…but can you just be “whelmed?”

Tim Redding is a goon. 

While it is true that a person plucked at random from the street may bristle at being called such a thing, the professional goon, having come to terms with this distinction, is likely to embrace it, albeit quietly.  This is especially true for the professional pitching goon.  These are your humble practitioners of the boilerplate fastball, your mop-up men and unassuming innings-eaters, artisans of career 4.86 ERAs.  Look closely, and they can be found en masse throughout the registers of baseball’s universe.  Unable to rise above themselves in any meaningful way, they thrive at their least-noticeable: don’t walk too many guys, don’t let too many pitches drift up in the strike zone, and always – but always – jump over the chalk on your way back to the dugout.  Master this art of public anonymity, and a few millions of dollars may flow quietly to your coffers, past rustling reeds of box score notes and a half-dozen Topps cards bearing your likeness.

As anyone who routinely subjects their tendons and ligaments to the unique rigors of baseball-hurling knows, a man is never further than a single pitch away from a new career.  As such, walking this thin line for any number of seasons is an impressive accomplishment unto itself.  The road is made doubly hazardous by the constant threat of forced obsolescence at the hands of some other set of legs and arms that the ballclub has for whatever reason – youth, reputation, popularity – determined is more worthy of a roster spot than the goon.  The replacement player may even be a goon himself.  It is probably considered very bad form for the old goon to resent the new; goonery, after all, is something of a fraternity, and while a player may feel betrayed or mishandled, they are advised to address their frustrations to management.  A goon may occasion greatness, but this is understood to be a product of chance and circumstance.  Those who mistake it for something more are not long for this game.

Born in Rochester, NY, Redding’s major league debut came in June of 2001.  Pitching for the team that signed him – the Houston Astros – he made the start against the Cincinatti Reds, a very bad team in the midst of a very bad season (even in the early summer, they were already 15 games back of first place).  Sandwiched between two first-inning strikeouts was the dreaded BB-HR; this back-to-back series of events haunts the goon pitcher like no other mortal force on this earth.  It is generally not the longball itself that signals the doom of a pitcher: if there’s no one on base, the damage can be limited.  If, however, in the time that a pitcher is not giving up home runs they are habitually ushering runners to first base via walks, these homers can add up very quickly.

Tim Redding is, in fact,  known to walk a few batters every now and then, which has generally been a problem for him, as he is also partial to giving up home runs.  Neither habit has proved grating enough to cause a total jettisoning from the game. Redding threw 182 innings over the course of 33 starts for the Nationals last year, compiling a tidy 10-11 record (the team was 20-13 when he started), including a 3-8 record after the break.  The right-hander was thoroughly mediocre all the while.  He actually threw his first-ever complete game, though it was of the dreaded 8-inning variety: he lost on the road to the Giants, 1-0, after surrendering the game’s only run in the bottom of the 8th.  The 182 innings pitched and 33 games started were both career highs for Redding, eclipsing his 176/32 season of 2003; he earned $125,000 in bonuses on top of his base $1,000,000 contract for his workmanlike efforts.  Amongst other pitchers who tossed at least 180 innings last year, Redding’s ERA (4.95) was third-worst and his WHIP (1.43) was eighth-worst.  He struck out about 6 batters per 9 innings and walked a little over 3.  The 3.21 BB/9 mark was actually the best of his career, which is a nice feather in his cap when considering the fact that he threw more pitches than he ever had before in a professional season.

Being that Redding led the Nationals in Games Started and Wins last season, he was due for a raise in 2009, as an arbitration hearing probably would’ve resulted in a contract worth between $2 and $3 million dollars.  The team attempted to trade him prior to the December 12th contract deadline, specifically to the Rockies in exchange for light-hitting OF Willy Taveras.  The deal fell through, though, and the Nationals chose to non-tender Redding, making him a free agent.  News reports subsequently had him being pursued by no fewer than four big-league teams: The Rockies (now claiming they can’t “afford” him), the Orioles, the Rangers, and the Mets.

