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The Mets have made 115 pitching changes this season, second most in the major leagues behind the Braves, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
…it’s a telling stat, because, in addition, they have also thrown the second fewest innings of any bullpen…which means, Willie Randolph is essentially going wild with the one-and-done scenario…use a guy, then use another guy, then use another guy…etc…
Also according to Elias, the Mets have been outscored by 28 runs during the seventh and eighth innings, tying them with the Padres for the worst run differential in those innings in the majors.
…basically, given the above two bits of info, if you’re a Mets fan, you hate the last few innings of baseball right now…
How is it possible that the Mets have thrown the second fewest innings of any bullpen?
just seems counterintuitive considering the starters havent been going late into games, for the most part.
maybe he means per pitcher? thus the relation to the “one-and-done” line? I dunno.
Because he uses three pitchers an inning.
Maybe it goes by if a pitcher has SP,RP eligibility on Yahoo Fantasy Baseball, then it doesn’t count as bullpen innings. Jorge Sosa anyone? That is the quintessential SP,RP.
theyve also played the fewest games in all of baseball
I’m glad to see some numbers on this. I think it shows that Willie is way too eager to pull starters after 5. A bleeder with nobody out in the sixth? Hook ‘em. An error followed by a bloop with one down in the sixth? Hook ‘em.
hook hook hook hook hook.
Yea, I was putting more of the blame on starters for tiring out the bullpen, but this seems to show that Willie deserves more of the blame.
You’re reading the numbers wrong. he’s used the bullpen less than all but one manager.
Of course, the numbers are manipulated to say wahtever you want. A so-so road record means only 8 innings of pitching, plus while starters haven’t been going deep, very few times have they been pulled really early either, so it balances out.
I bet if you looked up the numbers for pitches/starter for the Mets, it’d be at the top of the league (which means nothing also, if they even keep track of bogus info like that. 100 pitchers for one pitcher does not equal 100 for another, and it’s about knowing the pitchers, which willie and peterson know better than us)
no i’m not. he’s made more pitching changes than all but one. that means he’s using it more.
“in addition, they have also thrown the second fewest innings of any bullpen”
couple those two stats and it implies that Mets relievers have a low IP/G ratio, but all this is just garbage. You can make numbers say anything, and if the first reliever isn’t getting it done, better to use two in an inning than one who blows it.
Santana and Maine are both averaging over 100 pitches per game. You’re not going to have them throw 120+. It’s just not done in MLB anymore, so this isn’t Willie’s fault.(And even if it was, it’s more Peterson’s fault, as that’s his job)
“I’m glad to see some numbers on this. I think it shows that Willie is way too eager to pull starters after 5. A bleeder with nobody out in the sixth? Hook ‘em. An error followed by a bloop with one down in the sixth? Hook ‘em.
hook hook hook hook hook.”
I agree 100%!!
Hook, Hook, Hook is right. Then we wonder why pitchers like Oliver Perez and Mike Pelfrey can’t seem to work themselves out of trouble, How could they, they have no experience. How are they suppose to build toughness and mental fortitude if their manager doesn’t allow them to gain the valuable experience of working out of jams and sucking it up? We all know that Willie’s biggest weakness as a baseball manager is managing a pitching staff.
Wille should have been a one and done! will someone please give him the hook?!
hook…didn’t work.
Off topic: Does anyone know if tonight’s game will be rained out, or when the Mets announce if it is?
I am going to tonights game and due to the inclement weather, I am skeptical about driving all the way to Shea and having it be cancelled, or worse rain delays.
don’t do it.
Are you a Mainiacs hockey fan, or just a John Mainiac?
I’m a RabbitInAHat
99.9% chance of being rained out. It’s not supposed to let up all night.
From the College of St. Rose huh? SUNY Albany Alum here. Good times my friend. Good times. What’s the ratio, like 9:1 girls to guys?
Smart man….assuming you’re male of course.
Trying to find out the same as we are heading down from Albany.
