30
2012
All Aboard The Dickey Train
An article by 
R. A. Dickey is the best starting pitcher on the Mets staff. How many people can honestly say they thought that would ever come out of their mouths? I can’t say I was one of them, and I‘m sure neither can you.
As Mets fans we started to build an affection for the knuckleballer that came out of nowhere back in 2010 when he burst onto the scene.
Dickey’s multifaceted personality has quickly endeared him to the Mets fan base. He has become a fan favorite for his hard work, determination and perseverance, as well as his outstanding performance on the field.
This season he has been all over the place from his book tour and interviews on WFAN to his off-season trek of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
His 12 wins rank him first in all of Baseball ahead of the AL’s David Price and Matt Harrison who both have 11. He is 3rd in the NL with a 2.15 ERA behind Brandon Beachy who is out for the season and will not qualify for enough starts and Ryan Dempster. Prior to this season R. A. had 1 career game of 10 strikeouts or more. So far this season he has 6.
To put it simply R. A. has been just flat out dominant this season. He has 116 strikeouts which is just 18 shy of his career high of 134 which he set last season, and we haven’t even reached the all start break yet. He is currently on pace to strikeout over 200 batters!
Dickey has forced himself into the discussion to be the NL starter in the All-Star game as well as, dare I say, a possible legitimate contender for the NL Cy Young Award.
I don’t want to jump the gun on this since we still have half a season to go, but it sure feels like he has figured something out that has caused him to make a significant stride in his development as a knuckleballer.
I’m no pitching coach and would never claim to know what I am talking about, but just listening to the announcers and analysts it appears that his ability to throw the “hard knuckler’ is what has set him apart. Being able to throw consistent strikes has also helped keep batters off base.
If R.A. continues to pitch like this he will be a mainstay in the Mets rotation for the next few years. If the evolution of his Knuckleball continues, so will his dominance.
Right now hitters are so confused as to what they will get from Dickey when they step in the box. Will they see a 70 MPH dancing Knuckler? Will they see a hard darting knuckleball? Or will they get surprised and flat footed by his overpowering 85 MPH heater? It’s all an art form that Dickey is currently working to master.
I can’t wait to see what the finished product looks like at seasons end. I have a feeling it’s going to be a masterpiece.
About the Author: Dan Valis
I am a staff writer for Mets Merized Online. I am a Mets team analyst with a focus on the minor league system, as well as the major league club. I am a lifelong New Yorker who was born and raised to be a Mets fan. The ups and downs of being a Mets fan is what makes following this team so much fun, but at times so frustrating. You can follow me on Twitter @BgAppleMetsTalk.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 25 | 18 | .581 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 21 | .523 | 2.5 |
| Phillies | 21 | 23 | .477 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 17 | 24 | .415 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 12 | 32 | .273 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/19/2013
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Dan, the more I consider it, the more I would have amended your lead. I think it should read: “R.A. Dickey is the best starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. And it just so happens that he is the ace of the Mets staff.”
“How many people can honestly say they thought that would ever come out of their mouths?”
Actually a lot of people been saying that for two years now…Many thought Dickey should have been our opening day starter and ACE last year…Unfortunatly he never got the run support to justify those lofty titles on him.
He’s getting it now and when you look at our record the fact we are above .500 at all is all showed in Dickey’s record!
He is the difference between last year and this year when it comes right down to it!
Yes, indeed!
What is odd and a bit scary is…
If you replace Dickey with another pitcher who pitches .500 we have a record of 36 – 42. 6 games under .500.
Thats roughly how we finished at the end of last season! (actually finished 8 games under .500) which most people deemed was a team worth scrapping and starting over!
Which says to me if not for Dickey’s outrageously fine performance this team really isn’t much better than it was last year from a Win/Loss Pct perspective, what makes it seem so good is the fact that Dickey is pitching a Cy Young Season and the Phillies who had pretty much run away with the division by this time last year (51 Wins This date last year) blew up!
Washington has 7 fewer wins (44) instead which is the only reason why we are in still in it this year and were not last year!
That and the fact they added one Wildcard to the mix.
Last year’s Mets, if the division was the same as it is this year we would have been 2 games behind in the win column for the Division title!
Much different picture than everyone made it out to be last year isn’t it?
This team hasn’t changed much from last year to this year. Different names distributing the good differently but the biggest difference is a crappy Phillies team and RA Dickey doing his best Roy Halladay Cliff Lee Cy Young Impression!
R A has been great and he is a complete player. He fields, he bunts, and of course he pitches.
On the other hand defense is killing the Mets. The outfield has many miscommunications, Duda is not good in the field at all (but I give him credit for getting some runs in) and It is now time for the Torres experiment to end. You cannot have a top of the lineup guy playing CF hit 208. You just cannot and expect to compete. Imagine Wrights RBI numbers with people ahead of him on base.