Redding would’ve been a poor bet for success in the AL East, a fact which in and of itself makes him entirely qualified to pitch for the Baltimore Orioles.  The division isn’t totally foreign to him: in 2005, Redding was traded by the Padres (he’d landed in San Diego that spring) to the Yankees.  He took the mound for them exactly once: on July 15th, he started against the Red Sox in a game that Boston would go on to win 17-1 (Redding: 1 IP, 4H, 4BB, 6ER).  Not surprisingly, Redding was sent back to AAA the following day; he would not emerge from the minors for two years.  So too would it appear he was unfit for service in the nightmarish confines of the Ballpark at Arlington.

Though it’s very possible that Redding had offers on the table from those teams – or others – he recently signed on with the New York Mets, agreeing to a 1-year, $2.25 million contract.  If Redding indeed had a choice, he’d seem to have chosen well.  Having spent the last two seasons pitching for the Nationals, Redding is already familiar with the opponents he’ll be facing this season; he’ll also be on a much better ballclub than the Nationals were (or will be in ’09) at double the salary he was earning from them.  A native of New York, he’ll be pitching a cross-state drive from where he grew up.

In 11 career starts against the Phillies, Redding is 5-3 with a 3.29 ERA.  While it is highly irresponsible to spend millions of dollars chasing splits and past performance, such is the nature of business within the game; Redding’s successes against the Mets’ bitter divisional rival were not lost on his new ballclub.  Slice even the most piecemeal of men thinly enough, and you’re likely to notice a significant-looking tendril or two that leads you toward a conclusion that the humble gentleman before you is ill-equipped to realize.  The Mets are still in pursuit of Oliver Perez and Derek Lowe at the very least; if they land one, Redding’s spot in the rotation is not guaranteed.  

Even if Redding starts the year in the bullpen, he’ll still provide rotation depth for Jerry Manuel’s contingent of underachievers.  Depth, at the end of the day, is the one asset that the professional goon possesses the greatest quantities of.  Shouldering these unseen stores is no Herculean task, which is fortunate, as those of Redding’s ilk could nary please us were they handed such instruction.  If Maine, Pelfrey, or any of the other rotation stalwarts miss time, the Mets will be able to draw upon the wells of this depth that are locked within Redding’s trademark goatee and modest sneer.  He will grunt and hurl his most earnest of fastballs, pick up the pieces where they lay, and live to collect another paycheck, until the teams stop calling and he assumes his place in the vast unseen pastures where the Paul Wilsons of the world chew long stalks of grass and melt seamlessly into the bygone tapestries that faithfully measure out the interminable passage of time.

 

But What Have You Done For Me TODAY?

When teams suffer a (relatively) quick slew of hope-dashing defeats, the air about the club can turn overwhelmingly and almost irreparably negative. Losses become “expected,” while wins become “lucky,” even from season to season. Optimism is eschewed for compulsory bitterness. This is a very curious but altogether commonplace phenomenon. It’s really just a human coping mechanism. If we never hope for anything, see, our hopes can never be crushed.

To me, Mets fans kind of typify this behavior. The Mets lost a heartbreaking NLCS – on a goddamned curveball, no less – in 2006 and then were embarrassingly ushered out of the playoff hunt in 2007. It was no surprise, then, that when the team stumbled out of the gate in 2008, Mets fans were calling for the head of Willie Randolph and damn near wondering if Shea Stadium should be burned to the ground so that a virgin franchise could be created anew in its place.

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. But fast-forward to August, and while the organization has replaced Randolph with O.G. Jerry Manuel and currently sits just 2 games behind the first-place Phillies, Mets fans are still an extraordinarily fatalistic bunch. They’re not really sure that they like this team, not really sure that they can count on these guys to make them proud. Much of their Queensian vitriol has been spewed at the bullpen, and has been for years. This year – at least amongst my friends who are Mets fans – the hatred has been piled most notably upon one man: Aaron Michael Heilman. All the Mets fans I know totally hate this guy. All he does is blow games. He is the grim reaper in a baseball cap.

Naturally, I got curious. Why, in his age 29 season, has he become the face of ineptitude?

