present day definitely enhance the game and our understanding of it, but they also allow us to jump to premature conclusions.

I was in Baltimore over the weekend and I was listening to the post game show after the Saturday game when the Orioles announcers described the next day’s pitching matchup as “Pelfrey, the Mets ace.”  There wasn’t a pause.  It wasn’t qualified by “this year.”

Santana came out this spring and proclaimed himself (when asked to name someone) the best pitcher in the NL East.  So is he a washed up ace trending downward and not even the best pitcher on his own team?

I’d say no.  Of course Pelfrey has been the better pitcher this year so far, but Santana is far from over the hill and washed up.   Actually Santana has a slightly higher ERA, but they have almost identical WHIPs and Ks.  The different result is mainly due to run support, and Pelfrey’s pitches trending more towards ground balls.  It just seems so different because Santana is a Cy Young caliber pitcher and Pelfrey has been a struggling prospect prior to this point.

The case can be made that Santana is merely slumping, not declining.  For one he’s always been a second-half pitcher.  He had surgery last year and had a longer than normal layoff between his last start of 2009 and his first of 2010.  There’s something to be said for building arm strength over a couple of months, and surgery and time off sap that.  You can already see that the velocity is starting to come back up a little bit.  Pitching is a game of adjustments, and right now Santana is having some trouble with control of his pitches.  This is leading to more walks and less strikeouts.  Santana’s track record says that he’s a smart guy and knows what he’s doing out there.  You have to trust that he can make the adjustments needed, and that he’ll be able to do it faster than batters can adjust to him.

The Mets are fighting for first place and arguably Santana is only going to get better.  He’s a big game pitcher, a fighter, and a great ace of this staff to have.  As his game rounds into form, the weather heats up and he builds up arm strength as the Mets march towards October all worries about him being in decline will vanish and we’ll be talking about the Mets having as good a 1-2 punch as anyone else in baseball.

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No John Maine in the Bullpen

A popular opinion on the handling of John Maine over the years has been to suggest he’d be better in the bullpen.  Metsblog has a post on this topic today as well.  Maine has occasionally struggled to get through 6 innings, although I would emphasize that this isn’t always the case, and some theorize that he’d have more success with being able to go all-out in one or two innings without worrying about a second time through the order.

I disagree.  I’m not saying Maine usually gets far into games, but I don’t think he’s ever a risk to throw three innings and completely task the bullpen.  In April and May of 2009 (throwing out the first June start where he was injured and went on the DL), he averaged around 5.2IP and went 5-3 with a 3.75 ERA.  This includes the first three starts of the season, where a pitcher is normally on a pitch count.  Without those he averaged 6IP over the next seven starts.  He made one bad start over that stretch, allowing five runs (four earned) over 5.1IP.  Every other start was a quality one.  So it’s not that long ago that John Maine both pitched six innings regularly and was good at it.  I know six innings isn’t amazing, but it’s more valuable than a couple of innings here and there out of the bullpen.  2010 was less pleasant for Maine, but he did have three of four quality starts after he redid his mechanics. 

My biggest problem with the idea of moving Maine to the bullpen is injury.  Maine’s injuries have always been injuries that seem fatigue and wear and tear related.  Putting him in a position where he’d possibly pitch, or get ready to pitch, every day would negate days of rest where his shoulder can just recover.   Especially with the way Manuel works the bullpen, I’d be worried this would be cause for further injury.

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John Maine: Liar? Lefty?Hurt?

This Maine situation is seemingly more complex than we know.  I don’t know what it says for clubhouse relations, control of the clubhouse, hiding injuries, actual performance, or all those other immeasurable things.  What I do know is that Manuel and Maine are not getting along, Maine has been up and down performance-wise all year, and hasn’t even hit the 91-92 he was hitting post-injury last year.

There is no real way to remove guilt from Maine in this situation.  He struggled in his bullpen, supposedly didn’t top 85 mph for the first batter of the time, and bent over in what appeared to be pain after that.  He snapped at his manager in the dugout, and was critical of him in post-game discussions with the media.

Manuel and Warthen get plenty of blame here too.  It’s their job to make the call, not Maine’s.  If it didn’t look right in the bullpen, then it’s their decision to have him make his start or scratch him or whatever they do.  They should come up with a plan, with Maine, about what how they’re going forward.  Whether that’s one batter, one walk, or one inning.  Maine’s job is to go out there and throw the ball to the best of his ability if he’s on the roster.

