Over the next week, I’ll be breaking down the things that have to go right for the Mets this year if they want to make the playoffs.

Note: All of this is done assuming we do not make any significant acquisitions of any sort, be it through trade or a free agent signing.

First and foremost, if the ‘08 Mets want to succeed, their bullpen will need to be strong.

Even though I think both of them have their mental lapses, I am fairly confident Billy Wagner and Aaron Heilman will hold their own as a strong closer and a strong set-up man respectively.

However, you need more than two people to have a good bullpen. If I had to take a guess, the Mets will carry 12 pitchers. Subtract four starters that will start the season on the roster (no reason to start the season with 5 starters), Wagner and Heilman, you have six slots left. As of now, I give those spots to Pedro Feliciano, Scott Schoenweis, Duaner Sanchez, Jorge Sosa, Matt Wise and Juan Padilla. However, Steven Register could easily take Juan Padilla’s spot, as could a long reliever.

Assuming that is the general gist of our bullpen, these are the things that need to happen for our bullpen to be strong:

• Duaner Sanchez returns to his pre-taxi crash form. Before his crash, Sanchez had a 2.60 ERA in 49 games, which is close to irreplaceable. While Heilman is a work horse, he can go through rough spells and sometimes needs someone else to cover the eighth inning. Sosa showed flashes of brilliance out of the ‘pen last year, but he doesn’t seem ready to be our second righty out. A strong Duaner would not only provide us with many innings if high quality relief, but give more rest to Heilman, Sosa etc. Sosa especially seemed to need a rest down the stretch, pitching 12 innings in September while registering a 6.57 ERA.
• The re-birth of Scott Schoenweis. I know, you probably hate him. But let’s give him another shot. Booing him clearly hasn’t helped, as he had a 6.91 ERA at home this year, while a 3.26 ERA on the road. So maybe lets let him feel comfortable, and he’ll do better, can we give that a shot? Also, Willie has to learn how to use The Schoe more effectively. Lefties hit a mere .206 against him last year, while righties managed to tee off of him for a batting average of .316. Then, why did Willie let him face 136 righty batters? If we need a righty out, why not turn to Pedro Feliciano, who righties hit a poor .221 against. He clearly has talent (1.86 ERA in April) so lets give him another shot, give him a clean slate and let him try and impress us.
• The Development of Jorge Sosa. Sosa started of his tenure as a Mets’ reliever very well. In his first 11 innings as a reliever, he gave up only one run. His first full month as a reliever, August, he had a 3.00 ERA in 18 innings. Perhaps due to fatigue, and not being used to the schedule of a reliever, Sosa struggled in September towards a 6.57 ERA for the month. However, that month of August showed us what he can do. Should his arm strength and durability as a reliever improve, he can hopefully build on those August numbers. And if he turns out to be a solid middle-reliever, Omar might have found himself a shiny diamond in the rough with his signing.
• The success of one of Matt Wise or Juan Padilla/Steven Register. It’s unrealistic and almost unnecessary to think that you need the whole bullpen to be great. However, if you have a weak rotation, you do need most of it. One of the back end guys, whether it be Matt Wise, Juan Padilla or Steven Register has to step-up and surprise people. At first glance, Wise looks mediocre: 4.19 ERA with a 1.45 WHIP last year. However, if you take a closer look, he had a 2.70 ERA through July 23. Down the stretch he failed, but he was brilliant for the first 3 1/2 months of the season. We saw what Padilla could do in 2005, when he posted a 1.49 ERA in 36.1 innings. However, after Tommy John Surgery, we need to wait and see if he can return to anything near to his 2005 form. Finally, Steven Register, who the Mets selected in the Rule V draft this year. Register has never been above AA, where last year he posted a 4.03 ERA while recording 37 saves for the Rockies AA affiliate. At 24, he’s the most unproven and must unknown candidate in this group.

With a rotation that will most likely look like: Pedro Martinez, Oliver Perez, John Maine, Orlando Hernandez and Mike Pelfrey, a strong bullpen will be neccesary. Pelfrey, Maine and Perez will all be erratic, while Pedro and El Duque are both aging and struggle to go deep into games. Duaner has shown he can be great, Schoenweis deserves another chance, Jorge Sosa has shown he can be solid and we might still need some help from the back of the ‘pen. All in all, if our bullpen can pump out a solid season, our weak starting pitching will seem to be a much smaller issue than it actually is.

