With the demise of The New York Sun, we're left to rely on The Observer for our reality-based New York baseball analysis. Fortunately, we're in Howard Megdal's capable hands, and he knows exactly how to suck-proof the Mets …
Instead, the only area where the free agent market has any particular depth is in relief pitchers. And the Mets need to go out and get the very best options from that class: Francisco Rodriguez, Brian Fuentes and Juan Cruz. Simply signing middle relievers to large deals won't guarantee much of anything. (If you don't believe me, ask Scott Schoeneweis and Guillermo Mota.)
But signing all three -- Rodriguez, Fuentes and Cruz -- would go a long way to tilting the balance in the NL East in the Mets' favor. Conversely, failure to do so could leave the Mets in the exact same position in 2009 -- or worse.
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These improvements would call for addition payroll in 2009 of approximately $30 million. The Mets could largely pay for this with the exiting 2008 salaries of Moises Alou, at $7.5 million, Orlando Hernandez, $7 million and Pedro Martinez, about $12 million. Assuming the Mets re-sign Oliver Perez at around $13 million per season (up from $6.5 million), and let rookie Jonathon Niese take Pedro Martinez's spot in the rotation, that leaves New York with a payroll increase of around $10 million, factoring in raises from arbitration-eligible players. Depending on Pedro's salary demands, he'd be a good choice as fifth starter, should he perform as he did in 2008, with the chance to be far better.
But between the increased revenue from their new stadium and all the postseason tickets they won't have to refund for a change, that's money well spent.
I tend to downplay the importance of bullpens, if only because your relievers pretty clearly aren't as important as your starters and your hitters. That said, it's hard to win -- especially in October -- with a lousy bullpen.
As things stand now, the Mets have two solid all-purpose guys in
Pedro Feliciano and
Aaron Heilman and two solid one-out guys in
Joe Smith and Schoeneweis. All four of them are talented enough, within their limitations, to pitch for just about anybody. Throw in a dominating closer --
Billy Wagner, for instance -- and you've got the makings of a decent enough bullpen.
In fact, that's essentially the bullpen the Mets had in 2007, when they finished with a 3.99 ERA, slightly better than the league average (4.06). Not great, not even really good. But decent. This year, though? Without Wagner for eight weeks, the Mets' relief ERA was 4.25, slightly worse than league average (again 4.06) … and not quite decent enough.
Wagner will spend most (or all) of next season recovering from elbow surgery, which means the Mets simply must find another dominant reliever, someone who can strike out a batter per inning and post a sub-3.00 ERA. It's possible they have one of those guys in the organization or that Omar Minaya can pluck someone -- someone like
Joakim Soria -- from obscurity.
But probably not. If that were one of Minaya's many gifts, we probably would have noticed already. So, yes: Minaya probably is going to have to spend some serious money to significantly improve his bullpen. I'm just not sure he needs Francisco Rodriguez
and Brian Fuentes
and Juan Cruz. Megdal thinks the Mets can sign all three of those guys without breaking the bank, but that's only if the Mets don't sign a starting pitcher or an outfielder and if they really think
Daniel Murphy can learn to play second base. Plus, having all three of those relievers probably is overkill. You don't need to have the
best bullpen; you just need a good one. Signing one or two good relievers should accomplish that goal and leave a bit of money to address another pressing need.
Rob Neyer