Good thing they didn’t put a retractable dome on Citi Field, this way we can continue to treasure “authentic” experiences like driving hundreds of miles for a game that might not get played, sitting in 45 degree drizzle, paying twice for parking when they call the game…
Any chance of a game tonight?
Chance of a game tonight = [(.2359301901942/.23195039) * 0]
I could’ve sworn that last year posters were slamming Willie for not yanking his starters and changing relievers quickly enough, for not playing every game as if it were a must-win.
Now he’s playing every game as a must-win (which it must feel like to him), and he gets slammed once again.
As questionable as some of his on-field decisions have been over the years, the second-guessings offered by some posters here are generally not very well informed. But I guess, as Dan Graziano observes, the point is to make the poster feel better.
I am also shocked by the stat that we have the 2nd fewest bullpen innings…
it really seems crazy to me… can we get a link to that?
the mets have played the fewest games in all of baseball playing 4 games less that some of the teams…thats why i cant get all wrapped up in these statss this early in the year
twice i tried to post the link…
matts stat is way off. if you look it up, they are right in the middle of the pack in terms of innings pitched by a reliever.
Yeah, but I wonder how many runs in those innings have equated to blown saves? I’m not looking at stats right now, but I seem to remember a lot of these runs come in situations where guys like Heilman or Sosa come into a game trailing 1 or 2 runs and then the game becomes uncontrollable.
Actually, when the Mets have the lead in the 7th and 8th inning, they’ve done a pretty decent job of holding on to the game for whatever that’s worth.
I’m not a huge Willie guy, but part of the reason that he has made so many bullpen changes is that we have 3 guys who are specialists, or should only be used as specialists (Sosa, Smith, Schoeneweis).
Of course, Willie screws it up by using Feliciano as a specialist, too, when he shouldn’t.
pedro’s numbers vs righties show that he should be a lefty specialist. righties are hittng over .300 agaisnt him.
not really, his 3 yr avg ops is 537-697. Not great, but not strictly loogy. He’s just had a tougher-than-avg start, so far. His babip is near .400.
I’ve been in agreeal about Feliciano, but everytime i see Willie try to pitch him in inning, he seems to let up lots of baserunners.
ha: “agreeal”
Umm….agreeal????? That’s hysterical!
And this is a prime example why Willie sucks lard $ss as the NY Mets manager…..he overuses the bullpen and burns them up. If you think 7-9 inning is bad now, wait til August. Then they will really suck lard $ss!
I think you meant @ instead of $. Am I right?
Hopefully, Heilman wil be straightened out by then.
yes….I will try to be a better blogger…..
I’m sorry, but how is this Willie’s fault also? so you are saying is that he should ignore starters’ pitch count, leave them when they are clearly in trouble, and don’t use situational relievers.
That was a good post, but I gotta have more cowbell!!!! On a lighter note, I walked into a store and Blue Oyster Cult’s Classic, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was blasting. I was in awe.
ha likewise.
but im just sick and tire of people taking every opportunity to say FIRE WILLIE. your bathroom flooded, willie’s fault. traffic on the BQE, willie fault. I don’t like the guy that much either, but come on!
my dog got sick…….that freakin willie
I appreciate that Blue Oyster Cult was honest enough to say that “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was written for one purpose and one purpose only – to get girls.
Ya gotta love that.
And who ended up winning? Will Ferrell.
Geez, i thought the problem was Wilie keeps our relief pitchers in too long…Go figure!
“they have also thrown the second fewest innings of any bullpen”
Matt, that doesn’t sound right.
That would imply that our starters are going deeper in games then nearly every other team. Which sounds unlikely. Unless the Mets have played alot fewer games or all the other teams are playing many more extra inning games.
Can you or Elias provide details?
we’ve played less games than any other team in the NL, and there’s only a few teams in the AL central with less or the same.
Update:
According to MLB.com, Mets are tied for 19th in the ML for relief innings pitched. Tied for last in NL. Most teams have played 3-4 more games, so at 3.3 relief innings per game that would be another 10-13 innings – putting them in the top 10 for most relief innings.
