Elevate Heilman

When I evaluate a pitcher, I first look at three statistics: strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. Why these? Because these are the statistics that a pitcher alone has most control over. Other numbers involve too many variables outside a pitcher's control. For instance, a pitcher's defense and ballpark affect the number of hits allowed. Strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed involve less variables.

Lots of strikeouts show that a pitcher fools hitters. Lots of walks show that a pitcher has poor command. Lots of home runs means that a pitcher throws meatballs. The best pitchers, year in and year out, guys like Pedro, Clemens and Johan Santana, dominate these numbers.

The Mets already have two of these guys in the starting rotation, the aforementioned Pedro and Kris Benson. They could have one more: Aaron Heilman.

Heilman has 70 Ks, only 21 BBs and only 5 HRs allowed. Each of those numbers are stellar. As rules of thumb, great pitchers normally strikeout a batter per inning, give up a walk only every four innings and give up a dinger once every nine innings. Heilman surpasses all of these benchmarks.

Look at the K, BB and HR numbers for other top-notch hurlers. See Jake Peavy, Mark Prior, Roy Oswalt, Roy Halladay, Matt Morris and Erik Bedard. Look at their Ks, BBs and HRs. These are the numbers that matter. Heilman has them. Let him start.

Thanks, Omar

Maybe these really are The New Mets.

The Old Mets were a bunch of overpriced, over-the-hill stars. The Old Mets were Mo Vaughn and Robbie Alomar. The Old Mets didn't win.

Manny Ramirez would've been an Old Met in a year or two. He's 33 right now. Ballplayers start to decline in their mid-30s, unless they're fitness freaks. Look at Vaughn, Alomar, Piazza, Ventura, Zeile, Bernie Williams and others once they reached 30. Sure there's 42-year-old Roger Clemens, but he's a fitness freak. Ramirez is not a fitness freak. He's liable to break down soon, just like other stars in their 30s have before him.

Acquring Manny would've meant we were back to the old ways. That's not what wins. The New Mets are supposed signal a different direction. The New Mets are Wright, Reyes and Beltran. The New Mets plan to include Lastings Milledge, Victor Diaz and Anderson Hernandez. These New Mets are a team. They have depth. They may not win as many back-page headlines in the Daily News today, but they're more likely to win actual games in 2006 and beyond, when they're ready.

Think of the Old Mets as today's Yankees while the New Mets as the 90s Yankees. Today's Yankees are aging, have no depth and a hurting because of it. Today's Yankees buy players who are stars, but who are either past their primes or soon to be past their primes. Randy Johnson is still effective, but not nearly the pitcher he once was, and he won't be much better next year or the year after that. The late 90s Yankees built around a solid core of their home-grown young talent -- Rivera, Williams, Posada, Jeter. The veterans they brought in fit in with this crew, and took pains not to overshadow them. Manny, by the mere circumstances of his arrival, would've overshadowed the Mets homegrown crew. Furthermore, they wouldn't have been ready to live up to the lofty expectations that they would've been saddled with once Manny arrived.

The New Mets will have a shot to win something. What remained of these Mets coupled with an old Manny would not have had such a chance.

Quit bunting

I thought that the Mets' offense might break out after their 12-run splurge on Thursday. They didn't. They scored one run last night. Thanks to Pedro, they didn't need any more. But, in most games, they'll need to do more. And doing more involves swinging the bats, taking walks and not trying to bunt to get on base.

Jose Reyes and Doug Mientkiewicz, both mired in slumps, tried to bunting for hits. Reyes tried it in two separate at bats, including one at bat with a runner at third base and two outs. If they don't try to get on base the conventional ways, via a hit or a walk, they're not going find the confidence they need to get on base regularly. Willie Randolph can't let these guys try quick fixes (i.e. bunts) to their bigger problems. Reyes needs to be more selective at the plate. Mientkiewicz needs to do the same, and he needs to find his swing. Bunting against journeymen (which ex-Tiger and ex-Red Brian Moehler certainly is) won't help them.

In other news, Mike Piazza looks terrible. He missed a hanging breaking ball that the Piazza of years past would have crushed. At least he's swinging when he should be swinging. His swing doesn't look much different, but the bat speed does look like it has slowed down. Maybe it'll pick up. It seems like it can't get any slower than it is right now.

In overseas news: Congratulations to Steven Gerrard and his fellow Liverpudlians for capturing the Champions League. For as much as I revel in statistics and in my quest to objectively look at athletes, particularly those who play baseball, I can certainly see the immeasurable skill and heart of Gerrard and the Reds. Perhaps it's easier to see these things in football (the game known in the United States as soccer), basketball and American football, since those sports don't offer the set situations that baseball offers (batter-versus-pitcher, 27 outs, 162 games, etc.). That eventually deserves a column.

