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In four starts for the Mets this spring, Mike Pelfrey has allowed 16 hits, six walks and nine runs through 13 innings.
In Newsday, Anthony Rieber explains why Pelfrey has not done enough to earn the fifth spot in the starting rotation.
According to Jeremy Cothran, in a report for the Star-Ledger, Pelfrey wasn’t ‘pretty,’ but he was ‘effective.’
Yesterday, Pelfrey allowed just one earned run, but, in a post to Amazin’ Avenue, Eric Simon digs through the boxscore to reveal that Pelfrey ‘really didn’t pitch all that well.’
“I thought he threw the ball pretty well. He was behind in the count a lot, you’d like him to throw up a few more first strikes, but he didn’t really cave in or give in he just needs to work harder to get back in the count. he was behind a bit, but I thought his stuff was pretty good. When his ball was down in the zone he got ground balls and he was effective. But, next time out he needs to make sure he pitches more ahead.”
Pelfrey, after yesterday’s start, as quoted by Cothran:
“Maybe I get too amped up and I’m trying to do too much.”
…like willie said, he was behind in the count a lot, which was not the case earlier in the spring…it actually reminds me a lot of last spring, when he pitched ahead in the count, got a ton of groundballs and impressed, only to return mid-season, pitching behind in the count while allowing a ton of hits…
…this will always be my concern with pelfrey, until he proves otherwise, in that he just doesn’t seem to have that killer instinct to be a consistently good pitcher…
I am telling you that for this season, if Elduque can’t go I would go and get Jason Marquis or Matt Morris as salary dumps. They are not great but would be effective as #5’s. I just don’t want to rely on Pelfrey this season. Give him most of the year at AAA. I think Elduque will be ok and give us about what he did last season and as of right now I think Sosa is next in line.
I agree with the comment about Mike Pelfrey and not rushing him into something he is not ready yet for…He’s still young and still has alot to work on…
Until he changes his mindset and starts attacking the zone…he we always be a fringe MLer. He has to trust it. Trust that his stuff is good enough to get outs when he is pitching in the zone not just around the zone. With that transition…he can be effective. Without it…he will not make it in the ML
“I thought he threw the ball pretty well. He was behind in the count a lot,”
some bizzare logic in that quote, those two things are mutually exclusive.
Big Pelf’s career is going no where fast… let’s just accept that and move on
He should take lessons from Maine and just challenge the damn hitters.
He’s just not as good, yet. Got to remember the age differences there. Pelfrey just needs more time in the minors.
right now, Pelf is about the same age that maine was when he first came up to the mets. And there is a world of difference between that Maine, and the one we have now.
Not so much the “stuff”, but the attitude and approach. And that is what Pelf needs to develop, the “I am better than you” attitude!
He was technically a year older. Hopefully that one year makes a big difference.
starting the season at AAA will probably be good for him. The coaches can make a defined plan of what to work on mechanically, but mainly they should challenge him to learn to pitch the right way.
If he get comfortable with all his pitches and starts attacking the hittiers, and gets comfortable with that mindset, then they can bring him up if needed.
I’m all for this too, but there needs to be others starters ahead of him on the depth chart in that case.
Are you comfortable giving Pelfrey a rotation spot in 2009 if he spends all of 2008 in AAA pitching well?
Yup. But if he does pitch that well in AAA, he will still be up sometime in 2008
Everyone talks about him not being “ready”, but what better way to become “ready” than to have Willy say, you are on my staff your not going anywhere just relax and pitch.
When pelfrey didnt have to worry about going down last september he pitched good, he was 3-1 with a decent ERA. Hes putting to much pressure on himself either in spring training to make the team or when he does get the callup he tries to hard to impress everyone so he can stay up.
Put Duque in the pen (where he will be the most effective) and let pelfrey have the year to relax and pitch like he can, which can be dominiating. I guarantee if pelfrey is up the the entire year and is truly a member of this staff, after possibly a shaky first half, he will be really good in the second half.
How do you know Duque would be most effective in the pen? He has never been a bullpen pitcher. I don’t see how, with his health issues, having to work 4-5 times a week would be beneficial for him.
