When Will Dan Warthen And The Mets Part Ways?

I know it’s only April, we’re less than 20 games into a very long 2011 season, but so far the pitching has been bad. Actually bad is an understatement, the pitching from the entire staff has been downright awful! There is no way to sugarcoat it, the team as of this writing is currently 5-13, the worst record in the majors. Now the offense is not producing the way it should, I’ll give the pitching staff that – but the limited offense has given the pitchers many leads only to see the staff later blow said leads.

As of this writing there have been 18 games played. In those games Mets pitching has currently walked 79 batters, 4 of which were intentional walks in just 160 innings pitched. The staff ERA is 5.25 and their WHIP is 1.62 this season. Already the staff has given up 20 home-runs as well.

The Mets walk too many batters and those walks almost always come back to haunt the team. It’s interesting that this season as of this writing, R.A Dickey has walked 12 batters in just 4 games.  None of those walks are intentional walks. Last year Dickey in 27 games walked just 42 batters. Now it’s also interesting to note that Dickey spent a good part of last year at Triple A, not working with Dan Warthen. Could it be coincidence? Absolutely, but the entire staff is having trouble throwing strikes. Another case would be Dillon Gee. Gee this past weekend had a great outing, he threw strikes. Overall he looked more composed than some of our starters out there. Once again he hasn’t worked with Warthen much at all.

Equally if not more so troubling than the walks is the injuries our pitchers have had under Warthen over the years. The starting staff over the last few seasons have battled injuries with Warthen as the pitching coach. There were reports in 2009 that Santana was skipping side sessions dealing with his elbow injury and Warthen did not know about that. I find that unacceptable. Santana is the ACE of the staff and he’s paid a lot of money to pitch but the pitching coach, whose job it is to know the health of his pitchers was not aware of the situation.

The pitchers under Warthen have also regressed. Look at Pelfrey and his struggles. Also Maine and Perez were coming along fine until the firing of Rick Peterson and the promotion of Dan Warthen.

Warthen also has a problem of talking to the media and saying things he shouldn’t. Let’s not forget last year and the fiasco with him calling John Maine a “habitual liar.” In Spring Training Warthen told the media and the rest of baseball that he believes Mejia would be a reliever instead of a top of the rotation starter. Not only did he go against what the team plans but he could have killed any potential value Mejia may have one day if the Mets wanted to trade him.

I was surprised that Warthen kept his job, though I guess I shouldn’t be with this GM and manager. Hopefully soon the Mets will realize that Warthen is doing more harm than good for the staff and part ways with him.