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[Poll=93]
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[Poll=93]
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Who was the clown that voted for Heilman?
3 clowns voted for heilman…maybe it’s Heilman, his wife and his sister lol
Now it’s 6 clowns, and climbing!
What in all of god’s glory could convince someone to vote for Heilman, besides being a joke vote.
They must all be joke votes…please all be joke votes…
If they are joke votes, it takes away the validity of this poll. BOOO!
15, Aaron called up his whole family to vote on this one….lol
Why is Feliciano in Willie’s doghouse? It seems he only comes in as a last resort. His numbers vs RH were good last year and yet he was only used as a specialist.
Good point. Didn’t Feliciano miss a flight from Puerto Rico to attend to a family issue? This coincided with the Mets home opener.
He missed the flight because it was cancelled during that spell of cancelled flights for safety inspections. It wasn’t his fault. Willie can’t blame Feliciano for something like that.
A few seasons ago (maybe ‘06) Feliciano did make a few ant-Willie comments, but I’d think thats water under the bridge at this point
At this point i trust smith, feliciano, and shoe, the rest not so much…i think it’s great to see all the trust in smith, he started similar last year and then faded as the year went on, hopefully another year older and another year of experience will prevent that melt down from last year.
Honestly though I’ve never understood why willie doesn’t use feliciano more. over the last 3 years his era is 2.54, next to wags, he has been the most consistent of the bullpen over that span. I’d like to see him get Heilmans 8th inning spot especially considering we have another lefty out in the bullpen for the situational sports.
I would trust Schoeneweis more then Heilman and alot of the people in the bullpen right now except for Wags. Scott has been very dominant this year
Should it be phrased “Aside from Wagner, who do think will fail least often?”
Your glass is half empty, Matt’s (and mine) is half full.
Typical short-term Mets fans results. Joe Smith would have been the reliever everyone was most confident with last year at this time as well….time demonstrated, however, that Joe Smith post-May, is not so reliable.
Where are all the people who booed John Franco during the 90’s? Take a look at his career numbers and tell me how much you would pay to have someone like Franco now.
I’m sorry. Where in the poll does it mention anything about sample sizes? Before you castigate so-called “short-term Mets fans,” consider that the question did not give any qualifiers like “due to their recent success,” or “looking at their careers.”
I voted for Smith because — at this moment — I feel most comfortable with him on the mound in a big spot. How is that being a short-term fan? I’m not saying he is the best reliever of the bunch, or that he’s had the best career, or that he’ll have the best year. Simply put, right now, IMO, he’s been our best reliever short of Wagner.
But do you feel comfortable in him facing Chase Utley?
I’m never comfortable with anyone facing Utley, if you want to know the truth. These days I just assume he’s going to hit a dinger.
Actually I’d rather Show face Utley due to matchups but the poll didn’t give those kind of terms.
In general though- right now Smith is our best reliever.
He went downhill last year b/c Willie over used him early on. Like someone said in another post’s comments. Willie learned how to kill relievers from the Torre School of Bullpen Mgmnt.
I wish we could have a vote where we put them in order. I trust Smith the most, so that’s who I voted for, but I also trust Feliciano, Schoenweiss (can’t believe I’m saying that publicly), and Sanchez. I think the Mets have a fine bullpen, even if Heilman was no longer on the team.
No shock that many of our knee-jerk faithful voted for Joe Smith. Half of your readers would simply vote for whoever looked good in their last outing or two.
This was sadly a tough question, since no one in our bullpen (Wagner aside) has made me feel warm and fuzzy for a while. Feliciano has probably been the most reliable if you look at a larger sample size, with Schoenewies looking pretty good this year.
Sanchez is a crap shoot because we really don’t know where his rehab is at. Heilman has been struggling, and Smith has far too small a track record to bank on right now. He could be one outing a way from a disaster inning. I remember last year he looked this way early and then suddenly dropped off and became a BP pitcher.
