The Morning Report - Mets Pitching Analysis 2006

Here’s an ‘end of the year 2006’ recap I wrote for NYFS on the Mets pitching… sit back and enjoy this one:

Boy, now here’s a position Mets fans can get excited about!

It’s amazing that the biggest question this year for the Mets was the depth of their starting pitching. At the same time, no position had more quality depth in their minor league system than starting pitching. Go figure.

The Mets seem to have double figures in major league potential starters down in their system, spread out from AAA to the Latin leagues. 4 seem to be ready for the big leagues… Mike Pelfrey, Brian Bannister, Oliver Perez, and Dave Williams. Oliver and Perez are out of options and will never pass through waivers after their pitching performances this past month. We know Pedro will be back and it looks like John Maine will be in next year’s plans. Past that, who the heck knows about Tom Glavine, Steve Trachsel, Victor Zembrano and Orlando Hernandez. I’ve mentioned 10 starters. There’s room for 5. You take it from there.

Mack – Don’t we seem to always have this problem?   

   

2008 should graduate Phil Humber and 2009 is a lock for phenom Deolis Guerra, but the question marks are a bunch of quality 2nd level prospects that also are scheduled to be ‘ready’ in the next 3 years… Alay Soler… Blake McGinley… Mike Devaney… Jon Niese.

Soler might have had the most embarrassing debut in many a year and there’s a good chance we may never see him again at the major league level. McGinley and Devaney both are control pitchers and their future probably is as long-relievers rather than rotational starters. And it’s frankly just too early to figure out if Niese has what it takes to make it in the majors.

Behind them come the kiddies –two starters stood out at Kingsport, Greg Mullens and Tim Stronach, both of which should start out 2007 at either Brooklyn or Hagerstown. No one stood out at the GCL level, but Brooklyn featured last year’s Latin leader, Nelson Portillo, plus Todd Privett, Jacob Ruckle, and Tobi Stoner, all of which should compete for a starting position in 2007 either at Hagerstown or St. Lucie.

The fact remains that Pelfrey, Humber, and Guerra seem to insure that the Mets starting rotation will be properly replenished over the next 3-4 years.

Mack – well, what do we take away from this one…

The first thing that stands out glaringly is the names. It’s amazing how few of these people ever made a difference.

Of course, I’m not talking about Glavine, but the rest of the names just make me smile.

I remember when Mike Pelfrey was going to be the original Matt Harvey. He was going to lead this team to glory.

The other thing you walk away with, similar to now, the glut of starters trying to make the Queens rotation. Back then, we thought we had this all figures out and all these pitchers I mentioned in this article were going to carry us to multiple pennants.

Writing articles about last year’s stats is an exact science. Writing another article trying to predict next year’s team isn’t. I seems to have a few things right here. I called for Maine correctly though his success didn’t last. Guerra was lost in the ‘famous trade’ and Jon Niese turned out okay, didn’t he?

Articles like this are a fair warning for ‘guppy’ followers. You can write about ceiling’ and ‘5 tool’ all you want, but only time will tell when things work out. …  -

(Mets trade P Noah Syndergaard, C Kevin Plawecki, P Gabriel Ynoa, and 1B Jayce Boyd to Colorado for SS Troy Tulowitzki) -