A lifelong Metropolitan, Heilman’s in his sixth season with the big club, and holds a 21-32 record in 290 games (25 starts) with 8 converted saves and 14 blown saves. Blown saves (and wins and losses, to that end) aren’t necessarily the most impartial way to judge a reliever’s success, of course, but the number certainly doesn’t look too good. Nor does the record itself, but such is relief work: you can’t win a game by yourself, but you can damn sure lose one.

He was born on November 12th, 1978 in Logansport, Indiana, a small town of about 20,000 people that sits at the junction of the Wabash and Northern Eel Rivers. Samuel P. Bush – great-grandfather of the esteemed U.S. President – cut his teeth there as a railroad mechanic, and Major League Baseball’s first commissioner, Kensaw Mountain Landis, also hailed from Logansport. Heilman attended the local high school and then went on to pitch for Notre Dame, where he compiled a 43-7 record with a 2.50 ERA in 4 years, including a 15-0 mark in his senior year. Only 14 other Division I collegians have ever won 40 or more games in their career.

Those impressive credentials got the 6’5″ 225lb Heilman picked by the Mets in the first round (18th overall) of the 2001 amateur draft (he’d also been picked in the first round in 2000 – by the Twins – but elected to return for his senior year). He spent only one full year in the minors before making his major league debut in June of 2003, getting a home start against the Marlins in which he was saddled with the loss (thanks to a couple Mets errors, including one by Heilman himself) despite surrendering just 1 earned run in 6 innings. The Mets didn’t finish very well that year (66-95) and neither did Heilman, who finished 2-7 with a 6.75 ERA in 13 starts. He bounced between AAA and the majors in 2004, and the organization began to sour on him as a starter thanks to massive amounts of inconsistency. Despite throwing a one-hitter against the Marlins in early 2005, the Mets made the decision to convert Heilman to a reliever and drop his arm angle to three-quarters rather than overhand. The move seemed to pay off: Heilman finished the year with a sparkling 2.18 ERA and 9.82 K/9 in 46 games for the club, surrendering just 1 home run as a reliever (to Shawn Green).

One of the Mets’ best relievers after 2005, Heilman decided to play winter ball in the Dominican in the offseason with the intention of getting his innings total up and working on his command. When he came back to the team for spring training, he got the impression from the organization that they didn’t really view him as a starter. While the club explored trade options for players like Danys Baez and Julio Lugo – many involving Heilman himself – Heilman dominated in spring training, pitching 17 innings and surrendering just three earned runs. The team stuck him in the bullpen anyways, opting instead to give rotation spots to pitchers the likes of Steve Trachsel and Victor Zambrano. Heilman was vocally upset with not being given the chance to start, but finished the regular season very well. He pitched well in the post-season too, but as fate would have it, he threw the pitch that Yadier Molina – who hit six home runs all season – homered off of to win the NLDS for the Cardinals and send them to the World Series.

Heilman had minor elbow surgery that winter and came to camp determined to start for a team, and the club again half-heartedly shopped him around. Heilman was neither traded nor given much of a shot to contend for a rotation spot, suffering further insult when he wasn’t given an assigned parking spot during Spring Training.

The right-hander quietly had another very good season in 2007 to wrap up a rather remarkable three-year stint as a reliever. From 2005-2007, Heilman pitched 239 innings and posted a 3.01 ERA, a 7.83 K/9, and a 0.53 HR/9. Quite simply, he was excellent. This can be used to argue one of two opposite points:

A) The Mets were stupid not to let him start over some of their other options
B) The Mets were right to put him in the bullpen where his skills were most effective.

Answering that question doesn’t do the team a heck of a lot of good for 2008. Making $1.2 million for the club this year, Heilman has put up some ugly numbers on the season: he currently sits at 2-7, his worst record since he was starting as rookie in 2003. In 63 games, he has a 5.74 ERA and a 1.47 WHIP; hitters are posting a .262/.359/.426 line off him, and he leads all relievers with 9 hit batters.