Torres has such a high walk rate though that he makes up for it somewhat. If he just got his BA to .250 he’d be fine there.
Until Baxter comes back (which wont be until mid August it seems), there is nothing they can really do besides hope he heats up. The only guys down in the minors they could call up are Fred Lewis and Cory Wimberly, but again 40-man roster issues prevent that from happening.
I saw on a blog in the spring that coming into the 2012 season, since entering the league as a Met, R.A. had very similar stats (using advanced metrics) to Tim Lincecum (pre 1st half 2012 terribleness). I wasn’t sure I bought it. So yes, the man’s been pitching great for a long time.
But to say he’d be the best pitch run baseball. I couldn’t even dream hard enough to make that come true. but it sure is fun to live in that reality.
Run out of superlatives for RA – seems to be a common theme these days.
Just like that commercial……..Robert Allen Dickey, the most interesting man in baseball.
I was a Dickey fan since Omar signed him to that incentive laden minor league contract. He has exceeded my wildest hopes. He may have found some Tablets atop Kilimanjaro….
Dickey should be signed to an incentive laden personal services contract. Be it as Ace, starter, closer, long relief or pitching coach at Kingsport, Tennessee, his native state. Dickey should be locked up for the next 7 years with a front loaded incentive ladden contract.
The man’s knuckleball wisdom and redemption story are unique. They could be shared with other members of the Island of Broken Toys that is the Fraturnity of Minor League Baseball.
Omar was adept at finding gold from the so called “scrap heap”. He found Fernando Tatis and Jose Valentin there as well.
He did a lot of good things, but he also signed Oliver Perez, Jason Bay and Luis Castillo and rushed every single prospect he had to the majors.
or waited to long to trade them as in the cases of Milledge and F-Mart
Man, imagine if we substituted Dempster for Gee.
would be quite foolish to do so…
Yeah, I suppose I should have made that a lil’ more tongue-in-cheek. I was thinking about this year’s numbers, not in terms of Dempster’s career or, naturally, his age.
I do want Gee to succeed for us; just not very confident in him yet.
Gee is on pace for 200+ IP, 200+ SO and his ERA is higher than his peripherals suggest.
He’s surprisingly having a very good year and given his contract, he is an absolute bargain and important part of the team. No reason to even contemplate moving him to the bullpen or signing a SP this offseason…
Unless they get a team to give up a ton for Santana, there is no reason not to go into 2013 with this exact same rotation with Harvey and Wheeler ready to come up if needed…
They might end up in the exact same situation they were in with Capuano with Chris Young, though. If he continues to pitch well, I imagine some club will offer him a multi-year deal, and given his injury history I can’t see Alderson doing that.
The thing is Capuano pitched a full season, Young would only be off half a season and missed pretty much all of 2010 and 2011. He hasn’t made more than 20 starts since 2007!
I would give him a 1 year incentive based contract to come back and if he can do better elsewhere then let him go…
I’m not saying I think Sandy should offer him a multi-year deal, just that I can see another, more desperate club biting the bullet.
and I’m saying I think it’s doubtful someone will…
You give them GMs of the league too much credit. There are plenty of stupid ones out there. Just look at those multi-year deals Minaya handed out like candy. *shutters*
Yeah look at the 3 pennant runs this team had under Minaya with 1 post season appearance.
You’re worrying about things that had NOTHING to do with the Mets winning or losing, you’re just mad they lost the games on the field and you’re complaining about signings like Castillo and Perez which had no impact on the Mets from 06-08 AND would have no impact going forward because of all the injuries to other players. So your complaint about Omar is baseless and just sounds like a fan who can bear the thought of his team just losing out on the World Series in 06 and 2 collapses being a result of the guys on the roster. They had the horses and lost.
You can only HOPE that Alderson can bring to New York the same excitement that Minaya did while he was here. While not perfect he fielded good teams before they got injured in 2009 while he was here. You can also thank him for this year’s team too.
Jeez, you act like I said Minaya was the worst GM of all time. I’m perfectly aware that he did some fine things during his time with the Mets. But he also panicked and gave away terrible contracts multiple times, and you’re delusional if you deny that.
Also Dan Warthen doesn’t get nearly the credit he deserves for the way he’s handled the Mets pitching staff since the day he arrived. He hasn’t always had the best talent to work with but I think this guy would be in demand all around baseball if he ever was available.
A lot of people don’t like Dan Warthen and I cannot understand why, because he’s had a few lackey’s to work with and they didn’t work out? If Dan Warthen was able to turn around EVERY single bad pitcher that put on a Mets uniform since he’s arrived he’d be the greatest pitching coach in history. But that’s not the case because you have fans here that have no common sense and are not able to see that Warthen has overall done an OUTSTANDING job as pitching coach.
How about a big shout out to Dan Warthen? His work with Mets young pitchers the last several years has been remarkable.