BA Interview With Pelfrey & Humber

This past Friday, Baseball America's Alan Schwarz conducted a great interview with Mets' top pitching prospects, Mike Pelfrey and Philip Humber (to read the entire article, click the title to this article). Pelfrey, of course, is not the 5th starter on the big club, and Humber will at least start the season with AAA New Orleans.

Some highlights:

On Pelfrey dropping his curve-

SCHWARZ: Getting to your pitching, Mike, you've junked the curveball in favor of a slider. Is it weird to learn a new pitch right before you're pretty much counted on to help stabilize a major league staff?

PELFREY: My fastball's my bread and butter. That's my best pitch, so I'm definitely going to use that and make the other pitches that much better. I knew my curveball wasn't very good, so I was open to suggestions. I think in the long run the slider will be a much better pitch for me.

On Humber's Rehab Program-

SCHWARZ: Phil, you're fully healthy after Tommy John surgery. Didn't your rehab include throwing the ball underhanded, like a softball?

HUMBER: You have to relearn how that ligament is going to function, how that motion goes. It was hard the first few times, but it gave me that feel of the ball coming off your fingertips and feeling how to make the ball go faster. I think that helped me a lot when I started throwing over my head. To be honest with you, I was playing catch and it was pretty ugly, like a guy that never played before. You have no idea where the ball's going to go. I'm an impatient person by nature, and I want everything to happen right now.

A great read, and some nice insight into the future of the Mets' rotation!