And Pelfrey has never really been dominating, except for the one good game against the Braves. He has never gone more than 6 1/3 inning in a game. He kills the bullpen. His WHIP last year was 1.71. He is always in trouble, pitching behind and then he can’t get himself out of jams.
He has proven that he is not ready. Send him to the minors to really work on things. Let him prove he can dominate AAA.
Hopefully El Duque is now annoyed by all of this talk of him to the bullpen and has something to prove. He should be the #5 if he can do it. If not you may be forced to use Pelfrey, but it’s probably not for the best.
but El Duque will last all of four starts and Mike Pelfrey will be right back up in the bigs losing game after game.
The thing to would be to tell Pelfrey he is making 32 starts in the bigs this year regardless of what happens. Of that he is making 30 starts in AAA regardless of what happens. Whatever is best for him to be a starter in 2009.
Last year he was yo-yo’d back and forth to AAA and wasnt given a chance to work with one pitching coach on a consistent basis to get things corrected. And was constantly pitching for his job on both levels.
Is this not how most pitchers are brought up? Unless they are true #1’s or on a bad team.
sure, but its clearly part of the problem with Peflrey.
besides if it was most teams, Peflrey would have been yo-yo’s in 2006 then named the #3 starter in 2007, so its a little different from the outset.
Despite the need to win this year, the Mets have to do what is best for Pelfrey to be in the rotation from 2009 forward.
The problem is that pelfrey always puts to much pressure on himself, he needs to know hes in the big leagues for the entire season, so he can calm down get into a rythm work with rick peterson for an entire year. If all of that happens then pelfrey can be productive.
And Duque was in the pen for white Sox in 05 when they won the world series and he was exteremly effective. If Pelfrey pitches in the rotation all of 08 then in 09 he can really start to push up the rotation but that will never happen if hes being bounced back and forth all the time (which he will be because if Duque starts he will be in and out of the rotation all year).
Some pitchers can pitch effectively like this. Give up lots of hits but toughen up when there are rbi situations. That reminds me of all those years we watched AL Leiter pitch. Indigestion every day but effective. Hopefully he starts getting ahead and we don’t have to watch that type of pitcher
The thing is, those types of pitchers (who give up a lot of hits but still are effective) usually have great control and don’t walk anybody. David Wells, Carlos Silva, etc, all give up millions of hits, but have pinpoint control. Pelfrey doesn’t have that control yet. So if he keeps walking people and giving up hits at the same time, it’s a recipe for disaster.
if he wants to pitch in the majors right now, he needs to pitch to contact and keep the ball down and in the strike zone.
John Maine blossomed when he mastered his fastball at the knees. The Jacket says major league hitters hit .190 on pitches at the knee and on the corners.
at 6′7, Pelf thinks he has to blow away hitters and ring up strikeouts he is not capable of getting. Think Wang from the yankees. if he does not walk a lot of batters, he has a fighting chance to be a good #5 this year, but if he doesn’t, think Anthony Young
Subliminal thoughts in paranthesis …
I think Big Pelf be all alright eventually. (Joe Blanton) He needs to get his mind straight. (Joe Blanton). He reminds me of Kris Benson when he was here (Anna Benson is hot)(Joe Blanton). In that he could not keep the ball down, (Joe Blanton) whenever he did keep the ball down he performed well, when he didn’t he sucked. (But Anna was consistently hot)(Joe Blanton).
are you a big fan of video games?
Blanton would cost may more than hes worth….as our #5!!! We can deal with Pelfrey struggling or El Duque getting injured here or there..
or at the least, we could/should have signed Lohse or mid season maybe we see if Garcia is still around…
Since no one else has stepped up yet, I’ll say it: he doesn’t lack a “killer instinct”. That’s a BS term to make up someone that’s not performing. What he needs to do is throw strikes.
People were saying no “killer instinct” about Eli Manning to .
If Pelphry has the same instinct as Manning I’ll take it.
