The Bullpen

The Mets bullpen has been terrible. They've blown 29 saves this year. Yes, 29. Think about that. The Mets record today is 86-69. If the bullpen had not blown even HALF of those games, the Mets would be 100-55. That would give them the best record in baseball with 7 games left to play. Yet the Mets do not have the best record in baseball. They are in 2nd place in the NL East and leading the Wild Card race. The Mets are 1 game back of the Phillies in the loss column and 2 games up on the Brewers in the loss column. This pen is a long way away from the bullpen of 2006, arguably the best in the league. The Billy Wagner injury was an obvious devestation for the Mets bullpen. Here is my take on what I would have done with the bullpen.

If I were Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya, I would have made several differnt decisions regarding the bullpen. First off lets start with which relievers we have. The only thing different I would have done in regards to the bullpen is called up Kunz on Septemeber 1. This would have given the Mets two young live arms in the bullpen in Kunz and Parnell. Now on to if I were Manuel. If I were Jerry Manuel, I would have done several things differently. First off, I would have used the call-ups more frequently and given the main guys (Smith, Schoeneweis, Heilman, Sanchez, and Feliciano) more days off. These guys have been over used and nearly all of them are among the league leaders in appearances out of the bullpen. I would have used Al Reyes, Parnell, and Kunz more often and in better situations. Reyes was a closer last year for the Rays and Kunz was a minor league closer this year. I have however liked Ayala as the closer because he has done a solid job, except for that game against the Braves, but it couldn't hurt of course to try one of those guys out as well.

There are many Mets fans calling for the death of Aaron Heilman and with good reason. He has been either terrible or great this year, mostly the former. I think he is being effected alot more by the tendonitis than he is willing to admit. This is a huge problem because he does have a good arm with good stuff and has proven to be an effective set-up man. The last thing that you want to do with a guy with tendonitis is over use him and that is exactly what has happened. I think the Mets would be making a mistake to trade him this off-season beause he will not get the market value he deserves. He does deserve some of the shit he gets from Mets fans but I personally hate booing people on the team I am a fan of because it does nothing but harm. It gets in some players heads and makes them ineffective. Should they be able to deal with it? Definitely. But not everyone does.

The Mets bullpen is in crisis mode and that is mainly due to overuse by Jerry Manuel. He is running the bullpen like Willie Randolph was, going to the same guys over and over again despite poor results. I think Manuel has done a little bit better job at handling the bullpen than Randolph but still too much of the same.

UPDATE!: I just read this article over at ESPN.com NL East Race being decided by relief pitching