16
2012
The Key For The 2012 Mets Is…
An article by 
Starting Pitching.
This article could have been concluded with a bold-faced assertion like that, and it would’ve served better as a tweet. However, there are numerous reasons why starting pitching will make the Mets (if the pitching performances are as expected or better than) a possible dark-horse contender in the NL East, or even for the wild card.
Mets starters were middle of the pack last year in innings pitched, getting 974 innings out of a front-line that for the most part consisted of Mike Pelfrey, R.A. Dickey, Dillon Gee, Chris Capuano and Jonathon Niese, not in that order. The rotation managed a 4.12 ERA and a K/9 of 6.53, but most of which was in Jonathon’s Niese 7.91 K/9 and Chris Capuano’s 8.17 K/9. Although the strikeouts aren’t horrible, and the innings aren’t anything pathetic, the WHIP was the downfall of the starters. With a 1.34 WHIP as a staff, the Mets were in the bottom fifth of the NL, and if not for R.A. Dickey’s 200+ innings of 1.23 WHIP ball, someone could only imagine how much higher it could’ve been. While this is more innings than a few other clubs, the disparity between innings between the teams is semantic, minus the Phillies. The Phillies managed roughly 100 more innings out of their starters, allowing them to rely on their bullpen the least.
Due to the Mets starters inability in some cases to get out of the sixth inning (Dillon Gee, Chris Capuano) many relievers were used, and the ERA and WHIP of the bullpen shows the wear and tear, being the second worst in WHIP and ERA, and tied for 5th lowest in strikeouts. Although the cast of characters relieving in some cases was almost frightening (Ryota Igarashi & D.J. Carrasco getting 84.1 innings to proceed to ERA & WHIP bomb the bullpen still amazes), the bullpen was constantly overworked. The Mets had EIGHT relievers over 40 appearances, including the traded K.Rod who didn’t don a Mets uniform after mid-July. The guys in the pen wear down, become less effective, and then hand games back to the other team. As some baseball people say, if the relievers were such good pitchers, they’d be starters.
In an ideal world, the Mets can get somewhere around 985-995 innings from their starters, and that 20 inning increase is 20 innings less that fans may have to be subjected to witnessing a “6th inning guy” or a mop-up guy coming out because one of the starters couldn’t get out of the early innings. In a perfect world, here are the inning totals that would make sense, and hopefully lead to the Mets being able to win more games
R.A. Dickey – 205 IP
Mike Pelfrey – 202 IP
Jonathon Niese – 185 IP
Dillon Gee – 175 IP
Johan Santana – 145 IP
Just from those who are expected to be the starting rotation, that equates to 912 innings. The miscellaneous Mets starters last year pitched roughly 76 innings, which if duplicated over again brings the innings to 988, a whole game and a half worth of innings pitched by guys who are the best on your team.
While these are all optimistic, they are based in realism. R.A. Dickey is a knuckleballer who has shown he is gritty, pitching numerous games last year on a leg he could barely run on. Mike Pelfrey has proved to be if nothing else, durable. Jonathon Niese hasn’t proved durability, but did pitch 173 innings in 2010, so a 12 inning increase isn’t hard to believe pending health. Dillon Gee is the real wild card here, going 156 innings in 27 starts, or roughly 5.6 innings per start. If Gee could make 31 starts, and even keep up that 5.6 IP, he’d venture above the mentioned 175 IP. Johan Santana is being predicted lightly, due to the fact even if he pitches opening day, more than 25 starts from Johan seems to be out of the question.
If the starters can pull their weight and literally pitch 14 more innings as opposed to lesser pitchers, the Mets may stand a significantly better chance to challenge in the NL East.
About the Author: Sean Kenny
Sean Kenny is a student/writer currently attending school at the City College of New York. For more Mets news, notes and thoughts follow him on twitter @TheSeanKenny
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 24 | 18 | .571 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 20 | .535 | 1.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 23 | .465 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 16 | 24 | .400 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 32 | .256 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
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‘If the starters can pull their weight and literally pitch 14 more innings as opposed to lesser pitchers, the Mets may stand a significantly better chance to challenge in the NL East.’
Problem is…who the SP will be to start the season and how many others we use throughout the season. Our replacement SPs right now are extremely thin. Unless we’re counting on 1 or 2 of those prospect arms to make a debut mid season.
And then there’s the whole Johan question mark. If Johan isn’t ready to go, who takes his place? (and I don’t mean as ace but just 1 of the starting 5). If he’s not coming back until later – or even at all this season, that rotation looks worse than mediocre.
I still expect a few more to be brought on board during ST.
Between now and then there will be a couple more Batista’s and James’.
I am cautiously optimistic that the SP will not be as bad as many people seem to think it will be,
one way to look at an off year overall is that they are primed to do better (no where to go but up?). Gee has a bit more expereince, Neise I really think is ready to take a big step forward, and pelf just can’t be worse (maybe the even year deal is true?).
anyway, santana who the heck knows. I think someone totally unexpected (as in, not surrently with the team) makes a bunch of starts in his place.
so there is a reasonable shot that the SP will end up somewhere around the serviceable to OK range. Occasionally very good games (especialy form Dickey and Neise), and usually keeping the team in games giving the offense a chance to win it for them.
being in such a tough division is still a killer though. That alone can make the team look worse than it really is. Too bad unlce Bud didn’t move them to the central, where they would look a lot more competitive!
Hi Sean,
If Gee, Pelfrey and Neise of course improve their overall performances then it’s automatic they will be going deeper into the game.
