Mets To Dump Freddy Garcia?

I would say today's performance may have sealed that deal. A 16.71 ERA won't win you a starting spot most of the time.

No way Garcia is ready to start the season. Don't know if he'll eer get back to what he was.
To be fair though on those 'Braves minor leaguers', I think that starter was their top prospect. I can see why.

Bring him back to Detroit let him play in triple A and prove himself. Might be a little bias I got Mud Hens season tickets.

nrmax88:

Pedro Martinez 2008:

5.61 ERA, 1.57 WHIP

19 HRs in 107 innings

87/44 K/BB ratio

Pedro is garbage, get over it.

Oh, and Freddy Garcia was on a MINOR LEAGUE deal, so why should we have never signed him?

My mancrush Freddy Garcia? Um, no. I was merely saying that there was no risk of any kind in signing him. Pedro, on the other hand, wants a guaranteed deal which is ridiculous.

Pedro Martinez : Incredibly injury prone, was terrible even before his father died, has nothing left, gets mauled by any decent lineup.

Pedro Martinez now is NOT the Pedro of '05 or even '07, and he will never come close again

There was like a dozen teams scouting Garcia last summer at his workout looking at him before the Tigers signed him and this winter when he signed I imagine most MLB executives would have taken a chance on Garcia once again over martinez, solely on health/stuff issues.

It was a crapshoot and so far, it looks like Garcia gamble has not paid off, but it was just a long shot like rehab projects are and they are always longshots, just like martinez is, you never know when will hit the big one with those guys.

Case in point. Bartolo Colon last year was hitting 94-95mph for 3-4 starts, then gets hit with a line drive in a game, stays in the game and all of a sudden is throwing in the upper 80's from then on. he never starts another game again the entire season and is now a rehab project for the Chisox.

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you had to think going into this that the chances were Garcia would stink it up or they would not have signed Hernandez. Hernandez will be the 5th starter; he will eat up innings and give the bullpen a rest after the back to back long days they will have when Maine/Perez go 4 1/3 or 5 innings. Just say no to pedro.
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So, the presence of another starter who absolutely blows should be a reason not to sign Pedro.

So glad you're not an MLB GM.

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you had to think going into this that the chances were Garcia would stink it up or they would not have signed Hernandez. Hernandez will be the 5th starter; he will eat up innings and give the bullpen a rest after the back to back long days they will have when Maine/Perez go 4 1/3 or 5 innings. Just say no to pedro.
"

So, the presence of another starter who absolutely blows should be a reason not to sign Pedro.

So glad you're not an MLB GM.

This is no big deal, whoever wins this spot is just going to keep it warm until neise wins the job in july. In which he will go 8-1 with a 1.65 ERA the rest of the way to pitch the mets into the playoffs.

yeah youll have niese go 8-1 and junior spivey will hit .350 with 30hr

Garcia's stuff has looked pretty fringe this Spring - his FB has been clocked at around 85. He's going to have to get back to 90 - 92 to succeed.

Pedro is would def. make a better 5th starter than the other options - needless to say, he has a lot more upside than Livan, Garcia and Redding.

Well anyone coming immediately off of surgery sees a drop in ability, usually it gets better over time. At least one could make that argument. Still, I'd rather gamble on Pedro than Livan Hernandez. I think the Twins would have agreed.

I'll tell you what... instead of getting creative and signing a no-upside Tim Redding for over $2 million and an absolutely finished pitcher like Freddy Garcia to an almost hilarious incentive-laden deal, the Mets could've brought Pedro Martinez back at a reasonable rate AND signed Livan Hernandez to his current deal for possible 6th starter duty, all while allowing Jon Niese to develop in AAA.

Well guess what? There's still an opportunity of this happening, since Redding came into camp out of shape and now looks like he's back to the '05 Tim Redding, while Garcia has a spring training ERA somewhere in the 13's. Stop the crap, and stop being nieve, Mets front office, and get Pedro signed already!

I looked at this year's team in an optimistic manner, thinking that the Mets would finally have some starting pitching depth after years of AAAA starters and retreads pitching important games for us, but this does not look like it will come to fruition. Ugh...

"...the reality is that he's pitched about 140 innings since the surgery and has a WHIP of about 1.55 in that span and usually can't go more then 5 innings without completely exhausting his pitch count."

Still sounds better than the alternatives to me (see: Hernandez's 69 ERA+ in 2008 and Garcia's lame duck fastball). I suppose Tim Redding is decent candidate, despite his sore shoulder and reported extra weight.

"Still sounds better than the alternatives to me (see: Hernandez's 69 ERA+ in 2008 and Garcia's lame duck fastball). I suppose Tim Redding is decent candidate, despite his sore shoulder and reported extra weight."

Livan Hernandez can pitch 200+ innings and give you what Pedro will.

Livan stunk in 2008 but look at where he played. The AL (first time ever) in Minnesota (astroturf bad for a groundball pitcher like him) and Colorado (a launching pad even with the humidor). Before last year he didn't have an ERA over 4 since 2001. I'd take my chances with Livan, even after his bad year last year, over Pedro.

"This is no big deal, whoever wins this spot is just going to keep it warm until neise wins the job in july. In which he will go 8-1 with a 1.65 ERA the rest of the way to pitch the mets into the playoffs."