Stats at their worst here. of course the Mets have thrown the 2nd fewest innings. They have played the fewest games in the NL so far, 32. Every other team has at least played 34 and most 35 or 36. This early in the season 3/4 games can have a big impact on stats.
As an old school baseball fan, I laugh at so many of the meaningless stats and numbers that are thrown around nowadays, this is just another example.
That should bode well for the double-headers and scheduled off-days turned game days due to rain outs late in the season. Jorge Sosa, I hope you have $6MM in the bank. We need to get you a bionic arm buddy.
Agreed. Managing a bullpen is a no-win situation for most managers. For example, last year, Willie was justifiably criticized for using Schoeneweis against RH batters when he’s really a lefthanded specialist. This year, he’s using Schoeneweis mostly against LHs and Smith mostly against RHs.
The result is that he has to constantly change pitchers. This is most often the best decision from the standpoint of trying to win a particular game but may be a bad thing long term as the relievers will be burned out by the end of the summer even if they are pitching to one or two batters at most (since they also spend energy getting warmed up in the bullpen).
Ultimately, the best solution is to have the starters pitch more innings. Willie has some of the blame here but the rest of it lies on the starters. For example, Santana has thrown 230 pitches in his last two starts but only been able to pitch 11 2/3rds innings. Sure, Willie could leave him out there but if Santana gives up a homer (like he did to Gabe Kapler earlier in the year), Willie gets blamed for sticking with him for one batter too many. Oliver Perez and Mike Pelfrey are way too inconsistent to trust that they will be able to get out of a late inning (6th or 7th) jam. Nelson Figueroa is a journeyman who really can’t be counted on for more than 6 innings a start. As a result, unless he gets 7 innings out of Santana and Maine or the other pitchers show some more consistency, Willie will have to use the bullpen a lot 4 or 5 days each week.
maybe they should get shoeneweis and smith to play outfield, and then just keep switching them between outfield and pitcher, depending on leftie / rightie.
haha…i like that idea. it will be like bob ojeda
Willie is way too invested in the fad for pitch counts. That makes him completely predictable from the other dugout. I am sick watching the same procession of lame ass, good for nothings like Sosa, Heilman, Schoenweis and the others march out to the mound. They never throw first pitch strikes, which, as everyone reading this knows, means that they are always pitching behind in the count.. Pui on them!
Willie and Peterson got to go!
Is that you Dusty Baker? While I agree that the reliance on pitch counts is a bad thing, Willie doesn’t have that much of a choice in the matter. Teams have a significant investment in pitchers and if a pitcher gets hurt after throwing 120-130 pitches, the blame is going straight to the manager. Since the players, manager and ownership don’t want that to happen, the Mets like most teams have adopted an organization philosophy of adhering to pitch counts to minimize that risk. Between pitch counts and expansion to 30 teams, the number of mediocre pitchers has increased along with the time it takes for games to be completed.
This is overhyped.
Willie is not especially dogmatic about pitch counts. He yanks the pitcher when their pitch count is high, and they’re getting into trouble. Look at Wednesday’s game: Maine was yanked after facing 4 hitters in the 9th, an inning he’d started with a pitch count around 100. He gave up the run because he was starting to lose his control to fatigue, so leaving him in would not have server anyone’s interest.
I have a vague memory of thinking one Mets starter should have been kept in the game so far this season, but I can’t remember the occasion. Other than that, Willie’s really left guys in as long as he can.
1. I hate watching innings 7 and 8.
2. Blame Willie for making the Met games last 4+ hours regularly thanks to all his pitching changes…
3. I don’t think it would be wise to fire Willie during the season unless this team is clearly blowing it…and when i say that I mean like 32-49 at the All-Star break kinda record…otherwise just scrap him at the end of the season and start over when Delsucko, Alou, and Pedro are gone and we can stop having the oldest team in the MLB (which is a fact)
My point is the constant pitching changes are burning out pitchers. Even if the pitchers pitch to 1 batter, think about how long it took to warm that arm up and the constant wear and tear. Also, the constant stop in action to bring in a new pitcher is lulling our positional players to sleep….