Is Maine hiding an injury?  This would be the biggest issue of all really.  Maine’s been a pretty injury prone guy, especially lately.  He definitely could be realizing that he’s often feeling a little pain and that if he complained about every little twinge he’d end up spending more time on the disabled list than not.  Maybe he’s decided he needs to pitch through a certain amount of pain as a major leaguer, and he did hint at this thought on Thursday after the game.  Then there is him bending over on the mound, looking like he was in pain.  Maine explains this as knowing he was on a short leash because he saw Valdes warming up in the bullpen already and he was frustrated.  Gameday suggests Maine’s fastball was 85 during that batter.  Maine claims he looked at the film and that his mechanics were fine and his last two pitches were 89.  I don’t know what sort of speed guns or software the Mets (or the Nationals, or wherever he was looking) have, so I certainly don’t know what to make of that.

Both Manuel and Warthen have suggested they believe Maine would pitch through an injury rather than admit one.  Warthen used the words ‘habitual liar’ to describe Maine’s attitude about injuries, supposedly meaning it as a positive reflection on his competitiveness, but Maine said that the comment did upset him.  Maine made a statement Friday that he would work towards his next start, whenever and wherever that would be.  Manuel claims his gut says there is something physically wrong with Maine, but that he “could be wrong.”  Maine will get tests next week to tell for sure.

“I want to pitch,” he said. “Even if I have to go out there and throw lefthanded, that’s what I want to do. I want to go out there and pitch.”

Manuel’s response to this was comical, suggesting that maybe he’d have better lefthanded.  Jests aside, I’m not sure this is a comment you should make about a player that’s already annoyed at you and frustrated.

The drama obviously continued beyond that.  Maine said he wasn’t asked how he felt on the mound, Manuel pulled him and walked away muttering to himself.  This is what caused Maine to confront Manuel in the dugout and what he was most upset about.  After the game Maine said he hadn’t talked to Manuel and didn’t know why he was pulled from the game.  Someone has said that Maine would be going to the doctor Friday, but Maine knew nothing of this.  When the team showed up to the park Friday, Maine had neither gone to the doctor nor talked to anyone on the team about doing so.  He was placed on the disabled list with “shoulder weakness” and was told he’d be getting tests next week.  Elmer Dessens was activated, and didn’t arrive at the park until the 5th inning, which suggests as least that they hadn’t decided anything and weren’t willfully hiding it from  John Maine.   Maine still insists he’s not injured, so we’ll see what these tests reveal and where the Mets go from there.   It’s not like he’s pitched horrendously either.  His previous start wasn’t good, but he has a 4.3 ERA with three quality starts going back to his four most recent starts.  The Mets are 2-2 in that stretch.

This situation does not make anyone look good.  I’m already biased against Jerry Manuel and his poor decisions and management style going back to 2008.  I’m frustrated with John Maine, but it’s hard to dislike a guy that works as hard as he does and is as competitive.  You can’t ask much more than that from a player; if you want to criticize Omar Minaya for keeping him because you didn’t think he was talented enough, that’s fine, but as long as John Maine (Or Oliver Perez) is a Met, I’m going to root my hardest for them.

Almost 48 hours later, Maine has finally admitted that he’s felt a small amount of pain, similar to what he felt last year, in his shoulder.  He still insists he doesn’t need the DL, and that might be true, and maybe he should’ve seen the doctor yesterday instead of Monday, but this does validate Warthen and Manuel a little.  However, they could’ve stuck to their guns and not let him make the start if they suspected injury in the bullpen, and they could’ve probably gotten him to a doctor yesterday, and at least waited before putting him on the DL.  Mejia needs to go down anyway, and wasn’t available yesterday, so it wouldn’t have hurt to demote him and bring up Dessens and wait a day for Maine’s results.

I have to wonder if this pain is a result of Maine switching his mechanics back to what he’s comfortable with.  Obviously what Warthen had him doing this spring and early in the season was not working, but they need to find something that both keeps Maine’s shoulder from hurting, and allows him to be effective.  Nothing we’ve seen from Warthen suggests he can do that.  I never thought I’d miss Rick Peterson.

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The Oliver Perez Situation and the 24 Man Roster

The Oliver Perez Situation and the 24 Man Roster.

 

Oliver Perez will not go to the minors.  I know most of us think he probably should, and some irrationally want him released, but if he’s not going to go the Mets need to figure out how to proceed.

 

Burying him in the bullpen is not a recipe for success or a solution.  This is systematic of the problem that Omar and Jerry created with how this roster is constructed.  You could call it managing scared, or managing not to lose.  Putting him the bullpen and not addressing the reason he’s there in the first place is basically playing with a 24 man roster.

