Reese Kaplan -- Hated Mets Relievers Part 3 of 4

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 9^th 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!”