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Last night, Brian Stokes pitch four scoreless innings in relief, for a ‘save,’ while striking out three batters, walking none and allowing just three hits.
In 9.2 innings this season, he has let up four runs and 10 hits, while striking out 9 and walking one.
He has a nice, hard slider, which goes well with his 95–mph fastball, which combine very nicely for the bullpen.
It would be nice to see Stokes slot in like Darren Oliver did in 2006, pitching not only in long relief, but also filling in against righties on a night when Joe Smith or Aaron Heilman need a night off.
In short, Stokes, who had a 7.07 ERA for the Rays in 2007, could be just what the Mets have been looking for to help out in their bullpen in 2008.
I like how Stokes has looked…but before we annoint him an answer in the pen let’s remember he had one good outing against a buried, dreadful team down 12-0.
That said, fresh blood is fresh blood. Hope he can continue to contribute.
Eh, he also pitched 6 pretty effective innings vs. a young upstart team, the Marlins. His fastball is flat out scary.
I think that we gotta try Stokes in the long relief role - and not just as a righty specialist.
I agree w/ dave27, he’s untested - but he is fresh, and he does have some nasty, nasty stuff - and right now in the pen, only Wags has that.
Not THE but AN answer to the pen.
What else can we do?
Get Wagner back healthy
Keep checking the waiver wires.
Gain more confidence in Kunz
Wagner, Kunz, Felciano, Smith, Show, Stokes, Heilman
If you pick up a waiver guy, who goes? I like Stokes being a longman in the pen. We need that guy who can come in and throw 3 innings for Pedro or Maine.
Maybe DL Sanchez to work on his velocity and bring in a waiver guy if any get there. Someone like David Weathers.
Otherwise, our best help for the BP is our SP.
In your seven man bullpen, you have Dirty gone when Billy Wags comes back. Who do you then move to make room for a waiver guy? Kunz?
Missed that but I get to cheat because by that time the rosters will be expanded ;)
Fair enough :-)
I think expanded rosters will really help the pen. It’s gonna depend on who comes up and who works out of the pen, but it could really be a great benefit to an already overworked bullpen.
DL’ing Sanchez won’t do anything. Either:
1. His shoulder was damaged to the point where he will never regain his velocity
2. Something is up with his mechanics
3. He hasn’t 100% gained his arm strength back since the injury.
My view is to let him pitch. Either the arm strength comes back or he learns how to pitch at 90-91 rather than 95-96.
Why can’t he do that making rehab starts instead of tying up a spot in our pen?
WAY too early to judge Stokes.
Last year he was an abomination in the Rays’ pen.
About Heilman needing a night off? He needed to be sent down a long time ago to New Orleans to work out his kinks.
Why not make Heilman the long guy and gives Stokes a chance as a setup in the late innings? He can’t be any worse at it than anyone else out there.
I think at this point Stokes gives us more value as a long man. Who says he can’t come in the 7th inning and pitch 2 innings? I agree it’s too early to judge but at this point the only lable I would give Heilman is MUM. (MOP UP MAN).
Wait i thought Manuel was employing the tandem starter idea that someone wrote about in the comments section of Janish’s post about reversing the game.
I guess he works as a long man as well, but isn’t that kind of the same thing… especially if he closes it out?
He could be an answer but I wouldn’t count on it. That said he’s going to be unavailable for a couple of days.
Stokes AAA numbers are crummy.
Not “crummy” just average. His ERA is high but that’s in a hitters league. The rest of his numbers are average.
His numbers are average for the PCL. However, a guy who’s basically a two pitch pitcher like Stokes is better served to a relief role. His fastball and slider are solid pitches, so he should be capable of working through an order once.
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by Stokes’ performance on Saturday. His stuff isn’t bad and he throws harder than I thought. Granted yesterday was against one of the worst offenses in baseball, but I like what I’ve seen so far from Stokes.
At the very worst, it’s quite clear he is better than Muniz.
I have a melted stick of butter that is better than Muniz.
You know, if you take away that game against St. Louis, Muniz stats have not been that bad. I know it seems like it but take a look.
He would have an ERA around 4.00 with a WHIP around 1.20.
Stokes as a new face and new arm is fine by me. Until he blows up like the rest of the bullpen has been doing I say keep using him. I’m actually curious to see how Burgos would do.
Been on vacation, any new news on him?
No news, really. Still rehabbing with the GCL Mets. He’s made two appearances and is tentatively scheduled to throw in this afternoon’s GCL game. He has been popping the mitt just like he used to, sitting in the high 90s.
I saw that he had pitched another inning and it was clean.
Stokes is a hard thrower that the mets really need in the bulpen to strike out someone.
Joe smith, and pedro are 1 batter to 2 batter pitchers
and Sanchez and Show could set up
while stokes comes in as a long man
that is how are bulpen setup
while Heliman could be our bat boy
RH hitters have pounded Show to the tune of a .923 OPS this season, and an .849 OPS the past three. I really don’t think you want to count on him to pitch a full inning as a setup man.