My order would be:
Wagner
Feliciano
Schoeneweis
Smith
Sanchez
Heilman
Wise
Why are you hating on Matt Wise?
it’s not hating…he just has hardly pitched this year…tough to make an assessment on someone you have hardly seen…
How can you say Smith is a knee-jerk reaction when he has been (with the exception of Wagner) the most effective and consistent guy in the pen all year.
Because he only has 17 innings so far this year and after 17 great innings last year he completely stunk for the remainder of the season. I like Joe, but it’s a matter of calculated risk. Track records and history factor in.
I’ve been a Mets fan as far back as I remember, and I voted for Smith here.
I know what happened to him last year, but the question asked who I trusted most amongst the current group of relievers. Right now, that’s Joe Smith. I know a few other lifelong Mets fans who would answer that question the same way.
If the question asked who the best reliever was on the team other than Wagner or who we thought would have the best season in the bullpen, I might answer differently, but if this afternoon’s game is tied or the Mets have a small lead, I’d turn to Smith.
And if we weigh last year too heavily, we’d never, ever be confident in Scott Schoenweiss. These words may come back to bite me, but I think he’s going to be a good part of the pen for the season.
Feliciano has been lucky to get out of many jams, and he has allowed a lot of baserunners. (1.68 WHIP)
Smith has been excellent, with a ton of dominant performances. (0.98 WHIP)
While you can’t ignore career numbers, you also can’t completely discount how they’ve performed this year, even if it’s only 15 innings. Stats aside, Smith has looked great, and Feliciano has looked just ok. And while it’s possible, you can’t expect Smith to suddenly fall apart out of nowhere.
The fact is, at this moment, Smith is clearly the better reliever.
I am actually pretty confident about our bullpen overall.
However, we really do need Heilman to straighten himself out, and he’s going to have to get some work in some non-pressure situations to do it. I was quite upset about Willie not taking him out after the first couple of hits last night, and for the first time I disagreed with his move even after hearing his post-game comments about the unavailability of others in the bullpen as a factor. Clearly, he had Smith warming up (and even checked his status on the phone) and should have brought him in sooner.
You can see that, with a bit of tinkering and straightening Heilman out, we could have the makings of a fine pen:
Wagner – closing
Sanchez – 8th
Heilman/Smith/Felciano- 7th
Schoe/Wise- 6th or situational
Figueroa – long man?
(I know that is 8 people, but things will straighten themselves out.)
My answer is faulty because of bullpen roles. I trust Show the most…… against LH, not vs. RH. I trust Smith but his job is to get RH out and does poorly overall against LH and can’t be overused. I trust Feliciano but assume he will put people on base this season. I trust the old Sanchez but realize that he will continue to struggle for a while.
So the answer is that we do not have a setup man right now, PERIOD.
I made a post below about the idea of using situational relievers itself not being a problem, but I really agree with what you say as well. Once you get to the eighth inning, you just want to go to the bridge and then call in Wagner. You can only mix and match for so many innings, and the guys that were supposed to take over in the eighth this year once that situational portion of the game was over haven’t been championship-caliber at all.
True, I knew Scho and Feliciano weren’t great against righties but their L/R splits are pretty bad.
Smith hasn’t really been given an opportunity against a lot of lefties (only 12 ABs), but he hasn’t been great against the few he’s faced (5H, 2BB).
For now, I’d just bring in Smith in the 8th if 2/3 are righties, Feliciano or Scho if 2/3 are lefties. Or, just use all 3 for the 7th and 8th in a tight game, mix and match.
I’m not really too confident Sanchez yet, his fastball is too slow right now to really set up his change. And so he just throws mostly changeups…hitters will catch on and just sit on it.
How come Willie doesn’t believe in the long reliever? I hate the lefty-righty switches during the 6th-8th innings. Let them stay in.
Who would do it? He used Oliver a lot in that role but we don’t have that right now.
