Saturday, February 2, 2008

Poll Post: Did the Mets Need Santana?

The Mets just landed the greatest pitcher in baseball at the mere cost of 4 above average prospects and well over 100 million dollars. However, although I'm excited that they pretty much have the NL Championship locked up, was it 100% necessary?

Without Johan the Rotation would've been as follows:
1. Pedro Martinez
2. John Maine
3. Oliver Perez
4. Orlando Hernandez
5. Mike Pelfrey/Jorge Sosa/Kevin Mulvey/Phil Humber

To me that looks like a formiddable rotaion. Here's how I believe that would've worked out over the course of the season:
1. Pedro: 14-7 172 IP 3.75 ERA
2. Maine: 20-9 211 IP 2.99 ERA (Cy Young Award)
3. Perez: 17-11 195 IP 3.50 ERA
4. El Duque: 11-5 130 IP 3.25 ERA
5. Fifth Spot: 8-12 165 IP 5.25 ERA
While Maine might be somewhat of a stretch, I truly believe he'll win 20 games and top 200 innings this season. If all goes as stated above, the only weak points would be finding some one to replace El Duque half way through the year and the fith spot. Both holes could have been filled by signing a Kyle Lohse or Livan Hernandezto bolster the rotation.

So, while the Mets now have one of the top three rotations in baseball, one has to wonder, did we need such a dramatic upgrade?



P.S. Poll is on the sidebar

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Mets probably don't need him to win the division, however, they need him to compete with the tough teams in the west. I suppose they could've been champs with Lohse in the fifth spot, but then they couldn't compete with the Angels or Sox in the Series.

Chris Goudoras said...

I agree Lohse would've locked up this division as well. He is incredible talented "stuff" wise; sort of like Gil Meche. I could see Lohse winning 15 games on a team with a good offense and decent pen in the NL (like the Braves, D'Backs, or even the Cubs or Brewers). He'd also be a good fit; I believe, for a team like the Yanks or Blue Jays who need to bolster their rotation at least a little bit.
The best fit; however, is for Dayton Moore to bring Lohse to KC. That would give them a rotation of:
1. Gil Meche
2. Brian Bannister
3. Kyle Lohse
4. Zack Grienke
5. Hochevar/Nunez
Even better, switch Soria into the rotation and trade ten prospects for Street (don't actually expect or believe that to be possible) or try giving Nunez the closers job and this would be the rotation:
1. Meche(Prediction: 180IP 3.50ERA)
2. Soria (165IP 2.95ERA)
3. Bannister (185IP 3.95ERA)
4. Lohse (175IP 3.85ERA)
5. Grienke (155IP 4.10ERA)
That rotation, despite its lack of a true "ACE", would be THE BEST in that division. That's right, BETTER THAN DETROIT, BETTER THAN THE TRIBE, THE ABSOLUTE BEST!!!