Yesterday, it was reported that the Mets signed Duaner Sanchez, among others, to a one year deal.   Today the AP is writing that Duaner’s deal is worth $850,000. 

For someone that we see as a potential set-up man, thats pretty low risk-high reward if you ask me.

And yes, it’s a slow news day.

The New York Mets announced that they have signed RHP Duaner Sanchez to a one-year, major league contract. The team also announced the signings of INF Anderson Machado, RHP Juan Padilla, RHP Joselo Diaz, RHP Andy Cavazos, LHP Ryan Cullen, 3B Fernando Tatis, C Robinson Cancel and C Salomon Manriquez to minor league contracts and invited them to spring training.

Well, that flew by quickly.

Taking a glance at the calendar, pitchers and catchers report in 45 days and we are a mere 57 days from the first Spring Training game, on February 26th against the University of Michigan.

Looking back at this off season so far, the Mets have made four significant changes.

The first is the loss of Tom Glavine. Glavine’s return to Atlanta will have a large effect on the Mets starting rotation. Currently he is replaced internally by placing Mike Pelfrey to the back of the rotation and moving everyone else, John Maine, Oliver Perez and Orlando Hernandez, up a slot with Pedro Martinez up top but with 2 months left, Omar may still look to add a pitcher via trade or free agency.

Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon have been mentioned recently as possible targets. Colon has received positive reviews of his performance in the Dominican Winter League. Omar Minaya famously moved mountains to get Colon while GM of the Expos. Garcia will not likely be ready to pitch until June. Interest in Kyle Lohse, Livan Hernandez, and Joe Blanton has cooled. The Mets remain a dark horse in the Johan Santana sweepstakes, but could surprise many as the Red Sox and Yankees appear involved only to ensure neither of them wins the rights to his services.

The second major change is replacing Paul Lo Duca with Brian Schneider. Lo Duca’s offense has regressed but he’s still a better hitter than Schneider. The upside with Schneider is his defense and ability to manage a pitching staff. It remains to be seen if this element will make up for his hitting deficiencies.

The third major change is the addition of Ryan Church in right field. Church should be an upgrade offensively for the Mets in right. He hits a ton of doubles, has decent power and he’s a proficient defensive outfielder.

Pedro, Maine and Perez make for a solid top end, but the Mets have question marks at the back end of their rotation. Mike Pelfrey has yet to prove he can be a productive major league pitcher, and will have much to prove to those who question his abilities. Orlando Hernandez has been outstanding when he is healthy, but his age and his fragility are a big concern.

The fourth change is in the bullpen. The Mets have sent Guillermo Mota packing, to the delight of pretty much all Mets fans, and will hopefully see Duaner Sanchez finally return. The Mets also added Matt Wise who was quite good until he struck Reds infielder Pedro Lopez in the face with a pitch. Wise apparently was shaken by the incident and his performance suffered, posting a 10.45 ERA in his final 16 outings. He brings an excellent K/BB ratio and a decent 6th inning arm to add to the Mets bullpen depth.

The Mets still have an outside change of landing Johan Santana. If Omar can pull that off, the Mets will have quite a formidable roster entering the 2008 campaign.

Adam Rubin over at the Daily News reports that reliever Duaner Sanchez has resumed throwing for the first time spring. Sanchez was injured in a car accident while a passenger in a taxi over a year ago and has not played since.

The article looks at some of the events that followed, questioning whether they would have occurred, asking if Sanchez would have given up the game tying triple that Mota did to the Cards and if a healthy Sanchez would have helped the struggling bullpen this season. From his talks with Duaner:

“Myself, when they were struggling, I was struggling, because I would have liked to be in there.”

Rubin cites ex Met pitcher and current rehab trainer Randy Neimann on Duaner’s progress, who reports that his delivery is almost back to the pre-crash days. Head over to the Daily News and check it all out.

A healthy Duaner will be a great addition to the pen, especially since it won’t cost the Mets a prospect or a player, saving that sort of chip for a starter, or for the future. Plus we get that bonus mention of Juan Padilla. While it is an interesting theoretical, no accident, no acquiring Mota, would the last two seasons have given us better results, the flip side is Ollie. Would the trigger on Nady for Perez have been pulled, because while Mota clearly didn’t bring us any joy one cannot say the same for Perez. Chances are even if that deal had not been done, something similar would have, or one of the prospects (Pelf) would have been rushed (or in Pelfs case, rushed more) to fill that starting position.

