Hefner Will Likely Be The Loser When Wheeler Gets The Call

Poor Jeremy Hefner…

As we usher in what we hope will be the long and prosperous era of Zack Wheeler, perhaps as soon as next week, there’s no question who the Mets will probably cut to make room for him. That distinction will fall to lefthanded reliever Robert Carson – he of the 9.00 ERA , 3.9 K9 and 1.52 WHIP. If you can bet on sports, putting all your chips on cutting Carson is easy money. Pack some sunscreen, Robert…

The difficult decision comes down to who gets bumped from the starting rotation to make room for the Prince of New York. The choice will likely come down to a battle between Jeremy Hefner and Dillon Gee.

Given that Shaun Marcum was Sandy Alderson’s biggest haul of the offseason, you can also wager that the veteran will be excluded from the conversation by virtue of his $4 million price tag.

If you were to rank these three statistically, Hefner would be the big winner while Marcum and Gee would be holding up the rear. But for an organization who was supposed to use numbers and statistics to direct their decisions, that really hasn’t ever materialized and it certainly won’t begin here. My hunch is that the one who has performed the best in the rotation, will be the biggest loser.

Jeremy Hefner: .255 BAA – 1.30 WHIP – 4.34 ERA – 57.0 IP

Dillon Gee: .309 BAA – 1.58 WHIP – 5.69 ERA – 57.0 IP

Shaun Marcum: .293 – 1.37 WHIP – 5.71 ERA – 41.0 IP

If you were to take Hefner’s BAA and ERA and compare them to the other number five starters in the the game, the Mets have themselves one of the top number five starters in the game. The other two? They are subterranean, but both rate higher than Hefner on the seniority scale which has always mattered most with Terry Collins and Sandy Alderson.

It will be a tough break for Hefner who has worked his tail off for the Mets so far this season and has not been as bad as his 1-5 record would indicate.