Actually, Eli Manning’s a good model for Pelfry
Once he realized he didn’t have to throw miracles every play, and just hit his targets every time, he went from loser to world champion.
Pelfry’s pitches are good enough that he just has to throw them to the glove, not nibble. Once that sinks in he’ll be fine. Sometime soon he has to have seen enough broken bats yet to realize that his sinker thrown for strikes is gonna get outs way more often than hits.
…how come no one can seem to spell Pelfrey correctly?
I guess he still needs to do something to be worthy of that much…
Let’s face it, Pelfrey sucks. I don’t know what people see in him. He’s never impressed me with his stuff or his attitude. I think people just get attached to these guys and want to see them do well, and I can understand that, but I mean, come on. Have you watched this guy pitch the past couple years? Aside from a couple games, he’s been awful. At best, he’s a back of the rotation guy in this league, and that’s still a couple years away, if it happens at all. I would rather have given up Pelfrey than Humber in the Santana deal, if that was even possible. I don’t want Pelfrey anywhere near the Mets major league rotation this year. He’s not close to being major league ready, and it’s time people put their emotions aside and start telling like it is.
I was a big fan of Pelf’s last spring but fool me once/fool me twice … yada, yada, yada.
In the starts where he’s been good, he still isn’t striking out many hitters despite his “stuff” and when he’s been bad, it’s been the same old Pelfrey from last year. I just don’t get why this kid, who was supposed to be the end-all be-all when he was drafted, can’t take that next step. It really says a lot about the folks we have developing these players, and I’m sorry, it does make the Rick Peterson “pitching guru” label seem a bit overrated. For all the good the jacket has done with Maine and Perez, it’s utterly disappoing that Pelfrey hasn’t even become a serviceable starter yet after basically being deemed “major league ready” when he was drafted 3 years ago.
I’ll say it again and again … whoever came up with the idea of taking this big 6 foot 7 kid who throws gas and has very fluid mechanics and decided to recreate him into Ching Mieng Wang, should be put on notice, whether it’s Peterson, someone else in the minors, Pelfrey’s agent (Boras) or Pelfrey himself.
I’m not ready to give up on Pelfrey, but unless the entire rotation implodes, I don’t want to see him with the big club yet. I’d rather see Sosa get some starts, or even Niese get the ball right now.
I’ve been saying this for over a year now. That Atlanta start, he was just throwing 97 and racked up 7K’s in 6 innings and only gave up 1 hit, and even Omar commented that that was the real Mike Pelfrey. So why are they still messing around with him and making him throw 91mph sinkers? Just let him do what made him a first round pick and blow people away.
He was throwing gas, but his slider was also incredible that entire game. Which is great, but he’s yet to develop any consistency with it which leads me to another philosophical gripe with the Mets pitching people …. when Pelfrey was drafted, he had an okay “slurve” pitch that they had him scrap, in part, I remember, because they were concerned that a curve ball would damage his elbow long-term. They did the same thing with Maine, who obviously succeeded with the slider, but different strokes for different folks sometimes. You can’t have a pitcher scrap the only off-speed pitch he has and learn a new pitch, meanwhile having him shuttle back and forth from the minors the whole time. You’re putting him in a position to fail.
And going back to my original point, for all the good Peterson has done for this team, his fixation on pitching efficiency and injury preservation can sometimes have the wrong impact on certain players. I would rather see a guy with Pelfrey’s stuff rack up 100 pitches in 5 innings throwing gas, getting swings and misses and letting up a couple of runs, than the current Pelfrey, who’s in essence relearning to pitch and racking up 100 pitches aiming for bats and then nibbling when he falls behind.
Exactly. Efficiency and injury preservation are important, but completely revamping a pitcher and making him do things that are totally different from what he’s accustomed to doesn’t always work like you said. In Pelfrey’s case, his bread and butter is his fastball when it’s thrown 95-97. It has great natural sinking movement and is what made him so highly touted. That’s the pitch he needs to work everything else off of. When he’s taking something off and throwing it 90-91MPH in order to try to pitch to contact and get groundballs, he just hasn’t been good. If Omar and co liked what they saw in his Atlanta start (as they said), then they should be reminding him to live off his fastball and throw it hard.
