Recap: Minaya on Pitching, Speed, Defense & Questions
In October, Mets GM Omar Minaya talked on WFAN about building a team around pitching, speed and defense, something he also emphasized when he was hired in 2004.
In his appearance last night on SNY’s Mets Hot Stove, host Kevin Burkhardt asked Minaya if he feels his team has improved in those areas this off season, to which he said Jason Bay and Jeff Francoeur are better defensive players than last year’s Opening Day left fielder and right fielder, Daniel Murphy and Ryan Church.
He believes Gary Matthews Jr. and Angel Pagan will play a very good defensive center field.
Minaya also said Henry Blanco is a significant upgrade on defense behind the plate.
He also believes Daniel Murphy will be better in the field at first base than last season, as he continues to work, improve and learn the position.
In terms of pitching, Minaya said, though the Mets identified John Lackey as a ‘difference maker,’ the team’s current pitchers, i.e., John Maine, Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez, when healthy, are just as good, if not better, than some of the other starting pitchers that are or were on the free-agent market.
Burkhardt then asked, “If you were a rival GM, would you be intimidated looking at the Mets staff?”
Minaya first touted Johan Santana, naturally, then said, “If we can get Mike Pelfrey to be the Mike Pelfrey of 2008, understanding that Mike Pelfrey has two full years in the major leagues, and he’s won 20 games in those two years, and there’s upside there.” He also said a healthy Oliver Perez has ‘beaten good teams.”
He believes that if Pelfrey, Maine, Perez and Santana are healthy, they will have a good pitching staff.
In addition, Minaya said, when talking about the pitching staff, it’s important to consider all 12 pitches, after which he praised Francisco Rodriguez and touted new additions Kelvim Escobar and Ryota Igarashi.
Burkhardt pointed out that Minaya listed a lot of what could be described as ‘question marks,’ to which he said, ‘Kevin, every team will enter the season with question marks.’
Burkhardt replied, with a curious tone, “As many as this?”
Minaya said, “When you look at other teams pitching staffs, some teams have some great guys, no question, but most teams are going to question marks, we’re going to have question marks coming off of last year. I think it’s fair to say we’d like to reduce the ifs, but if you looked at the free-agent market, a lot of those free agents are ifs… there are always a lot of question marks with pitching.”
To see video fo Minaya from last night’s Mets Hot Stove, watch this video on SNY.TV.
