Let's revisit an earlier conversation

Back in mid-May, SHK had this to say:

What's different from '06?

...One answer seems to be...luck: we won 6 more games than our pythagorean expected based on runs scored/given up.

My guess is this "luck" had more to do with a solid bullpen preserving leads. At the end of the day I think the reason we won slightly more games than expected in '06 and we're not doing it in '08 (or end of '07) is due to Darren Oliver, Duaner Sanchez, Guillermo Mota, Chad Bradford, Heilman, Feliciano, and Roberto Hernandez. Those guys were all lights out, and except for Feliciano they are no longer with us or not doing well this year.

So, the upshot is that if Omar wants to squeeze more wins out of this team, he better focus on bolstering the bullpen with some in-season acquisitions or trades.

In the comments, I agreed with SHK's reasoning, but I think a somewhat expanded discussion of this required. Because Omar, who was the architect of the '06 pen, didn't go from genius to idiot in two years (if some dementia diagnosis comes out in the press, I'll retract), what made the '06 pen so great (it was) and the '08 pen so bad (it is)?

After all, more than half of the pen is made up of the same dang guys: Wagner, Heilman, Feliciano, Sanchez. So let's start with those guys. Heading into this season, when Omar was putting together his '08 pen, should he have evaluated any of those players differently than he did in '06?

Wagner is getting up there in age, but he hasn't shown any precipitous drop off. After last year, despite fading down the stretch, his season numbers were still good. For his critics, who feel like Wags blows every big game, they probably hate him just as much now as in '06, but the velocity is still there and the numbers out of '07 looked comparable.

Feliciano and Heilman are both guys who have weaknesses, but guys who Omar though highly of. Particularly Heilman, who I always thought Omar thought too highly of. Nevertheless, despite spotty performance at times, their numbers heading into this season were still better-than-average for middle relievers, and both are still in their prime and--one would expect--still improving.

Sanchez was a complete wild card heading into this season, so you had to figure we were going to need to do something to replace the production he'd given us in '06. Omar was going to try and work in Sanchez, but he couldn't rely on him to be an 8th inning guy, as he became back in'06.

Bradford, Oliver and Mota are what make this an interesting case study. All 3 significantly outperformed their pre-Mets recent career history in '06. And this, of course, was the source of all the Mets depth. It seemed like 5 inning starts were the norm in '06, and you felt like a one run lead in the sixth inning was likely to stand up. Now a 2 run lead in the 8th is suspect.

Mota had an ERA of 4.70 in 56 games with the Marlins in '05. Then an ERA of 6.21 in 34 games with Cleveland in '06. And yet, he ended up filling the void left by Duaner Sanchez after his injury. With Mota's dreadful stats, who could have imagined he'd become the bridge to Wags in the best bullpen in the majors? And he posted an ERA of 1.00 over 18 games with the Mets down the stretch, after he cleared waivers b/c no one wanted to touch his contract with a 10 foot pole.

Likewise, the illustrious Chad Bradford was coming off an '05 season in which he was hurt, spent much of the season in minor league rehab, and was ultimately designated for assingment. In his limited 23 IP for the year the numbers were decent, but unfortunately for the BoSox, he put up a dreadful 7.50 ERA in the month of September (after being hurt), right as the Sox were coming down the stretch and battling for playoff position.

Darren Oliver had put up two dreadful seasons in '03 and '04: ERAs of 5.04 and 5.95. He had then retired and missed the entire '05 season. You had to figure this was a guy with absolutely zero left. Yet he pitched a great '06 (and has had good years in '07 and '08 fot the Angels as well).

What does all this tell me? The approach that went into constructing the '06 pen was this: shell out for a solid closer. Trade for a guy who is an up an coming closer who can be a solid 8th inning guy (Duaner). Have some young, live arms who are cheap and under organizational control as middle relief guys. Pick a few guys up on the cheap off of the scrap heap and see if they pan out to provide some depth.

Guess what? Omar rolled sevens on every single element of the pen in '06. Duaner exceeded expectations, and Mota took the role over nicely against all probability after Sanchez went down. Heliman did the job in the 7th. Feliciano and Bradford were splitting 6th inning duties and both had their best years to that point. Oliver remarkably came out of retirment to eat a lot of innings, and do it well, in long relief.

Well, when ALL the guys you pick off the scrap heap put together the best years of their respective careers, it makes planning pretty easy.

In order to PLAN on getting '06-like results, you can't rely on things breaking the way they did in '06. You'd have to take a very un-'06 like approach to building a pen. You'd have to be willing to invest in proven commodities who are near the best in the league in their given roles in each of those areas: set-up, long relief, etc., because that's the type of production we got out of the pen in '06.

Problem is, the guys who are the best middle relievers are usually tough to come by. Think the Pods would trade Bell back to us? At what cost?

When you look at the '08 pen, Omar undoubtedly penned Wagner (9th) and Feliciano (7th) into the same rolls they had in '06 and '07. With Scho and Wise around, he had just as much paper talent (as measured by pre-Mets performance) around as he did with Oliver and Bradford. The main difference: he was expecting Heilman to be able to take a step forward and absorb the 8th inning role that Sanchez had occupied, while hoping Sanchez could come back into the league and take Heilman's middle relief role--neither being more of a stretch than expecting a retired, washed up starter like Oliver to make an effective reliever, or expecting a middle reliever with arm problems who'd been battered in the pennant run from doing a complete 180.

Every single member of the pen outperformed expectations in 06, and every single piece (save maybe Feliciano and Smith) have underperformed expectation in 08. That's the major difference between '06 and '08, not that Omar cared about the pen then and didn't now. If you want to insist that Omar's underprioritizing the pen, then you would've needed to criticize the acquisitions of Bradford and Oliver pre '06 because there was no conceivable way to pencil them in as reliable performances.

To sum up: one can criticize how Omar puts his pen together, but that criticism would need to focus on a lack of big-name or high dollar acquisitions--the type that would be more predictably effective, but also use up resources that would otherwise go into getting starters and every day players.