Heilman has traditionally thrown two pitches: a sinking fastball and a changeup. In 2007, the fastball was clocking in at a very healthy 94.89mph; his mix of fastballs and changeups was 70/30 to right-handed batters and 60/40 to left-handed batters. Once Rick Peterson was fired this past June, Heilman began throwing his slider again (Peterson apparently coached Heilman not to use it during his tenure with the Mets). Heilman’s been mixing the pitch in to right-handed batters this year, and by all accounts, it’s gone alright: righties are hitting just .207 off the reliever. It’s left-handed hitters that have been the problem for Heilman: in 95 at-bats, lefties are slugging .611, and have 7 of the 9 home runs Heilman’s allowed all year to their credit. They’re murdering him.

His 60/40 mix of fastball/changeup to LHBs is largely unchanged from 2007 to 2008. Both his fastball and changeup appear slightly faster this season, but that could very well be noise in the data, as 2008’s information is much more complete than 2007’s. His horizontal movement chart – courtesy Josh Kalk – is a little strange though. Those changeups look awfully sloppy, and in particular, there appears to be a distinct swath of them on the inside part of the plate, perhaps indicating that Heilman’s been missing down and in to lefties. The numbers back up the picture we’re seeing: Heilman has walked 15 lefties in 95 at-bats versus just 14 righties in 150 at-bats. Going back, though, we see that these numbers don’t historically deviate from what Heilman has always done. In fact, it’s his walks to righties that have been the problem: he walked 6 in 2006 and 9 in 2007, and has already walked 14 in 2008. His walk rate against righties has doubled from last year.

Unless you have a lights-out arsenal, walking guys when you’re a reliever is a really bad idea, especially if you’re on a ballclub that’s prone to removing you in the middle of an inning. This introduces the tricky specter of the Strand Rate. The average Strand Rate for major league relievers with at least 40 IP this year is 75.44%. For every 4 batters you allow to reach base, 3 of them will get left out on the basepaths, either by yourself or one of your fellow relievers. Aaron Heilman’s is 66% on the season, and though he’s got the healthiest K/9 he’s ever had (10.07), this is simply not working for him: one out of every 3 runners that reaches on Heilman is coming around to score, a very significant deviation from the 75% average, especially when you’re a reliever and have little wiggle room.

Heilman has been charged with at least one earned run in 20 of his 63 appearances spanning 18.1 innings, with 14 of those being appearances in which he allowed multiple earned runs. He has walked 12 batters – 6 RHB, 6 LHB – in that time and struck out 17. Of the 42 runs he has surrendered, 33 have been of his own accord. I have no context to indicate how commonplace or rare this is, but I think it’s worth noting that of the 10 baserunners he’s left on base for other pitchers, 9 have scored, 7 at the hands of Scot Schoeneweis, who will probably not be getting a Christmas card from the righty this year. It’s also clear that the team is losing confidence in him: In his first 12 run-allowing appearances, he was yanked three times, but in his last 8, he’s been pulled from the game 6 times. Had Heilman’s successor not allowed any of those runs to score his ERA would come down from 5.74 to 4.48, which isn’t great, but is a lot easier to swallow. This would of course actually underscore how bad Heilman has been.

Four of Heilman’s seven losses have come in the last two and a half weeks, an incredible streak of awfulness. Despite the fact that his successors have largely failed him, they can’t be blamed for putting those runners on in the first place. Heilman’s most damning stat is his 1.46 WHIP: he’s allowed 103 baserunners this year and is walking 4.2 batters per 9 innings. A decrease in ground balls – from 45% to 41.5% – also suggests that he’s been leaving too many pitches up in the zone (contributing to his high home run rate). His lack of control could even explain his higher-than-usual strikeout rate via “effectively wild” syndrome. His BABIP is .335 and his HR/FB is 13.8%, and while one could use those to say that he’s been unlucky, they’d be being kind: you can’t expect to succeed when you’re walking and plunking as many batters as Heilman has been.

There have been rumblings in New York that the boo-birds are starting to get to Heilman, who has complained in the past about his treatment but as I mentioned before, had always succeeded out of the ‘pen. Whether for ineffectiveness or health concerns, the team clearly needs to ease up on Heilman. He’s appeared in 63 games this season, tied for the major league lead. The Mets bullpen as a whole has been used 396 times, the most in the division. The Eddie Kunz callup is a step in the right direction, but despite the fact that he had 27 saves at AA Binghamton, his 38/23 K/BB ratio in 45IP suggests that the 2007 first-round draft pick might not be ready just yet. Billy Wagner returns on Monday, and it’s hard to imagine that the club will do anything drastic before then, opting instead to pray for Wagner’s health and hope that his return shifts everyone in the bullpen pack into their rhythm.

