I would say emphatically that three players who should not be on the post-season roster are Scho, Sele, and Mota. I'm on the fence with Heilman b/c his numbers are so jekyll and hyde, but in the hopes that the good aaron shows up (and since we don't have a lot of other options), I'd say include him. But if this team has any hope of winning a close, low-scoring game against top notch starting pitchers of SD, LA, or in WS Angels, Indians, or Red Sox, they cannot afford any of the garbage time that those three guys bring. I'm sick of watching close lead after close lead blown by the Three Stooges.
I'd say here is the rotation:
Starting pitchers: Glavine - Duque - Pedro - Maine.
Pen: Perez - Feliciano - Pelfrey - Heilman - Sosa - Wagner - ??.
I assume Lawrence, Collazo and Humber will not make the roster. I also wonder whether duque is more valuable coming out of pen or starting? On most teams I'd say clearly the answer is starting, since he is a rock in playoffs. But given our shaky bullpen, and the fact that most of our starters only go 6 innings thus really increasing the importance of the pen, I think you could make an argument that he could win us more games by coming in as a reliever to shut things down.
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It's all a question of health. Yesterday's Newsday had a story that Duque's foot is still hurt. If he's healthy and Pedro's healthy, I'd guess the roster would be:
Duque-Glavine-Pedro-Perez
and the pen would be:
Maine - Sosa - Scho - Mota - Feliciano - Heilman - Wagner
Maine is more likely to translate effectively to the pen than Perez, so my WAG is that Perez is the 4th starter.
I also think the Mets will only carry 11 pitchers in the playoffs, but 12 isn't out of the question.
The Mets will probably carry Scho because, whilie Feliciano is an 8th inning guy, Scho is a lefty you can use in a situational matchup against a lefty for one or two batters in the 6th or 7th innnig. You probably don't want to waste Feliciano in that situation, and Scho has actually been pretty effective against lefties, w/ a .215 BAA for lefties (as opposed to his dreadful .328 BAA for righties). It's when Willie's asked Scho to go pitch a whole inning that he's gotten rocked this year, which he's done almost every time. However, Scho has gotten very little work of recent, which does bolster SHK's guess that he's just out of favor with Willie right now.
Sosa is a similarly limited reliever, with a ridiculous L/R split. You'll use him for a couple of batters against righties (.197 BAA) and replace him against lefties (.318 BAA). He's effective against righties and has his place.
So the question becomes, why Mota and not Pelfrey? Pelfrey's still at a fragile stage in his development. He hasn't yet proven to himself that he can get the job done in the bigs. If you've been following this blog, you know I'm pretty darn confident the kid will be a solid (and maybe excellent) starter for a long time, but putting him in the white hot glare of a playoff game might not make a lot of sense. Lets say he melts down and costs the team the season. How does that impact him? Does he go Anderson Hernandez and need two years just to get his confidence back, even at the minor league level? The risks seem to outweigh the rewards. So Omar and Willie will probably just cross their fingers and hope Mota can not serve up taters.
Good question about Mota and pelfrey, but my reasoning is as follows. First, the Mets (with a forced hand) had to throw Maine and Perez into the spotlight last year in playoffs, and of course that worked out very well both in those games as well as for their confidence this season. Second, while an argument can be made that Mota and Pelfrey this season are similiar (occasional gem innings followed by total garbage), I give Pelf the edge out of the pen since in general he seems to be solid out of the gate. Pelfrey's meltdowns always seem to come in 3rd or 4th inning, so if you put him up to one inning in a situation where he can really focus and give it his all, I like his odds.
Plus, on the upside if it works out well, that could be exactly the confidence boost he needs to take his game to the next level. If he bombs, how bad is the downside really? He's already 2-7 with a 5.23 ERA in MLB this year, so I don't think he could be much less confident with one more bad outing. It's not like he's the closer where the focus is that much greater. Keep him on a short leash, and if he looks like imminent meltdown, pull him.
I at least have confidence that I can get a good inning from Pelfrey. With mota, i just don't know. And as i mentioned in original post with heilman, if there's one thing that I really hate (especially in playoffs) and makes manager's job difficult it's uncertainty. Sure, if Mota's on he's as good as anyone we have out of the pen. But when he's off, it's ugly.
"If he bombs, how bad is the downside really? He's already 2-7 with a 5.23 ERA in MLB this year, so I don't think he could be much less confident with one more bad outing."
We'll, 5.23 is on the cusp of respectability. There's quite a bit of downside from there, actually. And quite a bit of upside as well.
I'm just not confident there's a short term reward for the long term risk. Why would a starting pitcher, who's just beginning to find his sea legs in the bigs as a starter, suddenly be more effective than guys who are (1) comfortable coming out of the pen and (2) veterans who are not intimidated at the major league level.
Granted, Pelf might has an advantage over Mota at this point when it comes to his stuff. Guess I just feel better about a veteran who's just trying to figure out why he's in a rut, rather than a rookie who's trying to figure out everything at once.
Joe Smith anyone?
We'll be riding our bullpen's 'rut' all the way to elimination from the playoffs as they try to figure it out.
I think if they were going to use Joe Smith, they should have brought him back up to MLB sooner. I don't know why they didn't.
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