August 17, 2007

I Just Don't Get It

When a pitcher comes out of the bullpen and has held opposing batters to a .185 (right - .200; left - .169) batting average, you expect to see him for at least one inning. This isn’t the case with Pedro Feliciano.

For some unknown reason, manager Willie Randolph, must, keep telling himself that all Feliciano is good for is as a loogy (lefty one out guy). Never mind that right handed batters are hitting only .200 against him. Never mind the fact that Feliciano has been one of the Mets most consistent arms out of the pen and in my eyes, should be setting up for Billy Wagner. No, that doesn’t even come into play for Willie.

Feliciano has made 55 appearances out of the bullpen this year and has only gone one inning plus 24 times and the most he has been allowed to go for is two innings (June 30th @ Phillie). Instead Randolph relies on guys like Mota and Schoeneweis, whom have allowed batters to hit .254 (Schoeneweis) and .265 (Mota) against them.

There is no action against one kind of batter, be it lefty or righty , that Feliciano demonstrates, that in any way suggests that he should be the specialist in the pen. If anything, Schoeneweis should, in fact, be the lefty specialist, because left handed batters are only batting .185against him. That’s a far cry from rightys (.323). So wouldn’t this conclude that Schoeneweis should be the pitcher coming out to face one batter every couple of games instead of Feliciano?

By the way, it almost seems that Willie is still holding some animosity towards Feliciano for the incident that took place last August, when Pedro berated Randolph, to the media, about not using him in a game he felt he needed to be. None of us can be sure this is what’s happening, but there’s always going to be that air of suspicion when it comes to how Feliciano is used.

Now I’m not, by any means, calling Willie Randolph a bad manager. Like every manager in the game, he makes some questionable calls and I can live with that, because, let’s face it, managing a Major League team is not nearly as easy as it might seem. The only thing I’m trying to say is that the Pedro Feliciano decision is, by far, boggling my mind and I can’t seem to get over it.

Whatever the case may be with the relationship of Willie Randolph and Pedro Feliciano, it has to get fixed soon because if it’s not, we’re probably going to be seeing a lot more bullpen meltdowns before the season comes to a close.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

you said it all man...

Anonymous said...

i dont get it either man...and i forgot all about the pedro to the media thing

Anonymous said...

mota should be taken behind the barn and put out of our misery

Anonymous said...

no he should stay as the mop up man and then when we go to the playoffs drop him

Anonymous said...

good idea that will definitlypiss him off

Anonymous said...

yes that would