Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Pelfrey
I would think if Pelfrey has another 2-3 bad outings in a row, they need to think about putting him back into AAA to have more time to develop. Keeping in him in majors if he's not yet ready will only lead to losses for Mets, and potentially damage his psyche. Not that we have a lot of good options if we stay within the organization: Chan Ho might be up.
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3 comments:
I disagree. Pelfrey's arm and stuff are major league ready. He's got to build up a comfort zone and overcome the "I'm facing major league hitters" mental hurdle. If he's not mentally tough enough now, I have no reason to think he will be b/c of another year at AAA.
Young pitchers can take radically divergent paths to success (or failure). For every phenom who's great right from the beginning (like Gooden & Clemens), there are plenty of guys with talent who become excellent big leaguers who take time to develop (Glavine, for instance).
In reality, this is the perfect situation to throw Pelfrey into the fire. He's going to lose his spot in the rotation to Pedro for the playoff push anyway, so we're not counting on him for the post season. Instead, he has an extended time with the big club to not only get his feet wet, but get in a rhytm of starting every fifth game and hopefully overcome his jitters.
You can't give up on a guy with A-caliber stuff after 2 bad starts. Not even after 5 or 6 bad starts in a row. Pelfrey's not a "maybe" big leaguer. He'll be in the league. Either we'll have the patience to get him up to the bigs or he'll do it somewhere else.
Sounds like metties might be thinking of moving him down..
From Post: Although the Mets quickly explained he would remain in the rotation, GM Omar Minaya left some wiggle room after the uninspiring outing.
"You always consider those things with young starters," Minaya said. "Right now, I expect him to get another start.
"I want to reserve the right to speak with my manager."
Including his last two debacles in spring training, pelfrey has now been rocked in 4 of his last 5 starts. He made it clear during last season that he didn't trust his own stuff, which is why he tended to walk a lot of batters rather than go after them. I definitely appreciate that it might take him a half season or more in majors to really trust himself and become the pitcher he is touted as. The problem I have to go back to is that I don't know if this team can afford two major question marks in starting rotation (Perez + Pelfrey) until August when Pedro (hopefully) returns healthy, if the Braves hang around.
If our #4 guy was more consistent I'd say roll the dice with Pelfrey, even if we take an L 3/4 of the time, at least let him develop. But mets are taking a big gamble to have two big unknowns at back end of rotation, especially with a bullpen where only feliciano and smith seem like sure things.
The flip side of course is, if not Pelfrey, then who? Chan Ho is not very inspiring, and I think it's still too early to bring up Humber. So your only real option is to trade, if both Perez and Pelfrey don't settle in.. However, instead of giving up a lot of our young prospects to pursue a solid #1 or #2, we could give up less and just go after a moderate (but consistent) #3 or #4.
I remember reading a quote from Kamir last year who said he'd still be in AAA if he was with the Mets.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to Omar demote Pelfrey, but I think it would be a mistake. It takes at least 10-15 starts to make any kind of valid assessment of what you have. We might as well find out.
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