PORT ST. LUCIE – The weakest aspect of the Mets’ roster is the starting rotation. Any fool can see that. It takes a wise man to do nothing about it.
No trade at all beats a bad trade, even if the latter temporarily fills a need for a team in go-for-it-now mode.
The timing is wrong. The name is wrong. It just feels wrong.
March, when the supply of starters is low, is no time to panic. The market will be flooded with quality starters come late July, once several clubs surrender far-out fantasies about contending, trim their budgets, get what they can to make the future seem brighter.
Now? The Mets can overpay for Kenny Rogers. That’s about it.
New York has been there, done that with Rogers on the other side of town and it wasn’t pretty. He’s not a made-for-October pitcher and his elbow is suspect.
To part with Jason Isringhausen and Octavio Dotel to get Rogers in April constitutes a panic move.
That’s why I don’t believe Steve Phillips will do it. His batting average since taking the GM job July 16, 1997, has been far better with trades than it was as a player in 6 years in the minor leagues for the Mets.
Acquiring Mike Piazza and Al Leiter from the Marlins were the most significant moves made by Phillips, but not the most remarkable.
The way Phillips managed to rid the Mets of Bernard Gilkey and his $5 million annual salary qualified the GM for a card in the magician’s union. He had the equivalent of a mansion devastated by an earthquake and got someone else to pay for the mortgage.
Gilkey was the least tradeable player in baseball, one of the worst two or three starting players in the game when Phillips dumped him and decent prospect Nelson Figueroa on the Diamondbacks for Willie Blair, Jorge Fabregas and a player to be named. Through a complex, three-way deal, the player to be named became Jermain Allensworth.
Phillips then dealt Blair to the Tigers for Joe Randa and sent Fabregas plus $500,000 to the Marlins for Oscar Henriquez. Phillips dealt Randa to the Royals for power-hitting prospect Juan LeBron.
In the end, what Phillips basically did was trade Gilkey, $500,000 and Figueroa for Allensworth, LeBron and Henriquez. Toss out the comparable minor league pitchers and the deal is Gilkey and $500,000 for Allensworth and LeBron. If Phillips had approached Royals GM Herk Robinson with that proposal Robinson would have sought to have him committed.
Dumping Gilkey’s $11 million enabled Phillips to spend in other areas to spruce up a so-so offense.
A man doesn’t execute a series of moves that were brilliant, then impulsively deal two young power arms for George Steinbrenner’s former punching bag.
Isringhausen forever will be an injury risk and doesn’t possess the – how to put this kindly? – powers of concentration, that’s it, to project as an effective major league starting pitcher. He does have the arm to project as an intimidating, late-inning reliever similar to Armando Benitez.
Dotel, 23, hasn’t refined his stuff to major league levels and some wonder if his delivery makes him a high injury risk, but he has a powerful arm and powerful minor league numbers. He is 50-23 with a 3.48 ERA and 666 strikeouts in 621 innings.
Phillips showed proper courage in parting with prospects to get Piazza, Leiter and Dennis Cook. Might he do so again?
“I have faith in the other kids in our organization, that we have enough depth to handle it,” he said. “I have enough faith in our scouts to replenish our system.”
For the right deal. Better to save them as part of a midseason Curt Schilling trade than to spend them on Rogers. Better to start the year with a rotation of Leiter, Rick Reed, Bobby Jones, Orel Hershiser and Masato Yoshii than to increase payroll and diminish the future by adding Rogers.
Young hitters have been teeing off on Yoshii’s just-short fastball all spring. It’s worth waiting and seeing if he will add velocity when the curtain goes up and the adrenaline flows. Yoshii was at his best in the postseason in Japan, which stands to reason he would be at his worst in spring training.
At his best in the big leagues, Yoshii is a No. 5 starter on a contending team. Maybe that’s good enough to keep the Mets in a comfortable position to gain the wild-card berth, by which time he would be working out of the bullpen.
Times such as these, when the air is filled with trade talks, can be stressful on a clubhouse, but the players aren’t freaking out. They have faith in Phillips. They believe somehow, some way, he will do the right thing. I believe the same.