There is also another factor that might enable our starters to go more into the seventh inning -the home run ball we hope will again be generated thanks to finally getting rid of those ridiculous distances and high walls. In a close game, it might not be necessary for Terry to pinch hit for his starters as often as he had do in the middle innings because we just don’t have to rely on bunching hits together to have a big inning. Now in a close game Terry has more flexibility knowing we don’t have to rely solely on getting three hits to produce just one run. There will be more opportunities to score runs thanks to the more potent power in our lineup not being short-changed.
So maybe if our starters can improve their game enough to where they sport an ERA of around 4.00 (rather than 4.50), that will mean three runs in almost seven full innings, not six and less reliance on the bullpen.
So if our power does pick up, it might affect the pitching aspect of the game if we can simply cut off that one-half run from those three starters. The combination of a little less runs given up and a few more being scored can make a big difference in saving the bullpen.
Let’s hope that is the case.
the starters ERA of 4.12 isn’t horrible, but you won’t right home about it. None of the starters had an ERA under 4 other than Dickey. My only beef betting innings on Pelfrey is he is already at “201″. He would have to go 6 2/3 on average to get to 217 innings in 33 starts. If he goes an average of 6 innings, that total is 198.
I didn’t mention the offense in this piece because as important as Jose Reyes was/is, the return of Ike Davis, hopeful maturity of Duda/Murphy, and the possibility that Torres outperforms Pagan, are about scoring aggregate runs, and I believe a full season of Tejada may not be Jose Reyes…but it could be half of him, with hopefully significantly better health.
Pelfrey needs to give us 201 good to decent innings instead of mostly bad. I still would trade him.(Come on Pittsburgh, Pelfrey instead of Burnett)
If they trade Pelfrey, who eats 200+ innings?
Agreed, the desire to dump Pelfrey just because we are tired of him or because his innings are not “quality” is foolish for now. If you are looking for him to be a top of the rotation or even mid-rotation starter then stop looking and accept him for a back of the rotation guy. When you do that he is actually not bad at all and an asset. Now that being said, if they could trade Bay for Burnett then you could talk about trading Pelfrey.
What, his 200innings of suck? I’m sure we could have found something.
Plus Mike didn’t even each 200 innings last year and has only barely topped 200 innings twice…200.2 in 2008 and 204 in 2010.
The starting pitching is frah-gee-lay. That is my knock with Alderson has been addressing the SP situation. Yes, it may not be as bad as we think assuming the SP surprises us, but I’d say that while that is a possibility, it certainly is not a probability. And based on health alone, they need some more bodies, to jump in when/if there is injury to the 4 of the 5 in the rotation and certainly concerning Santana (assuming he will not be ready to start the season).
frah-gee-lay? Must be French.
oi.
That sounds more like yiddish.
It’s just so hard not knowing Johan’s situation. You have to look for guys that would come in as a long-man or are willing to go to AAA in the event Johan is healthy. It’s not like they are sending Pelfrey or Gee to the pen or to the minors so… You are not going to get any decent starter to come here while telling them, you can start as long as Johan is injured.
There are people who are looking for that 6th starter spot. Much like Cap. Even if they may suck, signing Kazmir, Young, and 2-3 other to minor league deals would be in the best interest of the team. If they suck, you cut them. If they don’t, you can always trade surplus. Just my thoughts, anyway. The ramblings of a lunatic.
If the Mets sign Young…he is a late-summer sign, as he said he won’t begin pitching until May. I’d love to avoid Batista like the plague….so if the innings aren’t going to Schwinden or a better option, it’ll do more harm then good.
You know Batista is not as bad as people make out. He’s just about like Dessens, I would not mind him getting the long-man role out of the gates and be that spot starter for now.
They still have plenty of time to sign guys like that…. heck Jon Garland just now signed.
Well, i hope to heck they do just that.
Here is a list of guys who at least pitched last year in the bigs from mlbtr:
Kyle Davies (28)
Doug Davis (36)
Sergio Mitre (31)
Roy Oswalt (34) – Type A, no arbitration offer
Rick VandenHurk (27)
Javier Vazquez (35)
Tim Wakefield (45)
Brandon Webb (33)
Chris Young (33)
Right-handed relievers
David Aardsma (29)
Danys Baez (34)
Jason Isringhausen (39)
Tony Pena (30)
Michael Wuertz (33)
Left-handed relievers
Mike Gonzalez (34)
Damaso Marte (37)
Arthur Rhodes (41)
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Are you kidding Extreem? These are the moves that should’ve been made. I can’t believe you think that the HORRENDOUS job that sabergoon Sandy is doing couldn’t have been better if he signed one of theses guys ( SARCASM).
Add Kazmir to that list as well. There are a couple of intriguing names there. Obviously Vasquez is going to most likely retire and Wakefield is not going to some other teams AAA. Mitre has experience in NY and can pitch out of the pen, Doug Davis is most likely shot. Davies I have always thought there was some potential but he certainly has not shown it.
They should sign Wakefield and see if Thole has a nervous breakdown.
LOL.
Yeah but all we are looking for is a guy to head to AAA, not going to be any sexy names for that for sure.
Also keep in mind that there will be some John Maine types out there as well, guys that are barley hanging on and might get dumped in a trade. Who knows maybe someone would want Baxter or Loewen and we could trade one to get a scrub starter.
Here’s also a list of guys who are out of options that could play a role as well:
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/02/out-of-options-2012.html
Gorzelany would be worth a look