That’s been a big misstep by Minaya two years in a row now. I think the value of the long man is underrated; when we had Oliver in ‘06 how many games were we down big, then he holds the other team down until we get back in the game? And I still remember the year Pat Mahomes had a little while back. It seems like it’s worth a handful of wins a year, or at least opportunities at wins.
Minaya attempts to fill that role every year, but since Oliver he has stumbled badly with the choices of Sele and this year Sosa. He was banking on Sosa to fill the role, as evidenced by the money he gave him. I don’t know what he was thinking. I thought he was right to let Oliver walk because while an effective long man is a huge advantage, those are the type of guys you don’t pay. You just find the next Oliver, so to speak. But then it was very contradictory in that sense for Minaya to give that type of money to Sosa, even if he had been more effective. What exactly is the philosophy here? Is there a philosophy at all? (And I generally approve of the job Minaya has done)
my order is:
wagner
smith
schoeneweis
fear and loathing
As I said earlier the problem with that is you have 2 specialist pitchers listed there and that’s it.
the specialist notion is the bigest problem. i favor a more old school approach of brining in a guy and leaving him as long as he’s getting guys out. this overmanagment of relievers and insane focus and matchups is a joke.
the thing i’m sure of is that when smith or show are out there (this year) i don’t have that sick feeling like the game is about to spin out of control.
Schoeneweis vs. lefties this year: .095 BAA, .045 WHIP.
Schoeneweis vs. righties this year: .381 BAA, 1.69 WHIP.
I don’t think the problem is the idea of using specialists. To not employ that strategy would be to not place your relievers in the best position to succeed. If anything, the problem is that the Mets have too many situational relievers for a manager who is not good enough at managing the game.
Here’s one for you guys pushing Feliciano and how he is in Willie’s dog house.
Heilman and Pedro have pitched in the exact same amount of games and Heilman has a WHIP of 1.62 and Pedro has a WHIP of 1.68.
You have to look past the ERA’s of a reliever.
I’d like to see someone compile a stat that adjusts a reliever’s ERA to charge them with inherited runners they allow to score. Heilman’s would skyrocket (and it’s high as it is….)
Yep, but so would Feliciano’s.
True, and that’s a commentary on the sad state of the pen generally. I wasn’t exactly defending Feliciano. Frankly, Wagner and Smith are the only ones I’m really confident in right now.
I can’t believe there are so few votes for Scho, he is the Mets most consistent reliever, and the only reason he was bad last year was injuries, that he tried to suck up and play through..
Some people on this site really need to start paying attention
The thing with Heilman is that his numbers are very decieving. Not counting this year because hes been simply horrific, he only seems to do well when games are out of hand. It just seems that every time the game is tied or the mets are up 1 or 2 runs this guy cant seem to handle business. People keep bringing up how the only way to get him out of this funk is to pitch him in no pressure situations? Everybody pitches well when there up 10 runs and have no pressure on them. Heilman crumbles under the pressure ever since game 7 in 06′. Its not just pitching well, its pitching well WHEN IT MATTERS MOST.
But we are stuck with him and do not have another go to guy with Sanchez still trying to figure things out. Who else in the pen can get LH and RH out?
Can someone remind me where to find the “allowed inherited runners to score” data?
It seems that both Feliciano and Heilman do this with some frequency, and it bugs the hell out of me that it isn’t represented in their ERAs.
Many on here keep bringing up the past so I guess I will too. Where are all those posters that were jumping on me for wanting to trade Heilman for Brian Fuentes? I wanted Fuentes because he had closer experience and was a REAL reliever. Oh well, he has a WHIP of 1.00 and is pitching great.
Now I am not sure Heilman has any value.
I would be looking around the league for a salary dump of a good reliever that can get LH and RH out. Cant be Bradford because then we just have another Smith. Suggestions?
If you were a GM is there anything in Heilman that would make you want him pitching for you? At this point no theres not. The only time heilman should play at this point is when games get out of hand. If he establishes confidence then theres a slight chance of dumping him on somebody in need of a reliever. I cant watch him pitch in an important situation again. He never comes up big.