 

I want to clarify here that I’m not excusing Oliver Perez here.  He’s pitched poorly, failed to execute his pitches, lost his velocity, and is actively hurting the team by refusing to go to the minors to get it straightened out. 

 

Oliver Perez is talented.  He has ability to throw the baseball and get guys out, and win baseball games.  He did this the last year he was healthy, in 2008.  He did it the year before that, in 2007.  His greatest success was with Peterson, and he continued that for a period after Peterson left.  He has steadily declined the longer Warthen was the one guiding him, including this year when new mechanics seem to have sapped not only his control, but his velocity.   There were times this year when Perez was throwing four pitches, at four different speeds, and was able to throw them for strikes.  Maybe he just hasn’t had enough time to get a handle on this new way of pitching, maybe just a mere 1-2 mph on the fastball would make a world of difference.  This is not something I, or anyone else, can figure out from the other side of the television set.

 

So what is Dan Warthen doing?  Has he buried Perez in the bullpen and doesn’t know what to do with him? Is he actively working on getting Perez to be better with those strikes?  Tinkering with his mechanics so he’s more comfortable?  To me, it’s always seemed like Perez has lacked a fundamental understanding of pitching, of when to throw strikes and when to throw balls, on when to go for a strikeout, and when to pitch to contact.  These are things that can be taught, if you could get through to Perez, and I don’t feel like Dan Warthen is.  Coupled with this is John Maine, who tried and failed to pitch the way Warthen thought he should.  When John Maine went back to what he was most comfortable with, he was successful more often than not. 

 

I see no pitchers that have actively gotten better since Dan Warthen has been the pitching coach.  No reclamation projects, no continued bouts of success.  Whatever Dan Warthen brings to the table, it doesn’t appear to be in the best interest of the Mets pitchers.  Oliver Perez, for better or worse, is here with the Mets.  He’s not going to take a demotion, and that means the Mets need to find the tools to get the most out of him.

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Pitching Wins

Pitching wins.  That’s the common refrain around baseball, and there is a lot of truth to it.  So while many Mets fans may have been upset that the Mets offense is struggling, even against position players in a 20 inning game, I’m ecstatic that the pitching has been so good.  It’s too early to tell for sure on the starters.  Some velocity numbers seem suspect, but static numbers do not tell you everything.  Pitch counts, and pitch speeds, are something that many managers and baseball experts are still working on.  20 years ago these things were barely more important than who won the airplane race.  (On a side note, I kinda miss the airplane race.  It was so perfect for the Mets, since Jets from LaGuardia fly over constantly.) Let’s give some guys a couple of starts to build up arm strength and get the early season jitters out of the way before we judge what they’re capable of for the season.

If the pitching is going to be this good, the Mets are going to rise to great heights.  Santana is going to win games; I really don’t think there is anything to worry about with him.  He’s had a little less velocity than we would like so far, but he’s also fresh back from surgery, and a slow starter.  He did get up to 92 by the end of his appearance Saturday, and I hope it’s just a matter of getting his arm strength up to mid-season form.  You could probably say the same thing about Oliver Perez, who looked masterful the night before.  Perez mixed and matched pitches and location and speeds like a pro.  Like Santana.  He was _nothing_ like the Ollie we know.  He wasn’t good Ollie, or bad Ollie.  He was just a pitcher doing his thing.  There wasn’t wildness, or getting unfocused.  He was pitching, not throwing, as the adage goes.

There’s not enough to say about Pelfrey.  He’s amazing.  He leads the team in ERA, in wins, even in saves!  He threw a masterful game in the low-oxygen Colorado game, threw a bullpen early Saturday and then still demanded the ball from Manuel in the 20th inning for the save on Satuday.  If there’s anybody on the team you’re ready to say “Throw out 2009, it’s 2010 now and that’s what counts” with, it’s Pelfrey.

Now, the offense hasn’t been great.  However, the offense is also underperforming.  Bay, Pagan, Castillo, Reyes are all better players than they’ve played so far, and there is little reason to think they won’t get better.  That will win games. They’re 4-7 right now and once the offense clicks they could easily rattle off a winning streak.  Once we get Murphy back, or Murphy comes back and doesn’t improve and Ike shows up, the offense will get a boost as well.  Like Murphy or not, he’s not the automatic strikeout that Jacobs is.