Look, maybe I am grasping here, but Willie clearly sucks and needs to go…..chant with me…..FIRE WILLIE, FIRE WILLIE!
yeah, and when Pedro comes back, maybe Figgy goes to the ‘pen. and when Wise comes back up, he will eat innings. Muniz will probably get some more innings this year too.
He needs to give Heilman les sinnings and makes sure he doesn’t burn out Sanchez. other than that, I am fine with the innings in the ‘pen so far.
Greg, good point on extra innings too. We have played 4 so far. A few teams have played 5, the Cubs 6 and the Brew Crew 9. Also the Padre-Rocky 20+ inning game would have an impact too.
Rockies are at #1 for relief innings pitched (35 games played)…Cubs 7th (34 GP)…Padres 12th (34 GP)…Brewers 13th (33 GP). Mets 19th (32 GP)
people need to get a sense of reality. they just want to blame Willie for everything.
want to know why they have amde so many pitching changes? because they have a variety of lefty and righties to choose from. they have a balanced bullpen. with as many lefties as they ahve in the ‘pen, they can afford to use the lefty vs. lefty match up more than other teams.
how long have a lot of you “fans” been watching baseball?
they have the fewest innings from the ‘pen pitched because they have decent pitchers at the bottom of their rotation. Perez had the one very bad outing but other than that, their starter goes at least 5 most of the time. it is very concerning that they have only one start over 7 innings to this point but it is nice to know that they get at least 5 or 6 EVERY night with few exceptions.
they have the fewest innings out of the pen because they’ve only played 32 games. if that’s even accurate.
and i’ve been watching baseball long enough to know that aaron heilman cannot make 100 appearances this year. balance is nice but we cannot go around burning 4-5 relievers every game. it is unsustainable.
agreed. The problem for the Mets is they don’t have enough relievers who can get both LHs and RHs out. Unless Heilman gets his act together, Duaner Sanchez is really the only reliever before the 9th inning who you can trust against both LHs and RHs. Schoeneweis and Smith are specialists; Feliciano has the potential to get both lefties and righties out but he’s best used against lefties. Finally, Sosa is struggling against everybody right now.
A few solutions are (1) getting more innings out of our starters (Santana, Maine and Perez are all strikeout pitchers who might be better off getting hitters to put balls in play earlier in the count instead of racking up 6 pitch at-bats); (2) getting Perez to revert back to his 2007 form (while he had some bad starts in 2007, he was actually pretty good for the mostpart); (3) getting Pedro back (this team needs his swagger more than it needs his pitching); (4) either Heilman or Matt Wise stepping up to join Feliciano as guys who can pitch against lefties and righties; and (5) more offense (if you have bigger leads, you can risk leaving your pitcher out there for an extra inning)
damn..used to be the complete opposite..i used to look forward to the later innings when they were losing…almost everytime the mets came back
If tonight’s game is rained out, Johan will still start tomorrow right?
i hope so… got tix for tomorrow’s game.
it’s Cincy’s only trip to Shea and the Mets already have Pitt scheduled for an off day in Aug. if the game is rained out tonight, there will most likely be a double header this weekend.
I assume you let Johan pitch his normal day and let Pelfrey adjust if necessary.
He better… everyone’s already on 5 days rest, pushing the entire rotation back to 6 days really wouldn’t make sense, plus it’d be good to have him start twice on the homestand, and also it’d be good to have him start in the double-header on 5/20 since we really don’t want to be stressing the bullpen that day (starting 5/20 we play 21 games in 20 days… ouch!)
I have no patience for pitch counts. If a guy is pitching well, leave him in the game. Its about having your best pitcher out there at any given time.