After three years of doing what the team wants instead of what he wants, he’s now doing what no one but his opponents want, which is blowing games for the Mets and angering the team’s most ardent supporters. His -1.48 WPA is in Masa Kobayashi territory. His stuff is still good, but he’s never been happy relieving, and now no one is happy that he’s relieving. If the Mets peter out this season and fail to make the playoffs, the bullpen is going to get blamed, and Heilman is going to represent all that the group failed to accomplish. He remains under the Mets’ control through 2010, but if they can find a team who still likes him enough as a starter to part with a mid-range prospect, they should consider moving him. The team has never put its bullpen at the top of its priority list, and when it comes to keeping Heilman, perhaps they’ll finally relent this winter and ship him off.

 

While a City Hangs Flaccid in the Balance

The Mets are shitty.

Having already gone through the timeless, sweeping motions of firing their manager, pitching coach, and first base coach, the other New York ballclub finds itself still very much without answers: they’re 3-4 under new manager/gangster Jerry Manuel, including back-to-back losses to the lowly Seattle Mariners, one fueled by a grand slam by Felix Hernandez (off Johan Santana) and the other an embarrassing 11-0 drubbing on Tuesday night. The matchup featured the fourth-inning ejections of Manuel and Mets CF Carlos Beltran. Facing knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, Beltran took an 0-1 pitch at the knees that was called a strike; Beltran seemed to express displeasure with home plate umpire Brian Runge’s call, prompting Runge to emerge from behind the plate and not-so-subtly try to show Beltran up before (perhaps sarcastically) dusting off the plate. When Manuel came out to ask what the problem was, things quickly escalated before Runge apparently initiated contact with Manuel, who was quickly ejected from the game amidst wild gesticulations and violent head-cocking. Beltran was ejected immediately thereafter for what he later said was a “weak” move on Runge’s part (appearing to initiate contact with the manager as an excuse to throw him out of the game).  These are the things that happen when you’re 37-39 in New York.

Though Mets fans cheered Manuel’s tirade, they are a fanbase in a state of unabashed discontent. Following last season’s historic September collapse, the ’08 Mets are a study in mediocrity. At 37-39, they sit in third place in the NL East. They have never been more than four games above .500 on the season, and have not been three games above .500 since May 18th. They have four winning streaks of three or more games on the season (3, 5, 3, 3) and four losing streaks of three or more games (3, 3, 5, 5). They’ve surrendered more runs than they’ve scored. They finished April 14-12, went 13-15 in May, and are 10-12 in May: in other words, there is no reason to think that the team is getting any better.

And did I mention they’ve got the second-highest payroll in baseball?

Although it’s fun to blame him, it’s not Jose Reyes’ fault. At .293/.352/.484, Reyes is quietly beating his career average of .285/.333/.432, and with a strong second half could actually be in line for the best season of his career. He’s only got 31 RBI on the season, but that can be at least partially attributed to his terrible luck with RISP – in 57 such at-bats he’s struck out just 5 times, and sports a .208 BABIP. He’s been criticized in the past for trying to elevate too much, which not only results in a high percentage of infield fly balls but also tends to take away from his ability to utilize his speed, but this season he’s actually got the highest G/F ratio of his career (1.43) and has trimmed his infield fly ball rate from 13.4% to 10.5%, all while maintaining a career-best 21.7% line drive rate and a 9.3 HR/FB, which is just about major league average.

Who else can take the fall here? Carlos Beltran virtually matching his career rates, and is on pace for his sixth 20/20/100/100 season, so he’s been doing his job. How about the other Carlos? While it’s true that Delgado has basically been terrible in 2008, it would be unfair to blame him, because he is 36 years old today and, depending on who you ask, has been in obvious decline for at least two seasons (img courtesy Fangraphs):

Delgado hit 38 homers in 2006 for the Mets, but also had his lowest batting average in 9 years, and has not really come close to matching the level of productivity since. When you’re cooked, you’re cooked, and while Delgado could turn it around a bit in the second half, he is slugging just .399 and doesn’t have much pop left in the tank.