The importance of middle relievers in baseball has increased in recent years, as the trend of starting pitchers failing to go deep into ballgames continues. The Hardball Times provides a graph of the decline in the number of innings pitched by starters over the past hundred years.

With this increased importance, comes a price. In the New York Times, Murray Chase points out that relievers had an average salary of $1,433,992 in 2006 up from $1,316,384 in 2005.

The Mets currently have Pedro Martinez, Oliver Perez, John Maine, and Mike Pelfrey tentatively penciled into their rotation for 2008, with a fifth pitcher likely to come from free agency or via trade this winter. The uncertainty of the Mets rotation makes the need a quality bullpen even greater. The inconsistency of the Mets rotation last season caused the Mets starters to fail to get deep into ballgames, and put a great degree of pressure on an overworked Mets bullpen.

The Mets enter 2008 with a bullpen consisting of Billy Wagner, Scott Schoeneweis, Duaner Sanchez, Jorge Sosa, Pedro Feliciano, Joe Smith, Juan Padilla and possibly Orlando Hernandez.

The Mets will likely use Aaron Heilman as a trading chip to acquire a front line starter.

As we scan the free agent landscape this off season, there are quite a few quality arms available to upgrade with. Two big name closers are on the market, Francisco Cordero and Eric Gange, but will want to close so would be of no use to the Mets.

Ron Mahay, Jeremy Affledt, David Riske, LaTroy Hawkins and Scott Linebrink, Octavio Dotel, and Byung-Hyun Kim are some of the other arms who might be worth a look as middle relievers. Chad Cordero is a longshot, as the Nationals have asked for Carlos Gomez in return and Cordero is also likely to perfer a closing role.

Mahay was 3-0 last year, with a 2.55 ERA and 1.33 WHIP over 67 innings for the Braves. He is considered the best of the middle relievers on the market and has attracted the Yankees interest.

David Riske was 1-4 with a 2.45 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP over 69.7 innings for the Royals. Riske hasn’t had an ERA over 4 since 2002.

Matthew Cerrone on Mets Blog relays information from Mike Pagliarulo who advises the Yankees, who Mark Feinsand of the Daily News said has interest, to steer clear of Linebrink, whose stats indicate a ‘structural decline.’

Octavio Dotel was traded to the Braves from Kansas City at the trade deadline and compiled a 4.11 ERA with a 1.33 WHIP. He spent time on the disabled list with a shoulder strain in August.

The Orioles could look to move Chad Bradford, who is signed to a three year, $10.5 million contract. He compiled a 3.34 ERA with a 1.43 WHIP.

Duaner Sanchez is set to pitch in winter ball in the Dominican Republic next month, reports the New York Post.

Sanchez had his 2006 season derailed by a taxicab incident, and then later discovered he still had some damage in his shoulder when he tried to begin pitching this past season.

Adam Rubin reports that Castillo had some knee surgery done, having his bad knee cleaned out and both knees rotated. He is expected to be good to go by years end, and the team will be actively attempting to bring him back.

 I’m fine with this, I like Gotay, especially his bat, but Castillo is a significant upgrade defensively, a solid #2 hitter, and it allows the brass to focus more on pitching (especially if Tommy ends up retired/elsewhere).

Duaner Sanchez will be pitching in winter ball this December, he will pitch in the Dominican.

The name is familiar…Duaner…Duaner…hmm.. 

Orlando Hernandez had surgery today to remove a foot bunion.  Just like grandma.

Duaner Sanchez may or may not play Winter Ball as part of his rehab. Mets personal promise he will take private transportation only.

The Amburglar is not expected to pitch next season as he recovers from Tommy John surgery, buying us all even more time to actually learn to spell his name.

And outfielder Moises Alou has been placed on chair and then vacuum sealed in a plastic cube at the Mets Hall of Fame, where he will remain until the team decides whether or not pick up his option. The Alou wing of the Mets Hall of Fame can be visited at Shea stadium between 9am and 5pm Monday through Friday, admission is $2.