Willie’s interests are as follows
A- preserve the health of his players first
B- make sure everyone in the pen gets adequate usage.
Willie’s interests should be
A- Do what it takes to win
B- Have the players in shape to do what it takes to win
What Willie forgets is that if he overuses his bullpen he is not going to have them in shape. So in essence he is underusing his starters and overusing his bullpen. That is why we were a .500 team most of last year, and that is why we are doing the same this year.
You pitch a guy until he runs out of gas. If you train him to run out of gas at 100 pitches he is going to do so. If you train him to run out of gas at 120 pitches he will go that long. If you train him to run out of gas at 140 pitches he will go that long.
And take a closer look at last year’s complete games. One was a rain shortened 6 inning game by Glavine and the other was a rain shortened 5 inning game by Maine. None others by other pitchers.
In 2006 the Mets had 5 complete games. Two of them were rain shortened (Trachsel 4 innings, Perez 5 innings), John Maine, El Duque and Alay Soler had the others.
That means in the last three seasons the Mets have only had 3 full complete games. That is overusing a bullpen if I ever heard of it.
For this reason and this reason alone, Willie should go.
Plus in the last two seasons the Mets have zero full complete games. That is ridiculous and I am getting fed up with it.
complete games are really meaningless.
what is very meaningful, though, is a starter going six instead of five, or seven instead of six, or eight instead of seven.
Calling it three seasons is incorrect rounding.
It’s a 162-game season, doing what it takes to win also involves making sure that your team is able to win in September, as we discovered to our cost last year.
So far this season, I really don’t recall thinking “hey, he should have been left in there”. Our starters are usually showing clear signs of fatigue by the time they’re pulled out.
Also, cold, damp weather conditions and it being early in the season serve to increase the chance of injury if a starter is left in too long. Injuries to starters don’t help your team win, or are you forgetting watching the likes of Jason Vargas and Geremi Gonzalez get shelled over the last couple of years?
The 100 pitch mark is a generalization. Over countless number of starts a pitcher tends to get tired and lose it around the same number of pitches in each game. Perez tends to lose it at around 85 pitches. Maine around 100, and so far Santana around 110. Sometimes they’ll lose it a little earlier, sometimes later, but when they show signs of tiring and the number of pitches is around their magic number, you know they’re pretty much done. Can’t blame Willie for taking a guy out when these things occur.
There was a day when the announcers usually said “he is getting his second wind”. I don’t buy it. Pitchers can go longer. Willie thinks a pitcher who gives up a walk in the 6th inning is tired. He pulls him after one walk. That is stupid.
Does anyone think that the Mets might consider carrying an extra pitcher? I think it might be something to seriously look at – if not now, then at some point before rosters expand. Because at this rate – these guys are gonna have dead arms by mid-July. I don’t know who we would drop from the roster – I guess it would have to be Endy or Pagan (meaning it would be Pagan, regardless of how unproductive Endy is) – but it would really be in the team’s interest to get an extra quality arm in this pen.
Mingo, I disagree with you. No need to have the starters throw over 120 pitches this early in the season. Perhaps later in the season in a crucial circumstance, but we have already have two gimpy starters so we don’t need Johan or Maine having a dead arm come August. Also, I really can’t think of any games where Willie has yanked the starter too soon.
I watch the games and I can think of too many games he has done it. I can’t understand how a guy like Jon Matlack can have 97 complete games in his career and someone comparable like John Maine will probably have less than a dozen. We have better medicine today and better workout regimens. It makes no sense.
These players are pampered because of money and Willie is the worst one and the stats show that.
It’s because he is listening to the fans too much.
Show can only pitch to LH or your fired
Smith can only pitch to RH or your fired
Sosa can only pitch to RH and only go 1 inning unless all batters are RH.
Heilman can only pitch when there is no one on in the 6th inning until he puts someone on then you have to bring in Feliciano unless it’s the 6th inning then you should have just brought him in to start with because the team has a LH in the lineup that could get to hit when Heilman puts 3 runners on.