The Mets have two other players with at least 200 at-bats: Luis Castillo and David Wright. Luis Castillo is a three-time All-Star who has made a career out of hitting around .300, making a lot of contact, switch-hitting, playing excellent defense, and swiping a couple dozen bags, which is a skillset tailor-made for second base, especially in the National League. After being traded at the 2007 deadline, he hit .296 for the Mets, including a sweet .316/.404/.418 line in September. Castillo has in fact been a disappointment for the Mets thus far. He has been slowed by an almost comical number of minor injuries this season, and in addition to being perhaps the worst defensive second baseman in the NL, has hit just .253. He’s got a 1.75 BB/K, but with tired legs and a 63.5% ground ball rate (the highest in the majors), hits have been very hard to come by, which is a problem when 80% of your at-bats come as your team’s 2-hitter. Manuel has hinted that Castillo may begin to platoon with Damion Easley, which is good for Castillo’s health but can’t exactly be seen as a positive for the Mets, as Easley is simply not an everyday major leaguer.

And then there’s the golden boy. Hailing from Hickory High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, David Wright is, at 25 years old, already one of the most popular and highly-regarded players in the major leagues. After being called up in the summer of 2004, Wright has had a stranglehold on the third-base job, and with good reason – in addition to being a highly capable defender (his reputation was sealed after his 2005 bare-handed, over the shoulder catch on a Brian Giles blooper) Wright has slugged .523, .531, and .546 in his three full seasons in the bigs, and last year posted a stellar .325 average to go along with 34 steals. He is also highly regarded for his work ethic and dedication, started a multiple sclerosis foundation, owns .5% of Vitamin Water, and is disarmingly friendly with fans and the media.

In 2008, though, Wright has struggled. He is hitting just .272/.369/.466 on the season, including a miserable .241/.316/.301 in June, the worst month of his career thus far. Wright actually leads major league third baseman with 56 RBI despite the fact that he’s hitting just .253 with runners in scoring position. His strikeout, walk, and batted ball totals are largely in line with his career averages. He’s been something of a second-half player throughout his career, so it’s tempting to say that he has just been in an extremely prolonged cold slump and that he’ll put together a monster second-half. After finishing fourth in MVP voting in 2007, Wright’s titanic reputation may be causing people to view him as more of a disappointment than he has actually been (he was a trendy #1 overall fantasy pick in 2008).

His BABIP of .298 is below his career average but not unlucky; for whatever reason, he has simply not flashed much power this year. Courtesy of HitTracker, we can explore some numbers related to David Wright’s home runs on the season. With respect to the fact that I have no idea how home run distance correlates from year-to-year, I thought the following would be at least interesting to mention. His median “true” home run distance (which adjusts for stadium and atmospherics, etc) is down five feet, from 401.5 to 396.5, from 2007. 58% of his home runs have had true distances under 400 feet this year, as opposed to 2007, when just 43% of his homers were less than 400 feet in distance. His median home run speed off the bat is down 2 mph, and he appears to be pulling his homers a bit more. In 2008, his median home run is 10 degrees closer to the left field line than it was in 2007. I’m not really sure if it means anything, but it could be a sign that he’s pressing a bit.

As a group, the Mets are hitting .255, good for 22nd in the Majors, and have only 65 homers (also 22nd), after batting .275 and finishing 11th in homers in 2007. They’d need to bat about .293 as a group over the remainder of the season to get back to their 2007 level.

The pitching, on the other hand, has basically been league average: 4.15 ERA, 1.91 K/BB, and a .256 batting average against, tied for 10th best in the majors. Johan Santana has not been the best pitcher in baseball, or even the best pitcher in the National League, but he has been a top-10 guy nonetheless. Sporting a pedestrian 7-6 record, many have questioned whether or not Santana has seen an erosion of his skills in 2008, pointing to problems with home runs and a decreasing strikeout rate. While his K/9 has dropped to a mortal 7.94 (career: 9.38), he has been pretty stingy with the homers as of late, surrendering just three in his last seven starts. His 3.39 K/BB is 12th-best in baseball, he has a 2.93 ERA, and has thrown the 8th-most innings in baseball. John Maine has also been very good this season, posting a 3.78 ERA in 88 innings.

