I sure hope that they weren't counting on him. It's easy to forget that Sanchez was actually only really good for less than 1/5 of the season. On May 5 he had pitched 21 innings in 15 appearances, had an ERA of 0.00, and was of course a major reason for the Mets' 20-9 start (in fact, the Mets were 13-2 in the games in which he appeared). After that, through July 28 he had an ERA of 4.19 in 34 appearances, giving up at least one earned run in more than 1/4 of his appearances (the Mets lost 6 of those 9 games). After he got hurt, the Mets played better than they had with him after May 5, in part because of Heilman, of course.
He did have a pretty rough patch there in May and June but it looked like he was coming out of it in July. He had the one bad outing against the Reds but other then that didn't give up any runs, while his walk and hit totals were down and strikeouts up. Also, even throughout his struggles he was consistently great against RHB last year, they had a sub .500 OPS against him when he went down.
It is true that he wasn't bad in July other than the one game, but of course the other side of his success against RHB was that after May 5 he was quite poor against LHB. I'm not trying to argue that the Mets are better off without him, but I think that his amazing start inflated the view of his actual season-long contributions. For all of the supposed worth of setup men, IMO it's still starters, closers, and hitters that make the big difference.
Based on his previous 2 years he probably would've ended up somewhere in the 3's in ERA with 80+ IP. Certainly not nearly as valuable as Wagner but on a team where 6IP for a starter was a good night it's nice to have. Hopefully the young blood in the starting rotation this year will cause a little less reliance on the bullpen.
translation: in situations where anything other then a strikeout is as good as a hit, we might think about using this guy. maybe.
Ordonez has to be one of the worst Mets in history. Not strictly for his "talent", but for the fact that the Mets saw fit to keep giving him 500+ PA's a year despite him being one of the worst hitters in recent memory. Consider - he posted a negative VORP each of his 7 years with the Mets, and was the starting SS the entire time! His blow up at getting booed finally gave the Mets an excuse to get rid of him, at least.
I just got an email about a 2nd chance to buy OD tickets. I'm pumped, got pretty good seats too, Upper Box at right around 3rd base. Anyone else get lucky?
Following today’s win over the Dodgers, Willie Randolph told reporters he will use the following rotation through the first week of the season… Sunday: Tom Glavine at St. Louis Monday: off day Tuesday: Orlando Hernandez at St. Louis Wednesday: John Maine at St. Louis Thursday: off day Friday: Oliver Perez in Atlanta Saturday: Tom Glavine in Atlanta Sunday: Orlando Hernandez in Atlanta Monday: John Maine vs. Phillies, in home opener
