For some reason, Omar Minaya was sold on the idea that the Mets could grab the former 5th starter from the Nationals - a player the Nats didn’t want back – and turn him into the 5th starter for a contending ball club. This experiment has failed.
Tim Redding is by no definition of the word passable, a passable starter for a contending team.
In his eight starts this season, he has had only three quality starts. That means, if you don’t have your TI-83 in front of you at home, five of his starts have been un-quality. What is even worse is how he is not only bad, but he fails to go deep into games. In half of his starts he has failed to finish the sixth inning. Forcing the bullpen to pitch 3+ innings to win a game screams disaster.
There is no one statistic that can justify his poor performance and suggest that change is coming – he has just been bad. Perhaps, Redding would be better suited for the bullpen; after all the Mets could use a long reliever. In fact, Redding seems like he would succeed in this role: his biggest troubles come when is pitch count rises. Between pitches 76-100, batters have been hitting .368 off of Redding with a whopping 1.125 OPS. Ouch. Pitches 1-25 batters are hitting .225 with a .635 OPS.
Nelson Figueroa is the logical replacement for Redding. Figgy, while no All-Star, can’t be as dreadfully abysmal as Redding has been. Some people have said that it is unfair to keep on calling up Figueroa and then designating him for assignment, as in the reason he refused his assignment last time. Well, if the Mets aren’t going to use Figgy when two starters are on the DL, when are they going to ever need him? Plus, he is an employee of the New York Mets; they pay him to do his job, and that’s part of his job.
For the Mets to tread water at this point, they can’t have starters throw away games. Redding does exactly that, and this is why the Mets can no longer afford to put him out there every fifth day.
Pete Lappin (3)
