Should Dan Warthen Be Worried About His Job Security?

How much blame does pitching coach Dan Warthen warrant for the lack of early season success from the 2-5 pitchers?

A lot? A little? None?

If the Mets are going to win this thing, it’s going to take a lot more than Johan Santana and good bullpen. The inability for our starters to pitch deep into games may have already begun the bullpen erosion that we saw last season, only back then it didn’t start until August.

Aside from Santana who has as much contact with Dan Warthen as we do with President Obama, the rest of the rotation which includes Oliver Perez, John Maine, Mike Pelfrey and Livan Hernandez, all find themselves with ERA’s over 5.40.

Perez has regressed so much so, that his $36 million dollar contract has put the Mets in a choke hold.

Pelfrey took a big step forward in his last start, but the real test comes tonight against a Phillies lineup that is stacked with some of the best lefthanded bats in the league.

Dan Warthen is fast approaching the one year mark as the Mets pitching coach, and in that time we have seen Maine, Perez and Pelfrey all regress. The walk rates are higher, the strikeout rates are lower, and counting on either of them is as uncertain as the current stock market.

Warthen also didn’t endear himself to the staff at the start of Spring Training when he blamed Johan Santana for rushing through his preparation and risking injury so that he could be ready for the WBC. Two weeks later he would call Oliver Perez a disaster saying he showed up out of shape and unwilling to conform to his teachings from the season before.

We have already heard some murmurings about HoJo’s job security, and some are calling for Jerry Manuel’s head especially after some controversial calls he’s made lately.

My question is why is Dan Warthen getting a free ride? Isn’t he as much to blame as anybody else for the Mets sluggish start?

I found it ironic how so many people recently called for Howard Johnson’s head when over half of the lineup was hitting well over .300 this season. Performance like that should buy HoJo a very large dose of job security in my opinion.

But in the case of Dan Warthen, the stats paint an entirely different picture.