A lot hinges on tonight.  Every other pitcher has shown that they’re going to put up some good games this year.  Even Niese’s quality start is perfectly acceptable out of the 5th guy.  Maine is the only holdout, and after scrapping the changes that didn’t work this spring, he’ll revert to what’s given him success in the past.  It might be too soon to expect him to have that nailed down and for him to pitch a gem, but a competitive game over six innings or so that gives the Mets ample opportunity to win the game would be a great start.

The offense will work itself out, but if the pitching can do what it’s started to show it can do, this 4-7 record will be a mere slow start in a great season.

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Upcoming Expections For The Mets

I understand the season has been hurtful so far.  I also understand that even the worst teams in baseball don’t play this badly, and that they will win more games.  So how do we shake this feeling of doom?

YaGottaBelieveSign

I’m pretty confident in Pelfrey throwing a good game tonight.  I think what he worked on this Spring is going to help a lot, he’s getting less distracted on the mound, and has that cocky confidence that this team needs. 

You never know with Perez, and I worry that the stupid tinkering that Warthen did with Maine was also a failure for Perez, but I think the Mets will have a chance to win the game tomorrow when he pitches. 

Santana is due to bounce back and win one on Saturday.  He’s Johan Santana after all.

Then Maine, who I think gets a huge boost being out from under Warthen’s shackles.  Doesn’t mean he’ll be successful though, especially the first time going back to what’s worked for him, but the numbers are there if you choose to believe. (those numbers being a 4-1 2.75 ERA May last year before surgery in June.  Those numbers being that he was hitting 93 last year, and was 91-92 in the return from surgery in September)  I’m hoping being able to be comfortable will be like a weight off his shoulder and he’ll do just fine.  I’m certainly not ready to believe Maine’s career is over.

Maybe they drop one of those, which would put them at 5-7.  Then they go home for a 10 game home stand where if they go 6-4 they’re back at .500 and go to Philadelphia, a park the Mets love to hit in with hopefully the offense finally clicking, and knock the ball, and 2009, out of the park.

That’s the formula to shake these bad feelings away.  If the Mets can get to Philadelphia near .500 and play well there against an injured Phillies team and assert, even if it’s just for one series, that they’re the better team it will go a long way to returning the confidence to this team, and to it’s fans.

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More Pressure For a Quick Start

ike davisIt’s not just Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya that have to worry about fast starts to the season or their jobs being in jeopardy.  The same case could be made for Jeff Francoeur,perez Daniel Murphy, and Rod Barajas.  The way Ike Davis, Fernando Martinez, and Josh Thole have been playing in a way this spring that makes you suspect they’ll be knocking at the door to Citi Field sooner rather than later.

With Reyes possibly being out some, or all, of April the pressure on the starting pitching has just doubled.  The most recent report on April suggests that he may be back closer to mid April, but that’s still a rough estimate.

We’ve known for a while that the season was going to hinge on the starting pitching.  The offense was projected to be one of the top in the league, and surely would’ve won some games on it’s own even when the pitching struggled.  With Reyes and Beltran out, they may not have that cushion for a while, but this doesn’t mean the Mets are doomed to a 9-13 type record to start the season.

The fast start is more important than ever, and if Maine, Perez, and Pelfrey can have a good month of April the Mets will still win games.  We all know they’re each capable of pitching good games.  It was expected before the season that they could definitely pitch competitively and keep us in games, but now they may be pressured to actually win the games.  Instead of quality start performances and limiting the opponents to three runs over six innings, stepping up and going seven innings and occasionally limiting the other teams to merely one or two runs becomes important to the Mets early success.

This isn’t to say the Mets lineup is useless, and that they won’t occasionally put up a crooked number, but Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran are two of the most irreplaceable players in the game today.  The season is never won and lost in April, but if the pitching can step up and win more games than they lose, not only will it minimize the damage caused by losing Reyes and Beltran, it will set them up nicely once they return.

This post, and vibrant discussion about it, also featured on The Real Dirty Mets Blog.

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Weekend Turns Out to be a Dud

From 040709_Phillies

Three months ago you would’ve pointed to this weekend as one of the biggest of the season. Four games against the Phillies was likely going to set the tone for September and who was chasing who. On a New York front, the Yankees are also playing the Red Sox so it would’ve been baseball mania in New York.

Now the Yankees have grabbed a big lead, the Mets are injured, and people are talking about the football Giants. The biggest stories for the Mets is the ’69 reunion Saturday night and Pedro’s return to the Mets home field on Sunday. There is little or no juice for the series, and I’m sure some Phillies fans will come up the coast, but it just doesn’t matter.

