Oliver Perez
Look, the New York Mets still have work to do this offseason. That’s a result not just of how terrible Brodie Van Wagenen and Jeff Wilpon were, but it’s also representative of where the Mets aspirations are.
To that end, instead of looking at a rotation of Jacob deGrom, Marcus Stroman, Carlos Carrasco, and eventually Noah Syndergaard buttressed by impressive depth, fans see a team in need of another starter. To be fair, the Mets organization does as well.
In light of that, the Mets pursued James Paxton, and they’ve pursued other starters as well. Except, the Mets didn’t get Paxton. He would return to the Seattle Mariners for a little more money to pitch at a place where he’s had success to rebuild his value.
Remember, Paxton has an injury history, and he’s coming off an injury. Would Paxton have made the Mets better? Sure. However, what he provides is fungible as compared to the free agent market.
Right now, pitchers like Taijuan Walker, Jake Odorizzi, and Rick Porcello are still free agents. Arguably, Paxton has the highest ceiling, but he may also have the lowest floor.
If the idea is to add a starter for depth, wouldn’t it be better to add the guy you can count on to be healthy? With that being the case, Paxton and Odorizzi aren’t the answer. Walker and Porcello are.
Regardless, missing out on Paxton is not remotely a big deal when you have these other options.
The same can be said about the Mets missing out on Justin Wilson.
Undoubtedly, with Seth Lugo‘s injury, there is an increased need for the Mets to bring in another reliever. Losing Lugo turns a bullpen which was looking like a strength and turning it into a question mark.
Yes, Wilson was quite good with the Mets, and he’s likely to be quite good next year. To that point, it makes the Aaron Loup signing all the more curious. Wilson would’ve likely been far superior for that role, but for some reason, the organization thought Loup was the better fit.
Even with that, there still remains quality options available. There’s Trevor Rosenthal who seemed to put the injuries behind him to return to his dominant form. David Robertson is coming off Tommy John, and he’s been a dominant late inning reliever in his career. There are other interesting names like MVP vote getter Ryan Tepera.
If the Mets want a strictly left-handed reliever, Oliver Perez is available. Put the old nonsense aside, Perez has been a quality reliever. There’s also Tony Watson, who can provide every bit what Wilson could’ve provided.
In total, there’s still plenty of quality arms on the free agent market who can easily provide what Paxton and Wilson would’ve. In fact, there are pitchers available who are in fact better. Because of this, there is absolutely zero reason to get upset over missing those two or other similarly skilled pitchers.
Really, the only time to get upset is in the event the Mets don’t add another starter or reliever. That said, based on all we’ve seen this offseason, it’s hard to believe that’ll happen.
The New York Mets have to effectively rebuild much of their pitching staff. Put another way, they need to find a number of quality innings from their pitching staff. That’s why they should be considering Gio Gonzalez.
Getting the obvious out of the way, Gonzalez is not an answer in the rotation. In fact, he hasn’t really been that since the first half of the 2018 season.
Yes, Gonzalez did pitch effectively for the Milwaukee Brewers starting late in that 2018 season. However, they used him as a roughly four to five inning starter. This year he wasn’t even that for the White Sox.
Gonzalez lasted four starts before being moved to the bullpen. With his starting the year with a 6.00 ERA and being unable to pitch at least 5.0 innings at least once, he forced the White Sox hands. In some ways, they did him a favor.
After getting moved to the bullpen, Gonzalez made seven appearances pitching to a 2.53 ERA with him striking out nearly a batter over 10.2 innings. During this stretch, his innings pitched ranged from 0.1 to 3.2 innings.
Sure, it wasn’t all perfect with Gonzalez having a paltry 1.11 K/BB ratio. He also sputtered at the end allowing runs in two out of his last three appearances. Still, when you look at the whole picture, he’s an enticing bullpen option.
One major reason why is the three batter rule. With that rule, it is increasingly difficult to carry LOOGYS. Still, when you have a division with Freddie Freeman, Bryce Harper, and Juan Soto, you need left-handed relievers who can get big left handed bats out.
In his career, Gonzalez has dominated left-handed batters limiting them to a .228/.299/.346 batting line. He has also more than held his own against right-handed batters limiting them to a .243/.325/.374 batting line.
Now, his splits against right-handed batters have fallen off since his top 10 Cy Young finish in 2017, he did limit right-handed batters to a .212 batting average since being moved to the bullpen.
One reason why is Gonzalez still has good stuff. According to Baseball Savant, Gonzalez posted terrific exit velocity and whiff% numbers. His hard hit percentage and curve spin were also quite indicative of what you expect to see from a strong reliever.
