Pitching and Defense

These are my baseball cornerstones because they go together. As a pitcher, there is nothing more frustrating than poor defense when you are doing well (unfortunately, I speak from experience) and good defense can put together quick innings and keep a pitcher on his game. This off season, I am far more concerned with the starting pitching than the "power outage" of 2009. Yes, the lack of home runs was shocking, disappointing, and cause for concern - but there are other ways to score in the MLB, especially when you play in a park the size of Citi Field. I also think that with a healthy line up, home runs will increase because I think that protection in the line up is very real. But I digress.

The Mets' starting rotation scares me in a bad way. We have Johan Santana coming off surgery, Mike Pelfrey who spends more time pacing the mound and yelling at himself/licking his hand than he does pitching, John Maine off another injury-riddled year, and Oliver Perez who just makes me want to cry. My guess at this point is that Nelson Figueroa will be our fifth starter. What kind of rotation is that?! We need to find a solid number 2 starter to eat some innings and take some of the pressure off of Santana, Pelfrey, and Maine. We know the Mets have been considering John Lackey, but I wouldn't be opposed to tossing Ervin Santana and Randy Wolf into the mix either.

Santana is coming off a mediocre season at 8-8 and his 5.03 ERA might scare the seemingly offensively challenged Mets - but I think he could be a good fit because from what I've seen he is a fly ball pitcher and Citi Field is the kind of place where fly balls become outs not home runs. I like Randy Wolf because he had a solid year and more importantly threw 214 innings, which is something the Mets desperately need with their question-mark filled rotation.

As for the defense... 2009 made me long for the infield of 10 years ago: John Olerud, Edgardo Alfonzo, Rey Ordonez, and Robin Ventura. The best infield ever. They were so smooth, always seemed to be in sync with each other, and never made me nervous. In 1999, Ordonez made 4 errors at shortstop the entire season. This year, Jose Reyes made 5 errors in only 305 innings. Those stats are not only on the shortstop, because a good first basemen will save errors for his teammates but the difference there is staggering. The Mets need a return to fundamentally sound baseball. Good defense can pick up a struggling pitcher and breeds confidence.

When you're dealing with a starting rotation with this many question marks, you need to be able to count on the defense. Having the ability to score runs is essential - but defense keeps you in games. Just ask Johan Santana, who had a record of 0-1 and an ERA of 0.0 after Opening Day.