I do think both Pelfrey and Perez will have good games. I think Parnell might have a nice bounceback start as well. I also just noticed that the Mets rotation features three Ps. Interesting? Not really.

It really is time to start parting ways with some of the useless veterans, like cutting Livan Hernandez yesterday. Sheffield can go too, Cory Sullivan has more extra base hits than him since being called up, and at least Sullivan can play defense.

Lets get Evans up here and him, Sullivan, Reed, and Pagan can all compete for possible roles on the team next year.

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Citi Field Addition: Vineyard Mound

A thoughtful reader has emailed me and told me that they do in fact sell GTS Vineyards wine at Citi  Field.  It’s in one of the pricey clubs at $85 a bottle.  Seaver apparently doesn’t have any wine much cheaper than his fastball speed.  Oh well.

Another Idea For Citi Field: Vineyard Mound

From Mets

This idea stems from the beer island in the Taste of the City concourse out in left-center field. I think this place is awesome, and I make it a destination almost every time I’m there. With 30 different bottles of beer at a fairly reasonable price it very well may be the best place to get beer in the major leagues.

There are also a couple of places that sell wine. Most people you talk to will tell you that they can’t imagine drinking wine at a ballpark, and many of the people that actually go to ballparks don’t drink wine anywhere. Other people say you can sell anything if you market it well, and the Mets are not taking advantage of a prime marketing tool in this regard. Their sole Hall of Famer, and Ace pitcher of the 1969 Mets, George Thomas Seaver, makes wine.

None of the wine made by GTS Vineyards is sold at Citi Field however. What better person to sell wine to Mets fans than Seaver? GTS Vineyards isn’t huge, but the new “Vineyard Mound” doesn’t have to sell exclusively GTS wines, just have them available.

To further connect wine to Mets baseball I’d suggest that this Mound be the location for a statue of Seaver. Put him in a pitching stance, but instead of having him hold a baseball, give him a wine bottle. Place the Mound on a slight hill, or pitcher’s mound, so that just as Seaver served fastballs to batters from up on the hill, so will he serve wine.

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Battle for First

Could first place be around the corner?

mrmetphanatic

These current batch of Mets have been berated in the media and the blogs all week. “We can’t win like this” “These players aren’t very good.” Even the manager got into the act by asking for more offense and saying that it’d be tough to win with the current guys.

Despite all that, the Mets have now won two in a row, one with pitching and one with hitting. They will go into Philadelphia with a chance to take first place, sitting just one game behind the Phillies. (and the Marlins)

The Phillies aren’t playing great baseball either. In fact, the pitcher the Mets faced in Pittsburgh, Paul Maholm, has a better ERA than the Phillies ace Cole Hamels, and the two pitchers in the rotation the Mets are facing this weekend. The other pitcher, Rodrigo Lopez, is a journeyman pitcher who hasn’t pitched in the majors in two years. Lopez, coming off Tommy John surgery, signed with the Braves last year, pitching five innings in the minors, and was released at the end of the season. He’s nearly given up a home run a start in his career, which will go over well in that ballpark, and his best year came in Baltimore in 2002. He was 5-4 with a 3.91 ERA in the minors this year.

So the pitching landscape the Mets will face this weekend is not great. The lineup isn’t what it would be with Reyes, Delgado and Beltran in it, but most of these guys are still major leaguers, or prospects, and should be able to score some runs in a ballpark that lends itself to scoring runs.

The worry may be on the pitching side. Livan Hernandez has been pitching pretty well and hopefully he can keep the Phillies in the park. Fernando Nieve is basically an unknown, having had three excellent starts and one bad one. Has he been properly scouted now? Have the Phillies read the scouting reports? Or was last time just a blip, and he’ll bounce back with a good performance? Sunday is almost a must-win, with Santana on the mound. He’s a competitive guy, and nothing is more competitive than a competition for first place, against rivals, after a bad performance in his last outing. Expect good things from Santana on Sunday, which is also the halfway point in the season. Santana typically pitches well in the second half. A lot hinges on Livan tonight. The Phillies bats have been sleeping, and it would do us good not to wake them up.

Bad games, horrible losses, injuries, and bad managing in the first half can all be put aside this weekend. If the Mets play competitive baseball for these three days, the first half ends and the second half begins without any handicap or ground to make up. Beltran and Reyes may both be back before we know it, and it’d be an excellent situation to be in if they come back not to help the Mets play catchup, but to help the Mets put distance between them and whoever is in second come that point.