(a) Pelfrey is not, and never will be, a strikeout pitcher. He needs to pitch to contact to be successful. You don’t have to strikeout a bunch of hitters to be successful – look at Wang.
(b) Whoever said he was ‘major league ready’ when drafted, and whoever believed it, was straight-up nuts. He didn’t have a secondary pitch he could throw for strikes, which is necessary for ML starters.
(c) They didn’t try to ‘recreate’ him into a sinkerballer, the sinker was his #1 pitch when drafted. The failed experiment last year was trying to get him to take off velocity in the hope it would reduce the walks.
(d) So you want Niese to be the new Pelfrey? Wow.
1. Balderdash about Pelfrey’s history. In his last two years of college, his K/9 was 9.75 and 9.21. In his first 80 IP in the minors his K/9 was over 10.5. He only lost his ability to strike people out after his promotion to the big leagues in 2006, and hasn’t regained it since.
People need to stop pointing to Wang as the end-all be-all of exampes. Firstly, he’s a statistical aberration. Secondly, as he proved in the playoffs last year, contact pitchers have the potential to be burned in big spots when all of those dribblers and grounders find holes.
2. When Pelfrey was drafted he was considered the “best pitcher in the draft” by scouts and would have been the #1 pick by some accounts if not for Boras and his signability issues. Due to his domination in college, I recall a number of pundits, and articles claim Pelfrey would likely fast-track through the minors because he was very close to being ML ready.
3. They’ve reduced his velocity to reduce walks, have enforced that he should throw his sinker more rather than his 4-seamer than can get up to 97 mph, they scrapped his slurve in favor of a slider … but they haven’t tried to recreate him? Okay, sure.
1. His K-rate was that high through school because he was pitching to people who couldn’t make contact on gas. That will never happen again in his career.
2. All this despite not having a reliable secondary pitch. Sure, people hyped him up, and people bought the hype. Happens all the time, and most of the time it’s garbage.
3. Reducing the velocity was a big mistake, but it’s hardly reinventing him, and hopefully they’ve reversed that – certainly Mike’s comments suggest that he’s going back to gassing it. Nor is suggesting he pitch more of pitch 1A instead of 1B – they were both pitches he already threw. Scrapping the slurve is the biggest change, but it’s worthwhile because the slider seems to be coming along, and the slurve was never that great. Also, you sure as heck don’t want his career to be devestated by an injury caused by throwing a secondary pitch with bad mechanics. Moreover, with the slurve mechanics being so different to his fastball mechanics, it’d be a much easier pitch for hitters to identify.
How do you explain the fact that his K rate in the minors was very high, then after they tinkered with him in early 07 and he went back to the minors (after failing at the big league level), the K rate never came back in the minors?
Pelf has had more then enough time to show he can ’step up’. I’m of the belief it will never happen, and was all in favor of including him in the Santana deal and holding on to Humber (who’s having a great spring). Humber just looked tougher and more confident on the mound, Pelfrey always looks a bit lost and scared. I don’t think that’s something that can be taught, either. It’s instinct and believing in yourself and your stuff. Pelfrey’s getting a bit old for this ‘working things out in AAA’ nonsense….get it together already, or get thee to the pen, or off the team.
He’s 24.
So? This guy was touted to be in the majors LAST season, and he’s not cutting it this season yet either. I’m just saying, by demeanor, Humber looked more like the real deal to me.
Humber is a year older as well. So touted is what determines when you are ready? So Fmart should be starting and performing this season?
It’s very unfair to suggest that Pelfrey isn’t tough. Pitchers who aren’t tough don’t work themselves out of jams, Pelfrey works out of a lot of them.
John Maine pitched 40 innings in the Majors with an ERA of 6.3 the year he was as old as Pelfrey.
It’s way to early to give up on the big guy.
Oh, and you should read some of Maine’s recent quotes, like about how he’s still coming to terms with the belief that his “stuff” is better than ML hitters and that he can trust it, a belief he only started to develop last season.
