I have to question that statement about “you can’t keep carrying “hitters” that are hitting on or close to the Mendoza line and think you are going to keep winning.” The Mets are currently seventh in the league in scoring, which places them right in the middle. Not great, not poor, but average. Though we would have more runs to work with if those players hit above their weight, what we have scored nevertheless has been adequate enough. That is why our starters have usually been able to leave games with a lead.

And that is the point.

No matter how many runs or lack of runs the hitters account for in a game, when a team goes into the eighth or ninth inning with a lead, the pen’s job is to then retain it. Not many teams have the fire power of the Yankees who simply score tons of runs in what becomes a boring display of t-ball prowess. Most games are close contests.

We saw in Atlanta where the bats scored more than enough runs but R.A. Dickey didn’t have it. Yet in inning eight the bullpen was still handed a two run lead. Would it have mattered if the score was 2-0 instead of 7-5? And twice on Tuesday night the Met bats were silent into the ninth when ‘Spin hit lightning in a bottle and we suddenly were ahead 4-3. After the bullpen blew it, we came back to again go ahead 5-4. Would it have mattered if it was 14-13 or 15-14 instead?

That is why I raise the point about KRod and Takahashi. With the way they have been performing since slow starts in April, a run or two in the last two innings would have been sufficient to win most of games in which they appeared. That is because each of them has been sporting ERAs below 3.00 since April (or one run for every third inning pitched) which is indicative of one or two runs to work with is sufficient enough to close down the game.

We had both pitchers – not to mention Issringhausen who is pitching wonderful with the Angels in relief as well. With them still on the team, Francisco could go back to pitching earlier in the game, a position he has shown to be more comfortable with. Byrdak would still be a specialist but not need to be used as often as he is. There would be less pressure on everyone.

Now, regarding finances.

In the case of Takahashi, he was willing to stay with the Mets for a two-year deal in which Sandy offered only one. So instead of signing Takahashi in the area of $8 million over two years, he signs a Carasco for two years at $2.4 million, a Tim Byrdak for two years at $1.9 million, a one year deal for a Blaine Boyer for $725K. He selects a rule five draft choice in Beato for approximately $450K. In essence, Sandy did exactly what he said he believed in – spending less on one player so he could get four for the same cost. Takahashi would have earned roughly $4 million in 2011. The combined single season salaries of those four combined amounts to roughly $3.3 million.

That is money ball. If it isn’t, that is simply incompetency in evaluating talent. Either way, it was bad for the team.

KRod, of course, had that $17 million bonus plus another year left in his contract as well. In a billion dollar industry, that type of investment is really of little concern as long as the results are still there. That is different than the contract signed by Jason Bay. The money turned into a bad investment for whatever the reason (let it be Citi Field or Jason or a combination of both), he didn’t produce the results that were expected of him.

Of course, that $17 million bonus and final year would be of concern for a team that is losing money and the owners find themselves in tremendous debt. But this is the New York area, not Pittsburgh, not Oakland, not Kansas City, not even Cleveland. The small market area that hinders those franchises is not a problem here. The hinderence with the Mets is with ownership that lost a lot of capital through the real-estate bust, the Madoff scandal and building a smaller ballpark and demanding high ticket, processing, parking and concession prices from fans as ludicrious as that $17 million closing bonus was to KRod.

So maybe Sandy had no choice but to play money ball with the bullpen. Money ball hasn’t won anybody anything – for as has been detailed, the Oakland A’s under Billy Bean had so much great pitching that was not yet eligible for free agency – along with most of the returning regulars – that in 2002 the loss of Giambi and Damon was of little consequence.

And why? For the same reason that it now pertains to the Mets bullpen. With that great pitching staff, Oakland could afford to lose that run production generated by those two players they lost. To paraphrase, instead of winning by margins of five or six runs, they would win by margins of two or three.

So, in response to “you can’t keep carrying “hitters” that are hitting on or close to the Mendoza line and think you are going to keep winning”, Kay, I honestly think that is not looking at the overall and more complex picture. If the Mets had a bullpen anything close to average, their batters have been producing adequate enough runs for them to hold leads and not to let close games in which they are trailing get out of hand in the late innings.

It was also written that the bullpen is a problem, but you are twisting it, just because.

They all supported playing MONEYBALL and have since even before K-Rod was sent!
Whenever K-Rod is mentioned they bring up MONEY! Not YOUR money…Not MY money, Not even THIER Money!

They have more concern for WILPON’S MONEY than they do how good this team is built and who it has to win games with!

Thats the bottom line here.

They all supported Sandy because he played Moneyball and now that it has showed how good it is at finding players they are all running around pointing at anything that moves to blame it on!

In the last two days alone we have heard the following:
1 – An entire Article based entirely on manipulation via use of appearance qualifier (Qualifier is another way of saying only HALF the truth) on how this Bullpen is not as bad as it seems. No one bought it everyone saw right through it and then Parnell sealed the deal by blowing another save that night followed by beato.

2 – Now today we are hearing it’s the lineup that makes our Bullpen so bad not the bullpen itself. They would be better if the Lineup is which we all know is bull because in order for a PEn to get a loss they have to be at minimum tied when they come in or have a lead they gave up, both of which says the Lineup was doing it’s job at the time!

Tomorrow it will be some other excuse….

And Why?
Because they saw a GM who decided to play Moneyball, They like Moneyball and they went out of thier way to support every moneyball move we have made.