We seem to do this and I am sure other teams do as well. But we should have traded Heiliman in the offseason.
I’m in favor of handing the mop up roll to heilman so he can stretch his arm out and amybe spot start. I do not think he considers himself a reliever.
Watching the game Tuesday night, there was something very right about Duaner coming out of the bullpen in the eigth inning. the view of him running from the pen was inspiring.
How many times does a mop up pitcher really get to pitch, especially for an average team right now? Think how much Sele got used last year.
When we are down 4-0 after a Pelfrey implosion in the 3rd is that mop up time? When we are down 6-1 in the 6th after a Sosa bomb (granted he’s gone but you get it) is that mop up time? We very rarely have a blow out in our favor and when we do it’s because our starting pitcher was doing well.
So thus Heilman’s only hope is to SEND HIM DOWN. Bring up Muniz. He was great when he was up. WHIP of .50. You can’t leave him in the minors the way the BP is pitching right now.
Look, baseball, like most sports you have to play the hot hand and right now Joe Smith is the hot hand….when he starts to suck, then you pull back and play the latest hot hand….that’s how baseball works in my mind. Maybe Willie and the Jacket haven’t figured that out yet?
The Schoe gets points for being rather witty:
When it was pointed out that Schoeneweis might have scored points with hard-to-please Mets fans if he had thrown an inning and then had his appendix taken out on the mound, he said: “Maybe it would catapult me.”
Sanchez, Smith and Feliciano I feel good about. Schoenweis still scares the hell out of me because he really hasnt pitched much. Wise I have no real opinion on yet as he hasnt pitched enough yet, but he did chalk up a big homer against Florida that I have not forgotten. As far as Heilman, you know he is good from past seasons, but he is going to have to a run of good outings before we all dont cringe alittle when he enters a tight game. I still would take this pen over 3/4 of the others out there.
Who voted for Heilman? Are you guys smoking something? If you looked into his eyes during the gamelast night, the guy doesn’t even have confidence in himself. He is a lost cause.
Too many of the relievers are situational for the poll question to be worded as it is. Not a good question, IMO.
The segment of off-the-wall answers are not unexpected, but I will mention again that they’re even more damaging to the meaningfulness of the poll when it’s the Willie poll. I don’t get why they take that poll and just blend every response into a mean, and then act like it’s telling us something. That “60%” or whatever number it happens to be is analagous to watching Sportscenter highlights of a game or political soundbites… short, sweet, and really telling you very little about what you are supposedly interested in knowing…just dumbed down for simplicity’s sake.
I understand not being confident in Joe Smith given his second half last year, but you have to consider a rookie hitting a wall in his first season is quite common. This is a tough poll to get an accurate response on because a lot of fans take into account a pitcher’s total book of work, and not just what they’re doing right now; while others think the opposite way. I think our bullpen has been better than it looks on paper, the real problem they’re facing is putting the right arm in the right situation and knowing when to pull someone (like heilman last night, or sosa earlier in the week). There have also been a few situations where you can see a pitcher struggling but no one is up and ready to come in and rescue him. That’s been particularly frustrating for me, seeing heilman or sosa struggling and knowing that it’s up to him and only him for the next batter or three.
Strawberry and Reynolds…they make me feel better after a loss. Just kidding..but seriously the question was who we feel comfortable with aside from wagner. As of the first 40 some games, its smith because he’s looked the best. You people that are so heated about this conversation are kinda ridiculous, because its a simple question that sparks debate, note personal attacks.
As for heilman, after i settle down and the swearing is over, i think they should just try and start him to see what happens. That was his original role, why not put him back and see if hes more comfortable. Honestly the guy gets two outs then cant get it done, maybe he needs to start or just get 2 outs then get rid of him
How bout none of the above??
Sorry metsfaninvegas…I didn’t see your comment before I posted mine.
Can I pick “none of the above”?