Pelfrey’s not yet come to that realization, but he is still much younger than Maine was when he had his epiphany.
I guess time will tell, I just hope when that time comes he still has any trade value left.
Besides, by 24, if you don’t have the mechanics, at LEAST you should have the confidence.
But Maine did not. Bedard did not.
Bedard did not have the mechanics? Yeah, he did. And lets see the season Maine has before proclaiming him over the hump. No more 5th inning space outs please.
Very well put Another Matt. Patience everyone, please. They kept the kid for a reason: he has absurd natural movement on his fastball. It takes time to gain command of a fastball with such movement. V. Zambrano comes to mind as someone who never has. On the other hand, there’s Heilman. At 24 and 25 years old he pitched 93 innings in the bigs with ERAs of 6.75 and 5.46 respectively. Poor command and no confidence. Everyone was calling for his head, saying “so what if he has good stuff, he only had that one good game where he pitched a one-hitter against the Marlins”. Sound familiar? patience, patience patience.
sosa is more reliable as a 5th option, going 7-6 last season as a starter. pelf ain’t ready to hold down the fort in the 5 spot, not yet.
I agree.
I was always a bigger Humber fan than a Pelfrey fan and thought Humber was never given a fair chance by Omar to prove himself last year (instead calling up the dregs like Park and Lawrence). Humber seems to have better composure and makeup, but then that’s just an impression and you have to know both players well to make such a determination with any certainty.
However, now that Pelfrey remains, I want to see him get the chance to succeed and think he can as a #5 this year. Last September he pitched fairly well, putting up a 4.88 ERA which is not terrific obviously but is good enough for a #5. Someone advocated the Mets sign Morris or Marquis, but Morris’ ERA with the Pirates was much worse than 4.88 and Marquis’ ERA with the Cubs was only slightly better at 4.60. Why even bother with those two? Pelfrey at least has a lot of upside.
If El Duque is healthy and his new delivery successful, then he should get the #5 job. But if he isn’t and/or his new delivery doesn’t work out, then let Pelfrey start the season as the #5 starter.
Because with Pelfrey, what if he comes in and goes right back to the 0-and forever 6.50 ERA+ guy and Elduque is injured?
Of course Pelfrey has more upside but that won’t help us this season. A guy like Morris who will give average ERA and lots of innings in the #5 is much more of a certainty.
That’s the risk you take with young players. You’re not sure how they’re going to develop. But his 4.88 ERA last September can be viewed as a progressive step in his development.
Morris ERA with the Pirates last year was 6.10. What if that’s who Morris is now?
If Pelfrey doesn’t work out then maybe Niese or another high level prospect can be tapped. This idea that you ruin players by bringing them up too early and letting them get knocked around is weak. I pointed out to someone yesterday that Santana’s first two years in the majors as a starter and reliever were worse than Pelfrey’s first two years. It sure didn’t end up hurting Santana’s confidence.
And because the rotation is much improved this year with the addition of Santana and a healthy Pedro, I think they can afford to take risks with the fifth spot.
Also, you know how they say the best way to learn to hit a ML curve is to face ML pitchers who throw one? Isnt’ the reverse true? If you want to refine a curveball, you’re not going to do it in the minor leagues since the hitters there can’t hit a curve anyway (well most of them). So the best place to do it is in the majors? I realize this is an oversimplification, but you get the idea.
The curve is something of a moot point, since Pelfrey doesn’t throw one.
Doesn’t matter. Whatever breaking or off-speed pitch he’s trying to develop, he’ll be able to refine it better on the ML level.
In Marquis’ case, throwing up a 4.6 ERA in the second-best hitters’ park in baseball is no small feat.
Except that last year, Wrigley played as a pitchers park, according to baseball-reference.com.
The league ERA was 4.66. And Marquis ERA was 4.60. His ERA+ was only adjusted to 101 which confirms that they viewed Wrigley as more neutral than anything.
Correction: Wrigley did not play as a pitcher’s park in 2007 but it played as somewhat neutral as evidenced by the fact Marquis’ ERA+ was not adjusted upward to any significant degree.
