Odds and Ends: Phillies and Rays

Scott Kazmir is great and all, but this guy is so overated. He is the 3rd best pitcher on his own team. He has all the talent in the world, but the guy is constantly getting hurt and missing time, he walks a ton of people, and he almost never makes it through 6 innings. Next year, when Price is in the rotation, Kaz may be the 4th best starter on his own team. He has not looked right either lately, his velocity is down and his slider is just flat and has no downward bite. I'm not saying I wouldn't want that trade back (although if I have to choose between losing Kazmir, or trading David Wright for Jose Cruz, which was talked about under the Duquette regime, I am glad it wasn't Wright), but it is what it is and I don't lose sleep over it. It was a horrible, horrible trade, I just don't think Kazmir deserves all the credit he gets, right now he is all talent but has yet to put it together and reach his potential. A typical Kazmir line looks something like this. 5.2 IP 1/2 ER, 4hits, 6 k's, 3 BB's. There are a lot of pitchers better then him right now. He is still young, and his upside is still huge, I just think NY Met fans look at this guy like some superstar that we let get away, when in fact he isn't that.... yet, atleast. I can see Met fans having a tough time with Kazmir in NY, his style is a lot like Oliver Perez's, although he is more consistent then that. Those walks drive me crazy.

I'm a Met fan and I obviously hate the trade. However, I really hate how whenever he pitches a good game, the next day there is a story somewhere in a NY newspaper about the Mets trading him away. That's really the worst part about the trade. Being constantly reminded of it.

Every team makes bad trades. He is not the first bad trade the Mets made (Amos Otis, Tom Seaver). Kazmir is still nothing more than a very talented pitcher who has had some injured seasons. He has not exploded onto the scene like a Dwight Gooden or Roger Clemens.

If the Mets never made the trade, there's no telling how the team would look now. It could be just as bad as it was back in 2004. There's no way they'd have Santana if they traded Kazmir and I would much rather have the former.

nrmax88, Don't forget that they nearly traded Jose Reyes instead of Alex Escobar to the Indians for Roberto Alomar.

i love all these mets fans crapping on Kazmir now.

And exactly how is Victor Zambrano doing???

The only mets player doing worse than Zambrano is Mr Burgeos!

Kazmir has became a "Rick Wise" type of pitcher is what I call them, that is, if they give up runs in the 1st and 2nd, they are usually going to get hit good and if they make it past that point have a good game.
Those types of pitchers (like Dice-K) are marginal ace type pitchers, yet can/will win 15+ games with good stuff if they can get their heads screwed on straight.

Kazmir appears to totally lose it in some of the games when errors happen behind him, or he walks a couple of batters in an inning early on, that he needs to control also.

Once again, if he can overcome those 2 problems, he could be a consistent top 5 pitcher in the league. Some have done this and some have not. Curt Schilling was in this category early in his career, Reggie Cleveland never overcame it in the 70's, Rick Wise never did either, though he did win 19 games once.

Apologies for red Sox examples, those are the ones recall the easiest.

"i love all these mets fans crapping on Kazmir now.

And exactly how is Victor Zambrano doing???

The only mets player doing worse than Zambrano is Mr Burgeos!"

Met fans aren't crapping on Kazmir. These NY writers are making him out to be this young pitcher who has set the world on fire and become the best pitcher in baseball when that isn't true.

Zambrano isn't even on the team anymore.

And don't talk about Burgos. The Mets are going to get rid of him. Not turn a blind eye to it like the Phillies did with Brett Myers.

That's got nothing to do with it, dumb***.

He's talking about Myers' domestic abuse problems...

Kazmir has good stuff, it' just that he needs to be more consistent with how he brings it to each game and when he does not have his good stuff,but marginal stuff at best, to maintain his composure on the mound which he does not seem to do.

This is no knock on the man personally CubsRaysaddict as you seemed to believe it was with that post you made above, I like the rays, even live now 35 miles from Tampa now here and catch quite a bit of both there and the marlins games and watch many of his performances.

"He's talking about Myers' domestic abuse problems..."

It was a problem. just because you have one problem does that justify you getting fired from your job. if it were a constant thing thats a different story. and why are we even talking about the mets in phils/rays post. i know about the whole kazmir thing but to bring in reyes. i know all you mets fans are jealous of the phils right now.