Following a breakout 2007 season, Oliver Perez has disappointed, thanks mostly to atrocious command: his 5.62 BB/9 is the worst in the majors by a healthy margin. Perez has always thrown a ton of sliders – he’s at 28.3% this year – and those sliders have always been very slow (78.5MPH), clocking in behind such flamethrowers as Paul Byrd, Greg Maddux, Kenny Rogers, and Mark Buehrle. His mix of pitches hasn’t changed from his career totals, nor has his batting average against, which is traditionally quite low (.244 for his career). All of this information basically points to the fact that when Perez is good, he’s overachieving, and not the other way around. He can’t throw strikes, which has always been and continues to be the main factor behind his failures.

Pedro Martinez and Mike Pelfrey – the one an aging veteran, the other an unpolished rookie – round out the rotation. Martinez is a first-ballot hall of famer and arguably one of the best pitchers of all time, but age has not been kind to the svelte right-hander. In between his numerous injuries, he’s struggled to succeed on his wits and assortment of 80mph offspeed pitches: batters are hitting .341 off Martinez, and while he hasn’t pitched quite as poorly as his 6.57 ERA indicates, he is a league average pitcher at best and not someone that the Mets can rely on to stay healthy by any stretch of the imagination. Pelfrey, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is a big (6’7″) righty who throws a hard sinker, changeup, and slider. “Big Pelf” has been improving throughout the season, which is probably a testament to the quality of his fastball: his pitch selection borders on the obvious, as he basically only throws fastballs and sliders to righties and only throws fastballs and changeups to lefties. A FIP of 4.11 suggests that he has been pitching quite well, and though he’s due for some bumps in the road thanks to 4.08 walks per nine innings, he’s probably in the majors to stay.

Thanks to the fragile health of Martinez and Oliver Perez’ terrible pitching the Mets have had to give starts to the likes of Nelson Figueroa, but their bullpen hasn’t been half bad. Feliciano and Schoeneweis have thrown 30 innings a piece and have sub-3.00 ERAs, and while Aaron Heilman’s struggles have inexplicably come to represent the bullpen, Duaner Sanchez (4.26 ERA) has pitched well and aside from a three game stretch in early June that was almost certainly due to overuse, Billy Wagner has been brilliant in the closer’s role, with 37 strikeouts to just 7 walks in 31innings pitched.

Faced with an under-performing and uninspired ballclub which seems to lack an identity, Minaya did what he thought he had to do in firing Randolph. The real problem with the club, though, is probably Minaya himself, as observers have been noting for years. On his watch, six of the club’s ten highest paid players have become Carlos Delgado, Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou, Orlando Hernandez, Oliver Perez, and Luis Castillo. Their farm system – already depleted by the win-now Santana deal – is held in low regard by scouts around the league, leaving them with little hope for 2008 unless the big club starts performing now. They’ve wound up with a weird amalgamation of decrepit veterans and spare parts surrounding their big three of Reyes, Wright, and Beltran, and a lot of the failure to sustain any kind of intelligent organizational philosophy (beyond “sign lots of crappy Latin ballplayers”) lands directly on Minaya, whose inability to recognize the fact that he was given the Mets job because of his predecessor’s mismanagement of the farm system has almost certainly sewn the seeds of his own demise.

Finally, here’s a look at what the prediction markets over at TradeSports think about the Mets’ chances of taking the NL East this year:

This is a team you should probably sell on, too. They crumbled under pressure last September, and there is no real reason to think that the team will suddenly catch fire in a division that belongs to the Phillies. With any luck at all the Brewers (or maybe even the Cardinals, if they get a healthy Pujols back soon) should be able to take the Wild Card, leaving the Mets in an extremely expensive boat that no one ordered paddles for. Perhaps missing the playoffs will be enough to get Minaya canned. Then, and only then, can the organization start to move into the 21st century and exorcise the ghost of Scott Kazmir from the murky ether which floats over Queens.