You’re not reading BR’s ‘league ERA’ column correctly – that’s already park-adjusted. ERA+ of 100 is defined as pitcher’s ERA = park-adjusted league ERA, in other words, a league-average pitcher – which amounts to a good #5.
Wrigley’s park factor for 2007 was 107 for hitting, 106 for pitching. I don’t quite understand the split on the park factor, but in both cases above 100 means more hitter-friendly than league average. ESPN lists Wrigley as the second most hitter-friendly park in baseball for 2007, after Fenway
Matt, you’re absolutely right. I was reading the league ERA incorrectly there, and Marquis did in fact have a decent 2007.
However, look at his 2006 season. He pitched 190+ innings and his ERA+ was just 74. IOW, he pitched worse in 2006 than Pelfrey pitched in 2007.
If Marquis was a more consistent pitcher, he might be a good risk. But at this point he seems to be a below-average league starter (what his career ERA+ indicates).
I’d still rather go with Pelfrey.
what does “return mid-season” mean? He started the season in the rotation (save the couple weeks when they didn’t need a 5th starter) and started 0-7. That wasn’t mid-season, that as beginning of the season. He lost what he had in spring by the end of spring actually and that carried over into the beginning of the season. I hate to harp on Matt, but when you follow the Mets as much as he does you should have picked up on that.
The similarities between Pelfrey and Heilman at the early stages of the careers is interesting.
- both #1 picks.
- both have the same height/composure/build.
- both throw at similar velocities.
- both have pretty much the same pitch selection.
But the big difference is mental make-up and versatility.. Heilman developed more of a killer instinct that is somehow challenging for Pelfrey to attain. Until he attains that, the only option we have with him is as a starter or trade bait.
So I guess we just wait until Pelfrey establishes himself as a starter, b/c he certainly doesn’t have the marbles or command for the bullpen at this point.
Have to challenge the assertion they have the same pitch selection, when Heilman’s putaway pitch is the change, which is the pitch that’s been getting Pelfrey bashed up this spring.
hence “pretty much”
I liked humber more as well but those of you complaining he wasnt given a fair shot should think about that for a second. maybe omar didnt want to risk having his stock fall like pelfreys has after failing at the ML level. if humber came up and went 1-4 with a couple of bad outings would we have johan santana? maybe not bc they certainly didnt want pelfrey. nontheless i think pelfrey omar willie and peterson need to all get their eyes taped up clockwork orange style and strapped to chairs and watch the start against ATL on a loop until they all realize hes not a nibbler he must attack the strike zone and throw gas, that is who he is and if he cant succeed doing that he’ll probably never succeed at this level.
I think during that video the background music should be flipped between “Sweet Caroline” and “Everybody Clap your Hands” so the Mets organization becomes terrified and suicidal anytime it plays in the ballpark, thereby forcing them to take it out of their annoying repertoire.
I’m no expert, but when I watch Pelfrey, his problem to me looks like he’s not pitching to his movement. Meaning, he seems to target the middle of the plate with his fastball, but it ends up sinking too far down and inside to right-handers (away to lefties). He should watch a guy like Greg Maddux. Maddux seems to pitch to his movement. He’ll target a few inches outside, and his ball will move over the plate. It’s almost like a slider pitcher who pitches all his sliders way outside. It looks like they start their target in the middle of the plate, or a tad outside, instead of targeting the inside corner and having it move only slightly out of the zone.
I think that’s why Pelfrey gets behind in the count so much. Then he gets behind and has to try to flatten out his fastball (four seamer instead of the two seamer).
you are exactly right! His ball naturally moves low & too the right…How has he/Peterson not discovered this or made the appropriate adjustment??
I personally cannot stand Pelfrey at this point, b/c there is nothing i hate more than pitchers walking guys. you have to put the ball in play, and to be honest, if you are known as not throwing strikes you arent going to strike anyone out anyway b/c nobody is going to swing…
If matt Morris or marquis are cheap, i would happily sign them as a #5 these guys were front end guys in the past…truly Mr. Pelfrey you have been a tremendous disappointment