And now they need to find some way of getting out of it!
Because those who knew it was wrong were all called crazy idiots…
Well thier chickens have come to roost!
You get what you pay for!
Pay dirt what you get is DIRT!

And notice last year’s closer has allowed just nine earned runs over his last 31 innings (an ERA of approximately 2.6), has lowered his ERA to from 6.57 on May 1st to 3.71 as of today and LEADS THE LEAGUE with 47 appearances?

How come those who want to say the Francisco we have now has put up similar stats to the Francisco we once had after citing all the above. The talk is about how well Frank has performed since his early season problems, just like KRod. Well, on May 2nd, Frank Francisco was sporting an ERA of 6.97 – 0.50 higher than KRod – and has lowered it to 4.97 – which is now 1.26 higher.

But I agree with some that say that the Mets would be way overpaying for him this year. They are right you know, it’s not worth paying all those millions to a guy who would be sitting mostly on the bullpen bench because his fellow relievers blows games before he would have a chance to come in and pitch the ninth. That is, of course, since we chose to offer Takahashi only a one year deal and decided not to keep Issringhaussen at all.

Well, in November the Mets needed a $40 million bridge loan to meet their operational expenses for the month so it is obvious they desperately needed to save every dollar they could during the season. That is why they dumped KRod. It was not part of any “vision” on the part of Sandy other than to keep the Wilpons afloat as much as he could. That $17 million closing bonus was creeping in fast.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=rodrifr03&t=p&year=2012

Truth is the lineup fails about as often as it always had but the problem is even when they don’t fail the Bullpen manages to blow those games anyway.

That wasn’t the case as often in the past. Certainly not in 2010!
And it started in the 2nd Half of 2011, Right after we got rid of the one reliable closer we had.

Did I say one was better or worse then the other?

Care to answer?

Yet building from within is all about drafting players so it’s not a VISION…You can’t see what your going to get you can only see what you already have.

It is an awful bullpen

and

There is some dead weight in that lineup.

I’m having the same discussion with some others and they still claim they are happy about the long-term vision of Sandy by rebuilding from within. But what I would like to know where this suddenly becomes a “vision”? Isn’t it when a team starts getting old, unless it the Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies etc. with money to burn, they build up from the minors?

And this is a team that isn’t either old or in need of a total re-building. But it’s leaks are starting to show and the front office isn’t doing anything to patch up the holes. Is every one of our prospects an untouchable?

I’m arguing with jessep that the pen sucks and needs to be fixed and I’m arguing with everyone else that the pen isn’t the only issue right now and not the only reason why they are losing.

It’s very easy to blame everything on the pen right now. AND YES THE PEN NEEDS TO BE FIXED! IT IS BLOWING TOO MANY GAMES!!!

But we also have to realize that during this losing streak we’ve seem bad hitting and bad starting pitching too. We can blame three maybe four losses on the pen, but that still leaves the rest of the team on the hook for the other losses. Our pen is a weakness, but our strengths are not bailing out our weakness.

Your argument is basically if the offense would score 12 runs a game our Bullpen wouldn’t have the record it does!

Thats just rediculous to say about a team who is 11th in run scoring, 13th in BA, 10th in OBP and 8th in the league in RBI!

Way ahead of Cincy whose pen has a 18-14 record without having better players to get them there!

Your whole argument is an unsubstatiated joke!

A net difference of 12 games better than ours….

Where would this team be if we had thier staff?

Answer 4 games ahead in the division!

Show us how the other players caused all those losses?
I dare you!
I know you won’t because you know full well what I’m saying is right!

I agree that this losing streak isn’t all on the bullpen. Fact is, the hitting hasn’t been there, Santana and RAD have had poor starts and even with good starts from Niese and Young, their previous starts were bad. Let’s not forget the poor defence and bad base running too (*Cough* Torres *Cough*)

Ike isn’t back yet, Duda is slumping and Bay has a lot to prove, so yes there is an issue there.

But you can’t argue that the Pen ins’t the area of greatest concern right now. I’d go back to last year when we had a pretty good pen until K-Rod was traded and back when we had a good pen until Wags got injured and was out. Even losing Fransisco (as bad as he is) has had a very negative effect on the pen. Losing a strong closer has proven to have huge repercussions throughout the pen…so I’d argue that adding a strong closer will have huge positive effect on every relievers performance.

Will adding a closer fix everything? probably not, but it’s the most glaring issue on this team. The Bats will hit again and the rotation should be able to rebound. I don’t see this pen doing that.

The only way to get a win is to come in Tied (same 26) or Behind (119) and in those games the team Jessup is trying to blame is what saved them! Doesn’t show the pitchers actually held anyone or did not give up runs, just that the team covercame those games by scoring enough to win!

So all the wins they have are a product of the team Jessup wants to blame, Most if not all of the losses are due to them giving up a run or runs after the team kept pace or GOT us the lead only to see it go bye bye due to the pen (and we have just seen a few games where that happened!)

If he really wants to show the team is the problem then let him show us how all of thier losses are the product of coming into a tied game!
We know thats not true because of qall the games we know just off the top of our head where they had a lead only to give it up!

Jessup seems to be coming around on his wrongness of the Bullpen and Good Day…
But he is trying to supplant that argument with his old argument that this team isn’t good enough and even if he was right things would be the same.
We all know thats not true!
We all also know that if the pen didn’t suck and played at least .500 baseball we would be leading the division right now!

with 30 decisions if they had just gone 15-15 we would be 4 games up where a win tonite could tie us for the division!