 
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans. Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here. Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here. Got something to say? Leave a comment, or email us at faithandfear@gmail.com. Need our RSS feed? It's here. Use Facebook? Come check out our page, or drop by the personal pages for Greg and Jason. Or follow us on Twitter: Here's Greg, and here's Jason. |
Cue 'Layla (Piano Exit)'Jimmy was cutting every link between himself and the robbery…still, months after the robbery, they were finding bodies all over. The Mets bullpen crew whacked the Mets’ playoff hopes. The Mets are getting even. Heilman. Smith. Now this. When they found Schoeneweis on the Diamondbacks, he was frozen so stiff it took them two days to thaw him out for Spring Training. 13 comments to Cue 'Layla (Piano Exit)' |
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But it's in my mother's name…
Is this Conor Roberston guy suppose to be, uh, good? At all?
He's not Scott Schoeneweis, which is good enough for me.
Regarding all this, there was an interesting argument the other day in the comments on Baseball Think Factory after the K-Rod signing.
The author argued (from a stats-based perspective) that K-Rod wasn't much of an upgrade. Commentors — one passionate one in particular — objected, and they started arguing about the Met bullpen. There's a lot of the usual Is Not/Is Too of such stuff, punctuated by the usual You Can't Do Basic Math/You're a Propellerhead accompaniment.
But then, late in the game, this bit of pure reason:
Intellectually, I get it – Heilman, Sanchez and Feliciano all should be better in 2009 than they were in 2008. But sometimes, you have to choose the evil that you don't know. I think there is value in the Mets replacing the components of the bullpen even if it doesn't significantly improve the projected performance of the bullpen as a whole, if only to prevent Mets fans from going into a collective psychosis every time Manuel pulls the starter in the sixth inning of an August game with the Mets clinging to a 2 run lead.
And there it is.
/mini-post
Are gettin' smart with me?
What did I tell you?
Yeah, I agree. And, I think if the D'backs use Schoeneweis exclusively as a lefty specialist, like the Mets said they were going to and never really did, then he's going to thrive there. Attitude is such a huge component of any bullpen's success, and it's got to be difficult to intimidate a lineup when your home crowd boos the crap out of you every time you head to the mound. The boos were no excuse for the pens performance during the second half last year, and I'm not a blame the fans kind of guy, but you've got to admit, negative crowd noise is a big factor in New York, and the fans here had permanently soured on Heilman and Schoeneweis. Schoeneweis could have had a 1.75 ERA before the All-Star break in 2009, and people would still be booing him into July for giving up that home run to Wes Helms. No shot at redemption for him here, and I'm guessing that this is one of those trades that Minaya was alluding to when he said “addition by subtraction.” It's good to see him cleaning house in the bullpen. Minaya has been looking more and more impressive this off-season. Much more so than Cashman across town, whose strategy, once again, seems to involve filling every hole with piles and piles of money.
Agree, Heilman might very well excell in new surroundings but never would have happened in New York.
Scott Schoenweiss was over-rated to begin with so don't count on him getting the outs in Arizona.
The only time I began to lose confidence in Jerry Manuel was very late in the season when the trips to the mound became frequent and the arm waved for the next victim, almost batter by batter by batter. Was he doing it out of desperation or was he doing it out of true necessity? We'll find out how he manages a bullpen now that he has a real one.
There are always going to be contrarians who run down the guy with oodles of saves and find grace in those poor saps who are really better than popular opinion would indicate. Let someone else derive the hidden excellence of Aaron Heilman and Scott Schoeneweis, and we'll cope with the burden of Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz. Shiny names inked to large contracts don't solve everything, but for this team and this pen, it's the best and most obvious solution.
No way, no way, no way we could have looked at those guys another year. No way.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I guess that means Sanchez is going to be traded soon after being told that he will be the 8th inning guy?
“They had to whack him. Because of the cab, and for other things.”
They must really feed each other to the lions down there.
This is one hell of an exorcism. The three players, Wagner, Heilman and Schoenweis, who did so much to kill the last two seasons are gone. I don't know what the new guys are going to do, but it sure makes the opening of the new ballpark a much happier occasion.
I know this will never happen, but getting Manny for two or three years would certainly be a big help, too. Having a 3-4-5-6 of Manny, Wright, Beltran and Delgado might give that punk Hamels and the rest of the Phillies something more to think about. Of course hopefully he would think about that after being drilled in the ribs.
I can't believe the Dodgers let Saito go. Could you imagine if Omar signs him too? I wouldn't mind a Plan C. God knows we need it.
And Greg, I sincerely hope someone out there takes your cue and puts together a youtube slideshow of our departed bullpen. That Lufthansa thing happened in Queens, too.
I can just see it..Heilman cowering in the shadows of the old bullpen, jumping at the sound of the phone ringing. A once confident professional turned into a fearful, sniveling shell of a set-up man..
Who will be the next Frankie Carbone?
Merry Christmas…and Happy Hanukkah!