Sosa signs
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- February
- 2
The Mets avoided arbitration by signing Jorge Sosa to a one-year contract for $2 million.
I like Sosa in the pen, but think he’d be wasted in a long role. I’d rather he be available every day.
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on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm by John Delcos.
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My first instinct was Sammy ….
I think the Mets are going to trada Sosa.
With the potential signing of Lohse, the trio of Pelfrey, Sosa, and Hernandez would compete for the longman role in the bullpen.
Pelfrey will start the season in AAA; ElDuque’s salary ($6.5 million)and health history would make him untradeable; Sosa is odd man out.
A $2.0 million starting pitcher is an attractive trade candidate. He should net the Mets a decent right handed 1B/OF
Mets need Sosa for the exact reasons you stated above-Pelfrey is not ready in case ElDuqe gets hurt or worse if Pedro goes down.
They need him as insurance. They don’t have many other options.
That is probably why he will be the long man so he does not have to be stretched out in case he is needed when those guys go down.
He won’t be traded for a luxury like an extra pinch hitter.
There are so many people talking about this mythical magical right-handed OF and there’s nowhere on the roster to fit him.
And Sosa’s the only guy on the roster who makes sense as a long man. How can you like him in the pen but not as a long man?
Wise isn’t a long man. Schoeneweis isn’t even a short man, let alone a long man. Sanchez isn’t. Pelfrey isn’t. El Duque could be but you know he wouldn’t accept that role except in a playoff series. Padilla isn’t even if he’s healthy. Smith isn’t, Heilman and Feliciano and Wagner aren’t.
There’s only one option for a long-man and its Sosa.
Now, he could be one of those long relievers who can be used short occasionally between long uses, perhaps… not a pure long reliever… but there’s no other option there.
Lohse ain’t getting signed because El Duque ain’t going to the pen.
And if El Duque’s healthy, he’s probably better than Lohse, its just that he won’t stay healthy.
After getting the best, why does anyone have his sights on such mediocrity like Lohse. A multi year deal for a guy that bad when you don’t need him. You have El Duque, Pelfrey and Sosa to be the 5th, 6th 7th man, and you need $$$ to keep Ollie next year, and I’m sure Omar has friends on the scrap heap to send to New Orleans to bring up like he’s done every other year. The next signeings will be minor league deals for old worn out guys to bring up, not a multi year deal for a guy like Lohse.
Long men are the 1990’s. With 12 man pitching staffs pitchers seldom go more then 2 innings, why would you want a 2nd tier pitcher to face ML hitters twice.
I think the mets are set. El duke is the fifth starter and if he gets hurt you have pelfrey and sossa to take the fifth spot. I think the key to the mets pitching is Sanchez. If Sanchez can come back to the form he was in 06 before the accident than the mets should have a very good bull pen.
Willie never used Oliver or Sele to start, so I’d be curious if he can pull that switch with Sosa.
I can see Sosa being a good righty specialist, with that slider he is maybe the best reliever they have against righties. So it would be good for him to be the long man, and spot against good righties in the 6th or 7th.
They need to have him work as a starter in ST so he will be capable of going 5-6 innings when he comes out of the pen as a fill in starter.
I just read a article by a philly sports writer on there newspaper website. I thought it was just the Philly fans that talk non sense and don’t look at things objectively but this writer went on to say that Santana won’t help the Mets because Philly has a better line up. It’s amazing coming from a beat writer because if you know anything about baseball, pitching wins championships, just ask the yankees. I would think that since philly got swept last year by the rockies
because of pitching, that a beat writer would know this but than this is philly we are talking about.
Omar was quoted as saying in the mini-press cnf yesterday that the team is set.
I don’t see any big moves. Maybe the scrap heap guys for NO if (when) Pedro or El Duque get hurt like Omar P stated above.
Interesting comments on sosa. He seems to be the most flexible guy on the staff. Byt Duaner is the key. Almost 2 years without any competition is tough. If he’s ok, I think he’ll be brought along slow splitting 8th with Heilmann, leaving 7th to righty lefty Sosa/Feliciano, and eventually Heilmann gets 7th/8th and Sosa the 6th with yech Schoeneweis. If no Duaner, Heilmann is 8th with Sosa doing 7th with Feliciano and Wise doing 6th with ywech Schoeneweis. all options except yech are much better than 2 innings of Mota.
