So suppose I came to you and said, “I have this pitcher I’d
like you to consider as part of a trade.
For his career he has a 3.11 ERA over 388 games and is in his prime at
age 30 this season.” You’d probably
think, “Hmmn…our bullpen could use that kind of quality arm and at that age
he’s going to be a solution for the next 5 years or so…let’s do it.”
On Halloween Eve, let me present you with something truly horrifying:
Well, in this case it wasn’t a one-off trade, but a six
player deal between the Mets and the Cubs that saw the Mets sending Manny
Alexander, Mark Clark and Lance Johnson to the Windy City. In return they received Turk Wendell, Brian
McRae and the aforementioned pitcher with the pretty gaudy numbers – Mel
Rojas. Believe it or not, the Mets
seemed to come out the winners of this transaction, but Mel Rojas was not part
of the positive side of the ledger.
During his mercifully brief Mets career, Rojas’ numbers were
extremely ugly. He did manage to have a
winning record of 5-4 over his 73 Mets games, but some of them were vulture
victories based upon his 5.76 ERA during that span of parts of two seasons. During 1997 he uncharacteristically walked
very few and struck out a lot – a 5.33 K:BB ratio – but the following year,
ugh! His ratio plummeted to a mere 1.37
with the walks very nearly equaling the strikeouts. In 1998 the Mets traded him to the Los Angeles
Dodgers for a former Met who had been run out of town, Bobby Bonilla. It turned out to be a lose-lose for both
sides.
Perhaps what sealed his fate in Mets fan annals as one of
the most despised players of all time occurred during the first ever Subway
Series against the New York Yankees at Shea Stadium. In the game the Mets were up 4-3 late in the
game when manager Bobby Valentine must take the blame for making a boneheaded
call. The Yanks had two men on and Paul
O’Neill due up. O’Neill was a good
player who turned it up several notches when he went from Cincinnati to the
Bronx. However, he’d never been good at
facing lefties and the Mets had their stalwart lefty-killer, Dennis Cook,
warmed up and ready to go in the bullpen.
Instead Valentine chose to go with Rojas who admittedly had a good
reverse splits throughout his career, but everyone knew it was a mistake. Sure enough, O’Neill deposits one into the
stands not far from where I was sitting and the Yankees took the game from the
Mets.
Later that same season there was a game in which the Mets
were trailing 4-0 to the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks. Valentine chose to bring Rojas in for what
was essentially mop-up duty and he proceeded to give up 3 hits, 2 walks and a
total of 5 runs in the blink of an eye!
The Mets lost the game, of course, but ironically rallied in the 9th
for 4 runs which would have tied the game had Rojas not imploded entirely.
In September of 1998 the Mets were still in the hunt for the
playoffs and Bobby Valentine finally learned his lesson, not letting Rojas
anywhere near the mound. The fans
screamed and booed mercilessly when his name was announced. His Mets legacy was perhaps best summarized
by a game notes strategy on the Cubs scoreboard in Wrigley Field (his former
employer) which read, “Do not let Mel Rojas beat you. That would be embarrassing!”
4 comments:
Another guy who saved the worst of his career for the Mets. The Mets hoped to catch lightning in a bottle with Mel. Instead they were struck by lightning.
Relief pitchers are often hard to predict. They have a lot of ups and downs. Usually they have one or two good years and can't seem to repeat it. The Mets sure have tried to resurrect a number of relief pitchers after they crashed. Besides Rojas there was Mike Marshall, Butch Metzger, Jose Valverde, just to name a few. My advice, have as many in the pipeline as possible and use the ones that do well. Don't keep running the same AAAA pitchers out there hoping for different results.
I still think a team is best served by drafting more reiief specialists out of college and putting them on a fast pace.
We have some guys ready to make the final jump... villines. Gilliam. Nogosek. Blackham.
Promote all 4 this spring and stop attending garage sales.
We should emulate the Rays model of bullpen construction......somehow, they have a great pen year in and year out. Most of the guys are no name types that know their role and fill it admirably. It is also a very budget friendly way of conducting business, which would leave cash available for other needs (unless you are the Wilpons, then it would put more cash in their pockets, I suppose).
Oh and thank you for the "reminder" of Mel FREAKING Rojas!
We seem to have more then our share of solid relief pitchers who lose their minds once they get here.
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