You know things are going to get interesting when Mets fans try to make sense out of failure.

It IS a big deal when Pelfrey is hurting himself, Johan ended last season with injury and started this season with concern, and the rest of your rotation consists of sloppy seconds from the Orioles and a cross-eyed guy who fairy hops the foul line in his way to the party dugout.

LIvan's FIP numbers were not that bad in 2008. It's within reason that Livan could give the Mets 180 IP of sub-5.00 ERA ball and keep them in a lot of games. He's looking like by far the best option for the #5 slot.

Russell is just a Yankee troll. Apparently, he just loves to rag on the Mets, and he's been doing it for months now.

''I don't care about these excuses. Bottom line is he was injured AGAIN in 2008 and was god awful. His ERA was good in 2007 but that was it. His WHIP was horrible and he was incredibly lucky he didn't get hit as hard as he could have.

Get over Pedro, the man is done.''

I have to disagree with you on this. Pedro had a few September starts in '07 after massive rotator cuff surgery in his mid 30's and actually pitched fairly well in those starts in limited work.

2008 was a disaster for him. As many experts asserted when his hamstring injury occurred, hamstring injuries could linger for an entire season, even after it heals. Aside from the shoulder surgery, which likely did have lingering effects but probably was not the cause of his problems last year, think about a pitcher with excellent mechanics and how a hamstring injury could affect it. That, combined with the personal problems and traveling back and forth to the Dominican Republic to be with his father, and you could see why this guy had such a crappy '08. This is a Hall of Fame talent - not some decent pitcher that faded away in his mid 30's.

Of course this is contingent on his health, but I think the guy is healthy and ready to pitch this year. I still don't buy this argument that Pedro is finished, but we shall see.

I like what Livan Hernandez has shown so far, and he could be a good innings eater if he is healthy and in shape (which is most important here), but I can't really bank on this happening.

Matty - don't choke on that pickle.

Intelligent response. It goes in tune with your usual sentiment of ''Mets suck and their entire rotation is going to blow up'' and ''the Mets lineup is horrible, they have no hitters.''

Try some new material, or maybe just some objective insight for once.

"Try some new material, or maybe just some objective insight for once."

How am I supposed to not rag on the Mets? My GF was poisoned by her mom into liking the Mets as a kid and she is having a hard time getting off the kick. She has lost interest in baseball as of late because the team is unexciting. Citi Field was built with a rotunda celebrating a guy who had little to no significant history with the team. Slowly becoming a Yankee fan, it just takes time. I think she is sick of the racist ownership filling their quota of American ballplayers. Maybe it's the manager going "gangsta". Maybe it's Reyes getting into senseless fights with the MARLINS of all teams. There are reasons why teams like the Marlins line up to beat the Mets. There's a reason why the "Beat the Mets" song was invented.

I never said the rotation was going to "BLOW UP"... I said they are fragile and all I'm seeing here is that everyone's willing to ignore early signs of trouble and willing to settle for garbage at the end of the rotation. It just doesn't make any sense. TIM REDDING!?! WHATTTTTT? If my ace said his arm hurt early in ST and everything was dependent on him then I would be hella worried.

I'm sorry if you can't handle opinions or subjective arguments. If you don't like them then you don't have to respond. Lets go point "troll troll troll" at someone who clearly doesn't like the Mets. Thank you for stating the obvious. If MLBTradeRumors wanted this this website to be 100% statistic talk they would have put up a disclaimer.

Matty, what will really annoy me is in the middle of the season when Pedro has caught on somewhere, clearly is still a good pitcher, and geniuses like icedrake, hyro and adropofvenom are sitting here acting all shocked that Pedro is still a good pitcher, making stupid remarks like.... "man, who would have ever though Pedro Martinez, one of the best pitchers in the history of this game, would ever be good again after struggling the year following his rotator cuff surgery, which is pretty much protocol with any pitcher having surgery? Certainly not us? We base everything off of last year, and nothing else, we are smart NY fans!"

nrmax88, you sure have been going out on a limb lately pumping up on Martinez. Certainly it is possible that he could come back and be effective for a few games, maybe even 1/2, or even a whole season, but he is just another rehabbing, injury prone pitcher along the lines of Colon, Wade Miller, Garcia. Those guys have had serious arm trouble for years and never made it back for prolonged periods, much like Martinez. Not sure if there are any that have had 3 injury riddled seasons and then made it back and turned it around, but maybe he can, just think that most GM's are going against it unless he seriously reconsiders his inflated salary demands.

Start Wearing Purple, Russell just admitted that he has a personal hatred of the Mets, which would make his constant posts against them valid. It has nothing to do with their rotation - it has to do with the fact that it is the Mets' rotation. I was purely stressing that point, nothing more about the Mets rotation. So how about that?

Also remind yourself that, while people are starting to knock this rotation, these 4 starters were the 4 main starters on a team that won 88 games last year, with a disaster of a bullpen, Johan Santana getting screwed out of wins with his 2.53 ERA, John Maine pitching with a bone spur the size of a tree trunk, Oliver Perez being erratic as usual, and Mike Pelfrey having an excellent second half. There is no reason that this staff can't be just as good, if not better, if injury doesn't strike.