Though RH hitters have hit Feliciano almost as hard as Show this season, for his career Pedro has held RHs to an OPS of .697.
If you had to choose between Show and Feliciano as a true setup guy, Feliciano is your better bet.
The problem with Stokes is that, even though he seems to throw hard, historically he has not been a strikeout pitcher. It is curious how a guy who was hitting 95 and 96 on the gun consistently doesn’t have a history of striking guys out.
Maybe Warthen or whoever is in AAA now has done some work with him to strike more guys out, I don’t know. What little he’s shown so far has been encouraging, and is not consistent with a guy who had a 7 ERA last year.
Just throwing hard though doesn’t do much but have home runs leave the park faster.
His fastball straightens out when he throws it 95/96. If he took off a few MPH so it would have some movement, then you’d prolly see an increase in K’s
Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander and Ben Sheets don’t strike out a ton of guys either. He has a hard fastball but as ravi noted, it is straight. It’s also one of only two pitches that he really throws, making it less likely that pitchers are overpowered by it.
Just another example of why you don’t trade prospects for middle relievers at the trade deadline (or any other time, for that matter).
My little 11 year old cousin who plays little league is an answer to this bullpen. He also catches, plays short, second, and left field.
This pen is just not clutch, and crumple at tough spots. Hopefully the others can pick it up after a few days off.
Any chance he pitches 38 I scoreless like that friggin’ Ziegler?!
I saw Stokes pitch at the AAA level a couple of weeks back and although he took the loss, his stuff looked pretty good. He was hitting pretty high on the gun, he just didn’t get much run support that particular game and his performance actually reminded me quite a bit of Johan. He gave up a home run, 2 or 3 runs total, and ended up still losing the game. The thing was, other than the home run, the hits were these piddly little crappy things. Check swings that cleared the infielders heads and went for singles, stuff like that. He actually did pretty well, but the ERA didn’t show it. I left pretty impressed by what I saw and was actually excited when he got called up.
I do think Stokes is an answer to the Mets’ problems in the pen. With Wagner out the bullpen is in shambles and it would be nice to have a long guy to eat up innings.
With that being said I never really bought into Jerry’s idea of using starters as closers, and with Maine’s start last night I don’t think you can. We have to wait, let Wagner get healthy, and hopefully things will shape up.
we need more new blood that him. try out Ruddy Lugo, he hasnt been used yet.
than*
Nate Field has also had past success as a ML reliever. Ivan Maldonado might be worth a look as well.
Come September, we’ll also see Figueroa and Brito, as well as Parnell and Niese.
FWIW, Trot Nixon is rehabbing in the GCL. He played in his second game this afternoon.
Burgos pitched again today (as myself and therealsince86 discussed), tossing 2IP allowing a run on two hits with 3K/0BB. I’d imagine he’ll get another appearance or two in the GCL before being sent to Bingy or PSL.
Burgos has potential to still be an effective Mets reliever for years to come if he pitches with control and stays healthy. Maybe even an outside chance as a closer consider his velocity. Eddie Kunz will be there too.
Duaner Sanchez and Joe Smith (or Matt Wise - yeah, right) were supposed to replace Guillermo Mota and Aaron Sele in bullpen. Sosa or El Duque were supposed to replace Sele’s long relief role, but apparently he couldn’t handle it so we’ve had a variety of spot starter’s and Carlos Muniz since. Going into next year, the Mets hopefully will try replacing some of their bullpen. Burgos and Kunz are good candidates. Although Heilman’s had productive years in the past, I think he’s worn out his welcome with the Mets. He doesn’t want to be in that role which could compromise his success. Plus, we’ll have the 5 slot open when we don’t bring back Pedro and El Duque next year. I say let him compete and than trade him to open up for Niese or Parnell.
It’s really too early to well with Stokes. I’d say give him a chance. He threw solid. I never saw a reason outside of one bad peformance that said Vargas should have went down. Carlos Muniz is not a better option. In extra innings, you want a long man.
There’s no answer to repair this bullpen. It’s the whole dynamic. It’s improved over the past couple games because they’ve finally been able to accumulate some rest and the Mets offense and starting pitcher’s are carrying the load. Duaner didn’t look bad the other night. Feliciano seemed to have the temporary best head for the 9th inning closing role that they waited to give him the chance too over nearly everyone else except for Kunz.
The way I view the Mets bullpen is like shaving. They got to shave off the parts of the pen’ that make it look ugly. The parts that have caused the most problems. That’s Aaron Heilman. I wouldn’t give up on his entirely, but just for this season. Being mop up is secondary to that, but than there’s always a chance he can end up back in tough situations he can’t mentally handle. I’d shave off Joe Smith too because of his lack of consistency but I’d call him back up in September.
From there, you leave Kunz and Stokes. You activate Wagner. You call up Nate Field or someone who provides new chemistry or try to get someone off the waiver wire. Or call up Burgos when he’s ready. Than the pen is Stokes, Burgos, Show, Feliciano, Kunz, Duaner and Wagner.