Quick Look at Oliver Perez and Close-Up of Bret Mitchell

☛ Oliver Perez started yesterday's St. Lucie Mets game. In 5.2 innings, he gave up two runs and two hits while walking three and striking out seven. That's an improvement over his previous start on June 30 when he gave up four runs in six innings. His St. Lucie record is now 1-1. I hope Perez does well enough to interest another team in trading for him, a move that I doubt Minaya will make after investing $30-something millions in Perez over three years. That move and the contract Minaya gave to Castillo magnifies Minaya's sometimes illogical player moves.

☛ The Mets have signed their 12th-round draft choice, Bret Mitchell, a right-handed pitcher out of Minnesota State University - Mankato. He appeared in 16 games, starting 14, pitching in 94 innings.

Among the Mavericks four starters, he

• had the highest ERA (4.31),
• tied for the most wins (10), 
• gave up the most hits (96) and earned runs (45), 
• walked the most batters (33). 

Further, of the starters,

• opposing hitters had the highest batting average against him: .258;
• he surrendered the fewest homeruns (3);
• he struck out the most batters (108).

Last season, on four different occasions, he struck out 11 batters in a game.

Perez could be out of rotation

After another failed outing, Oliver Perez might be removed from the rotation. After yesterday's loss, Jerry Manuel said that "His [Perez] confidence is shot, and very seldom have I seen him in that form or fashion." Even Perez realized his pitching is below par, saying that he was willing to accept a demotion to the minors. "If I need it, then I have to go, because right now I don't help my team." One source said that the $36 million man will be replaced in the rotation by lefty Ken Takahashi.

Perez wasn't the only Met to pitch poorly yesterday. Sean Green pitched even worse. In the bottom of the tenth, he threw 21 pitches. Only eight were strikes. His control problems caused him to walk two batters. One of those walks was with the bases loaded and scored the winning run. His ERA is now 8.76.

Fortunately for Mets followers, some of the team's minor leaguers played well.

Though Savannah lost, 3-2, center fielder Sean Ratliff had a great game. He went 4-4, including three doubles. He's hitting .326.

St. Lucie won 2-0, led by Jenrry Mejia's three-hit pitching.

Buffalo split its doubleheader, winning the first game 5-0. Dillon Gee pitched a complete game in which he surrendered only one run on six hits with no walks. In that game Fernando Martinez doubled and homered.

Another Ollie Folly

Thank goodness for the NFL draft. The way the Mets have been playing, the draft is a welcome diversion.

After today's Met game, it will be interesting to see if Oliver Perez remains in the starting rotation. Once again, he had control problems. In 4.1 innings, he threw 91 pitches. His numbers were not good: nine hits, three walks, seven runs, two homers.

This is a man to whom Minaya gave a $12 million a year contract.

With the season sinking faster than the Titanic, what now Omar?

Murphy muffs another play

Watching Daniel Murphy play the outfield yesterday reminded me of Ron Swoboda. I've never before seen an outfielder field a bouncing ball and then throw the ball to the shortstop while his body was turned sideways and he was in mid-air. Of course, the ball bounced to Reyes, who wasn't able to throw the ball well enough to home plate to prevent the runner from scoring.

Even Sheffield, who played right, looked better than Murphy. Hopefully, the Murphy-in-left experiment won't last much longer. Give him a shot at second, and let Castillo warm the bench more. If the Mets were a last-place team, they could afford to let Murphy fumble in left, but they're not: They're a contender. So put someone in left who can catch fly balls and throw out runners trying to score from second on balls that bounce in front of him.

Pitching-wise, Oliver Perez pitched his best game of the season, but I'm still unimpressed. In his next game, I expect him to return to the form he exhibited in his previous two games. But he's Minaya's problem, not mine.

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Holt's winning streak begins: Wednesday, against Charlotte, Brad Holt pitched six innings of four-hit, no-run ball in which he walked only one while striking out seven to notch his first win. And while Baseball America rates him the second-best Mets pitching prospect after John Niese, I think he's a better prospect than Niese.

Perez can't stop Reds from crossing plate

Oliver Perez's performance today demonstrates once again Minaya's foolishness in giving Perez a three-year contract worth $36 million when there was no bidding war for his services. Hopefully, not all that money's guaranteed, for when it is, Minaya's been inclined to keep such players on the roster even when the team would be better off without them.

Yesterday, in 4.1 innings, Perez gave up five hits, five walks, and eight runs, throwing 100 pitches. That's far from a professional performance, quite unlike Derek Lowe's performance in his opening-day start.

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In Buffalo, the Bisons opened their season with this starting lineup:

Malo 2B (25)
Coronado SS (22)
Martinez, F DH (20)
Evans 1B (23)
Kielty RF (32)
Feliciano, J LF (29)
Santos, O C (27)
Sullivan CF (29)
Mackowiak 3B (32)
Niese P (22)

The number in parentheses is the player's age. It also reveals weak spots in the Mets organization: The average age of the starting Bison outfielders is 30, and the starting catcher is 27.

Unfortunately, the Bisons flubbed their opener, losing 6-4 to Pawtucket. Bison starter Jonathon Niese did even worse than did the Mets Oliver Perez. In two innings Niese yielded five hits, three walks, and five runs. The good news is that his 22.50 ERA will get lower as the season progresses.

Perez's pitches can't find the plate

I wish I could write something positive about Oliver Perez's pitching today against the Red Sox. Unfortunately, Perez couldn't even make it through the first inning. In the Mets final 2009 preseason game, Perez threw 37 pitches; only 14 found the strike zone. And though he surrendered only two hits, one of them was a grand slam. In all, six runs were charged to Perez before Figueroa was able to get the third out.