By relying on just his best pitches in the bullpen, his numbers could improve. We’ve seen that time and again. Some classic examples are Andrew Miller, Oliver Perez, and Seth Lugo.
On the subject of Lugo, we’ve seen the immense value in having a multiple inning reliever in the bullpen. Lugo’s ability to do both this and close makes him a Swiss Army knife. It’d be great for the Mets to add a left-handed compliment. That’s what Gonzalez could be.
In some ways, Gonzalez could be akin to what the Mets got from Darren Oliver in 2006. In many ways, Gonzalez and Oliver compare favorably.
Both pitchers are fastball/curveball pitchers at their core. They both had control issues throughout their career. Both starting working out of the bullpen in their age 33 seasons.
The question for Gonzalez if he’ll accept the role in the bullpen to lengthen his career like Oliver did. When that happened, Oliver both prolonged his career and helped the Mets win the division.
Gonzalez may have that chance now. He could be the left-handed compliment to Lugo. He could be a key reliever. He could very well be a key piece to a team popping champagne at the end of the 2021 season.
When it comes to the Mets, there have been several bad to disastrous free agent signings. In fact, up until recently, there was a real debate over which signing was the worst.
Players like Bobby Bonilla and Kazuo Matsui never quite fulfilled his promise. Roger Cedeno was nowhere near the player he was in 1999 when he returned to Queens. Jason Bay didn’t hit for power before the concussions happened.
Oliver Perez completely fell apart when he signed his deal. Luis Castillo was terrible, and he dropped that pop up.
As bad as those were, there was Vince Coleman, who was an unmitigated disaster. Aside from his numbers falling off a cliff, he threw firecrackers at fans, injured Dwight Gooden with a golf club, and he was accused of sexual assault (charges never filed).
Looking at it, Coleman was probably the worst of the group. When you consider the long standing animosity Mets fans had towards him prior to the signing and his off the field problems, he may still have claim to that title.
However, when it comes to on the field performance, Jed Lowrie is definitively the worst ever Mets signing. We just need to look at video from the Mets summer camp yesterday to confirm that.
Jed Lowrie is participating in base running drills with his brace on. His speed is definitely not game-ready. pic.twitter.com/PyVmUqT9J4
— Deesha (@DeeshaThosar) July 5, 2020
Rewinding back to Spring Training last year, Lowrie was initially described as having left knee soreness. Time and again, the Mets downplayed the injury, and to date, they have yet to really reveal what the injury actually is.
They didn’t reveal it when he had multiple rehab assignments shut down. They didn’t reveal it when he was 0-for-7 as a pinch hitter in September. They didn’t reveal it when he came to Spring Training this year not really ready to play. Even months later, they’re still not revealing it. Worse yet, they’re downplaying it.
New manager Luis Rojas was put in the position today that Mickey Callaway failed far too often. He had to offer an out-and-out lie and make it sound believable. According to what Rojas said, Lowrie is a “full go.”
Later in the day, we saw the video running and realized there’s no way that’s true. Lowrie is not a full go, and to a certain extent the Mets talking about Lowrie ramping up to try to play without a brace is a strawman. All told, brace or no brace, this is simply a player who can’t get on the field.
The more you see the aborted rehab attempts, the lack of explanations for the injury, the mixed messages, and Lowrie’s inability to do anything but swing the bat, the more you’re reminded of David Wright. Before his send off, Wright would make similar attempts to get back, but ultimately his body wouldn’t let him. It seems the same with Lowrie.
Maybe Lowrie is different , but that’s anyone’s guess. Really, that’s all we have. That’s partially because the Mets revealed no news, and it’s because Lowrie didn’t either.
Asked what is exactly wrong with his leg, Lowrie said he doesn't want to create a distraction.
— Mike Puma (@NYPost_Mets) July 5, 2020
Maybe telling everyone why his knee, left side, or whatever else the Mets want to call it would be more of a distraction than it is already. Maybe it won’t. Whatever the case, when you strip it all down, the Mets gave a two year $20 million deal to a guy who just can’t play.
The Mets didn’t need Lowrie when they signed him. They already had Robinson Cano, Todd Frazier, and Jeff McNeil. What they needed was arms in the bullpen, but they already allocated their budget towards an infielder who would wind up doing no more than a few pinch hitting attempts (without a hit). You could say the Mets not having those extra arms in the pen is what cost them the postseason last year.
Ultimately, Lowrie is getting $20 million from the Mets, and he can’t get on the field. The money allocated towards him could’ve addressed other deficiencies on the roster and helped pushed the Mets into the postseason. Brodie Van Wagenen signed his former client, who was too injured to even start one game, and with that Van Wagenen quite possibly made the single worst free agent signing in Mets history.