Tom Brennan - WHO COMES TO MIND WHEN I THINK OF WHEELER AND ROBLES?

photo by Mack Ade

When you are a long-time baseball fan, you will find yourself watching players and thinking that they remind you of players that you've seen before.  I know that I do. 

Recently, that has happened when I think about Zack Wheeler and Hansel Robles. 

Who do they remind you of?  I will tell you who they remind me of.

 In Wheeler's case, two pitchers come to mind: John Maine and Mike Pelfrey.

Big Pelf was a man of huge promise early on.  He, like Wheeler, actually had a few pretty good seasons, even if they were not up to early high hopes of greatness.  

Pelfrey subsequently did not figure it out and get better; nope, he instead got worse and recently ended his career at a lousy 68-103.  

I hope that Zach gets his act together yet and show us that unlike Pelf, he can still be a high end of the rotation guy...he just hasn't shown it at all over the past 3+ years.

Hard throwing John Maine actually  did pretty well after the Mets acquired him from Baltimore a little over 10 years ago.  In his first three seasons with the Mets, he was a very decent 31 - 23 with an ERA in the high threes, pretty reminiscent of Zack Wheeler's performance prior to his Tommy John surgery period.

After that Maine did poorly in just 127 more big league innings and was out of baseball pretty quickly. Once again, I hope that Zach's future career has a much higher arc than that of John Maine.  But at the time I felt the same about John Maine.

It is no guarantee here that Wheeler will return from Vegas and be a successful starting Mets pitcher.  Zach's got to put the work in and get straightened out.  Or become an afterthought like John Maine quickly did.

Of course, Zach also has plenty of current competition, too...Vargas, Lugo, Gsellman, Conlon, Flexen, and Oswalt, to name six...simply, Zach should have been more ready this spring.  Now he is one among many.

Robles?  Reminds me of fireballin' Manny Acosta.  The hard throwing Acosta was 7-3, ERA about 3.20 spanning 2010 and 2011 for the Mets, success reminiscent of early Robles.  

But Oh Manny Boy had a miserable 47 innings in 2012 (6.46 ERA), and allowed 13 homers in 94 innings in 2011 and 2012, eerily reminiscent of Robles' high HRs allowed rate, and similarly showing that if you throw straight fastballs at 97 over the heart of the plate, too many quality major league hitters will clear the fences with them.  Fast in, faster out.

Acosta never resurfaced in the majors after 2012, so Robles, absent needed changes, could face the same fate.  He needs to refine the repertoire - if he can.  And soon.  He too faces scads of competition.

That's it folks, until the next time.