I'm curious to see what excuses the Mets website will offer for Perez's horrific performance.

On the plus side, John Maine pitched two innings of scoreless ball, surrendering just one hit, and Darren O'Day pitched the final inning, filling the hits, runs, and walks columns of his boxscore with zeros. His final preseason ERA: 2.57.

Tomorrow, the Mets have an off day. Then, on Monday, the season starts for real in Cincinnati. Fortunately for the Mets, Johan Santana, not Oliver Perez, will be on the mound.

Once again, Perez can't control his pitches

Two stats sum up Oliver Perez's performance today against the Tigers: in 3.2 innings, Perez threw 91 pitches. In his fewer than four innings of work, Perez gave up six hits, six walks, and five runs. Perez's performance follows Mike Pelfrey's poor performance on Tuesday. In that game, Pelfrey yielded 10 hits in 4.2 innings. He threw 84 pitches.

The best Met pitchers of the day were Bobby Parnell and Brian Stokes. They pitched the last three innings, giving up only one hit and no runs. Parnell's performance was particularly impressive. In his one inning, he threw five pitches, all strikes.

Pitching coach Dan Warthen has fewer than 11 days to ready the starters for Opening Day on April 13, the same day that the White House will be holding its annual Easter egg roll. If the starters aren't ready by then, maybe the team can entertain the fans by giving out Easter eggs as souveniers.

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Read a good writeup about Mets' prospects shortstop Wilmer Flores and third baseman Jefry Marte.

Perez pitches better than expected

Sometimes the Mets do the unexpected. That happened in yesterday's game against the Orioles.

First, Oliver Perez, who got bombed while pitching for Mexico in the World Baseball Classic, returned to the Mets and pitched three innings of shutout ball in which he surrendered just one hit. However, his control was off: He threw 51 pitches to the 11 batters he faced. As David Lennon wrote in Newsday, "No one in the rotation requires more maintenance than Perez, who fluctuates wildly between unhittable one moment and unwatchable the next."

Second, none of the four pitchers who followed Perez gave up a run. One of them, Bobby Parnell, yielded five hits in 2.2 innings; however, he continues to prevent batters from crossing the plate. His Spring ERA is now down to 2.89.

Hitting-wise, the big surprise was that Ike Davis, who started at first base, got two hits, a single and a double. Davis started because Nick Evans played right field and Carlos Delgado is "recovering" from his WBC stint.I'm still waiting for Davis to show he has home run power. He didn't show it last season with the Brooklyn Cyclones and has yet to hit one this preseason.

The least surprising thing that happened yesterday was that the Mets returned Jonathan Niese to the minors. With Livan Hernandez pitching well, the Mets don't need to rush Niese into the starting lineup.

Ollie off to awful start in WBC

In the World Baseball Classic, Oliver Perez has pitched twice for Mexico. He's given up 13 hits and seven earned runs. Five of the hits were home runs. After two starts, his ERA is 9.45.

In Mexico's loss to Korea, Perez threw 85 pitches in 4.2 innings. In Mexico's loss to Australia, Perez pitched two innings, yielding seven hits and four runs while throwing 64 pitches. Thus, in his two outings, Perez pitched 6.2 innings and threw 149 pitches.

By the time Perez returns to the Mets, he may be unable to lift his left arm.

Right on Marty!

Marty Noble, author of Mets Mailbag, is realistic. In his 02/03/09 column, Noble wrote "While re-signing Perez eliminates a vacancy in the rotation and might allow New York to afford Jon Niese more time to develop, I don't think it makes the rotation whole." He added that he wouldn't even be surprised if Oliver Perez, who the Mets just resigned, finishes next season 10-14.

As I've said previously, spending $12 million on Perez is a mistake. The Mets would have been better off using that money to sign Orlando Hudson to fill the void in second base; however, it looks like another of Minaya's mistakes, Luis Castillo, will again play the position.

Speaking of Minaya's mistakes, it looks like Anderson Henderson could become the Nationals starting secondbaseman. The Mets traded him for relief pitcher Luis Ayala, who isn't even on the team any more.

Mets continue to stumble along

I'm disappointed that the Mets just shelled out $12 million a year for three years for a pitcher who won just 10 games last season. True, Oliver Perez won 15 games in 2007, but he's not a pitcher that's going to power them to a pennant.

It appears that the Mets were the only team interested in signing him after he became a free agent. That says a lot.

The Mets would have been better off taking the $36 million they'll be paying to Perez and using that money to increase their offer to Derek Lowe, who instead signed with the Braves.

Mets fans: If you expect the Mets to win in 2009, LOWER your expectations.

Mets top 5 starters' LOB% stats

Of the 42 National League starters who "qualified" to make fangraphs.com LOB% listing, three were Mets:

Here are their rankings and LOB% values:
17 John Maine 73.2
22 Tom Glavine 72.6
25 Oliver Perez 71.6

The two Mets starters with the highest LOB% stats didn't qualify because the number of innings they pitched was fewer than the number of games the Mets played. Hernandez pitched only 147.7 innings and Martinez pitched only 28.0. In comparison, Maine pitched 191 innings, Glavine pitched 200.3, and Perez pitched 177.

Here are Hernandez's and Martinez's LOB% values:
Orlando Hernandez 77.0
Pedro Martinez 73.8

If Hernandez and Martinez could have pitched more games for the Mets, they likely would have won the N.L. East.

In my opinion, a starter's LOB% is more valid than a reliever's because most baseball statistic sites don't reveal whether a reliever's LOB% includes inherited baserunners.