Probably the most questionable choice the Mets will have to make is whether or not to re-sign Oliver Perez. As Ron Darling once said, "Oliver Perez is the type of pitcher that gets a GM fired." He has shown he could become a great pitcher and has had periods of dominance over his career with the Mets and even the Pirates. Unfortunately he has also had stretches where he could not locate the strike zone and when he did the pitches were left high and ended up in the outfield bleachers. On one side, Perez led the majors in walks this season. On the other hand, he had a .158 batting average against lefties. Despite his inconsistencies, Ollie pitched almost 200 innings that will be hard to replace, especially if the Mets do not feel that John Niese can have an important role next year. Once again, Perez is only 26 and has a lot of years ahead of him. He can become a good pitcher if he could listen to advice from his coaches and veteran teammates and stay focused.
REACH MOVES
These ideas are not likely and let's face it, never going to happen. But they would be fun to imagine. One idea is to trade Carlos Beltran. He is one of the highest paid players in Major League Baseball, yet he has not shown the dominance that should come with this paycheck. With only a .280 career average and one season of 40 home runs, he is not the slugger or even base stealer the Mets expected when they signed him. He is a better than average player getting star credit, and they should try to get value for him before he starts to decline in performance. Last off-season, the Marlins traded Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis for six players from Detroit Tigers. "Addition by subtraction" caused their record to improve and they have quality prospects for the future of the franchise. I'm sure there is some team that will accept Carlos Beltran for some major league ready players that could fill-in as well as top prospects.
Next season the Mets should give more responsibility to their young pitchers. John Niese, Bobby Parnell, and Eddie Kunz all showed signs of talent during their short stints in the majors last season. It is no secret the Mets need bullpen help, so why not use the minor leagues to help them. Many teams use starting pitching prospects in the bullpen during their early career (Pedro Martinez, Johan Santana, Joba Chamberlain). If they are not quite ready to be full time starting pitchers, perhaps they can perfect a few of their pitches while being used for only one inning at a time.
Many of these ideas are debatable and a few of them might sound outrageous. Feel free to post your opinion on any of these topics and more about the Mets in this upcoming off-season.
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