Can these other sports, particularly football (the spherical kind), be turned into statistics? (England's Premier League already has the Actim Index, but how reflective is it of a player's worth?) Or do I enjoy them in a different way, in a way that lets me see the sport as sport and not just numbers?

The bats will be OK

The Mets can score runs. Let me repeat. The Mets can score runs. Thursday night proved this. After scoring a whopping 0 runs the past two nights, the Mets exploded for 12 against the Florida Marlins.

This is a perfect time to stop and remember how bad the offense was last year, and how this year is a wee bit different. Let's reassess, using team on-base percentage and runs scored. (OBP is the magic stat, the one that correlates with runs scored better than batting average or slugging percentage does. The league average OBP is usually around .330.)

The 2004 Mets had a .313 on-base percentage, good for 14th best in the 16-team National League. The 2004 Mets scored 684 runs, the 12th highest total in the league.

About one-third into the 2005 season, the Mets have a a .328 OBP, good for 11th best in the NL. They've scored 211 runs, the sixth-highest run total in the league.

Clearly, the New Mets' offense is better than the old, bad Mets' offense. To be sure, the New Mets' on-base percentage isn't fantastic, and their league lead in home runs (they've hit 56) will end once the large dimensions of Shea Stadium and other NL East ballparks assert themselves. But the Mets have more weapons than they did, and these weapons have yet to break out. Once they do, their OBP, and runs scored, should rise further. Doug Mientkiewicz (.309 OBP); Jose Reyes (.288 OBP); the second baseman du jour, Kaz Matsui (.286 OBP) or Miguel Cairo (.309 OBP); and Mike Piazza (.293 OBP) can only improve. Carlos Beltran (.350 OBP) could improve, as well. His OBP has been .368 or higher the past two years, and he has yet to heat up, as he did last October.

It isn't June yet. The New Mets' bats deserve more time to show what they can do. Perhaps a blowout of the division-leading Marlins will spark them.

Why was Tom Glavine pitching so well last night?

He was trusting his stuff and his defense. Here's his line against the Braves:

T. Glavine (L, 3-5), IP 6.2, H 7, R 4, ER 4, BB 1, K 1

The most telling stat is the one walk. Glavine has always had great control. When he walks batters, he does so because he chooses to do so (unlike Kaz Ishii or Vic Zambrano, who can't help themselves). But when he walks batters, he gets in trouble, since he lacks the velocity to strike guys out and get out of jams.

Last night, Glavine let his defense do the work. He didn't walk batters, keeping the basepaths empty. It worked for six innings, just as it has for him in the past.

Glavine is a contact guy. He has compiled a Hall of Fame-worthy career ERA of 3.47, while his career strikeout-per-9 Innings rate is only 5.33. Most great pitchers have K/9 rates greater than 6. Glavine, however, is effective when he mixes speeds, confusing batters but not blowing the ball by them. Glavine, at his best, lets batters make contact, but only meekly so. His defense then gobbles up the ball.

Of course, with balls often in play, he needs a strong defense. This year, he has that. The Mets rank third in the National League in Defensive Efficiency, the percent of in-play balls that a defense reaches.

Glavine also benefits from a big park. He allows his fair share of fly balls: his ground/fly ball ratio this year is 1.44, while Tim Hudson's is above 2. Glavine has a big park in Shea Stadium. He will often have one on the road, too, being in the NL East (except when he's in Philly). (See ESPN's Park Factor ratings)

Glavine has struggled this year because he's tried to be perfect with his pitches, living outside the edge of the plate. He has given up way too many walks (26, which is the same number of batters he has struck out). Last night, he chose not to walk batters. While he did give up four runs, he pitched well. He was unlucky. (The 7th inning should've been a one-run inning at most. Johnny Estrada's run-scoring double wasn't smoked. It was lucky. And Wright should've turned Hudson's grounder into a double play... No. I'm not bitter.)

As long Glavine avoids the walks, trusting his stuff and his team, he'll be fine.

Hi.

I am Wally Randolph. I am a New York Mets fan. I am also an amateur sabermetrician. Thus, I am frustrated. The Mets frustrate me, by their inability to win. The coverage of baseball frustrates me, because so much of it is crap. This blog will contain my own take on the Mets and baseball, in addition to any other random musings I may have.

Let's Go Mets!