Early in the spring, lots of marginal hitters get to face "the fringe" - marginal pitchers. And vice versa.
"Marginal" being defined here as guys who are either journeymen, fringe types, or are guys who are not yet really close to the bigs, but are being given ABs and IPs to challenge them.
Ten of the bottom eleven pitchers for the Mets, ERA-wise, fall into that "marginal" category.
Nerves or otherwise, the "Marginals" are not shutting down the opposing hitters.
The ten of the bottom eleven Mets' ERA pitchers so far:
Most are clearly guys who won’t make the opening
day 2020 roster:
Between them, they have combined for 23.2 IP,
allowing 35 hits, 27 runs, 8 homers and 13 walks.
The good news? The rest of the pitchers, heavily weighted to guys who will be on the opening day roster, have allowed just 17 runs in 80 innings. Which is pretty excellent, if you ask me.
But...the spring is still young. Stay tuned.
I'm not concerned about the fringe guys who are recovering from injury or not yet in AAA. The others, however, can spike the price of stomach medicine.
ReplyDeleteSo true. The Mets really overused marginal pitchers in 2018 and still heaviliy, but to a lesser extent, used them in 2019. Not a winning approach based on their poor performance spanning the 2 years.
ReplyDeleteOn the Fringe
ReplyDeleteI sort of favor Uceta, Blackham, and Zamora myself. Not sure if they would be called "fringe pitchers" because they could already be slated to be breaking camp as a NY Met. Wouldn't surprise me actually.
Regarding Spike Lee's seat at the Garden
ReplyDeleteIt was just announced that his two seats courtside at MSG were given away to Lil Penny and his sock puppet wife Shaka.
Lee, if he decides to come back, will be given a new seat by the Men's Room up top at MSG.
Also: My Great Grandfather said that he liked his movies back in the 1970's.