The guy above is right. No long man. If you remember 2006, as Willie started trusting Oliver more he used him later in games. Sele was so bad…...
I listened to friday’s conference call on mlb.com. I don’t think fans realize how close this came to falling through. Both sides reached a stalemate and it was Tony Bernazard’s idea to fly in Johan Santana using the wilpon’s private jet to meet jeff and fred on friday and than they ripped up the original contract and started over and needed the extra time because they were 5 million a part and between peter and his staff and jeff and his staff they became creative and was able to get the deal done, interesting stuff.
I saw Sosa pitching in the Caribbean Series for Licey. The showed his numbers. They were terrible. He had allowed 16 baserunners in 8 innings. 8 innings is only 8 innings so it may not mean much but its not a great sign.
who cares about 8 innings for a rusty veteran…..
tom g: One big reason the contract almost fell apart was because the union was meddling in the contract talks. They put Santana and his agent under extreme pressure to not go below a certain dollar amount. In fact Santana’s deal is the third richest contract in ML history behind the two A-Rod deals. So the union got what it wanted. The union hated the Peavy contract because he took a home town discount and signed for under market value. Anybody who thinks the union is any better than owners and does not have an agenda of its own to push should have learned better from the steroid scandal.
I am happy Santana is a Met but in the end we the fans just end up paying more and more to go to games
slop,
somebody has got to be a long man. There are gonna be gms where the starter only goes 3-4 inn. somebody has to bridge the gap for 2-4 inn.
You can’t have every reliever coming into every gm.
We have Sosa and Pelf to pick up when the starters get hurt. I think we should also go sign a wounded vet to stash in AAA in case plan B fails for some reason..
We need a long man??? Why??? Last year Sele pitched more than 2 innings a grand total of 4 times and one of them was the Astro extra inning game when he finished cause nobody was left.
slop,
Sele didn’t pitch b/c he stunk. Why he remained on the team I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a guy from time to time who can go 3-4-5 inn.
Maybe since Sele stunk that is part of the reason the rest of the pen ran out of gas b/c instead of using him in those mop up situations or where you are behind by 3-4-5 runs and still think you have a chance, you instead bring in the other guys. Those extra inn may have caused the pen to collapse.
It is not that important of a point anyway. The pens success will depend alot more on the SP going longer in gms and Wagner, Heilman, Feilicano and a healthy Sanchez performing well and to some extent some bounce back from Show and Wise.
Sosa is most likely the last guy to get a call out of that group if those other guys perform to a level they are capable of.
The Great Collapse happened, remember, because instead of one terrible reliever to hide in the bullpen… as some even very good teams have due to contractual obligations… the Mets had three of them, Sele and Schoeneweis and Mota.
You can’t hide three arms in the bullpen without burning out your other four.
The Mets have a good chance of only having one terrible reliever to hide this year, in the form of No Show.
Here’s hoping, right? Sosa for long-man.
We sure did have 3 rotten relievers. That’s why I find Minaya’s comments to be a joke. He totally failed to do his job last year, cost a pennant and now he’s saying “I did my job” so you better play good. He has followed one excellent move with a show of arrogance and its me vurses thee. Why should anyone be more accountable than he was?
As for long man, put the biggest bum there and that is Schoeneweis. Better yet, disable him for 2 years or ask the Brewers if they want to be charitable one more time.
Reports stated Show was hurt. I hope his decent September was a sign that he had overcome his knee problem.
No one is going to to take him.
As for Omar, the biggest joke is letting Bernazard have sway in the clubhouse. I hope that was rectified.
What great September are we talking about. The one with a 4.66 ERA?? The one when he came in against the Pgiuls with the game still close and pitched worse than Lawrence? I think you mean April when he actually pitched good and had an ERA under 2. How do you know nobody will take him. someone took Mota, so you don’t know that.
How much sway does Bernazard have in the clubhouse? Is he destrotying the team? Is he countering Willie’s authority? What is it he’s doing so bad??
I didn’t say great, I said decent. Besides one or two outings, he was ok.
Nobody will take him at the price of 2 yrs contract and the Mets will not trade him unless someone will.
Mota was traded b/c the Brewers took his contract which is only for 1 yr.
A leader, whether it is in BB or any walk of life is not going to be able to have the same level of authority if someone who reports to their boss comes into their “realm” and undermines their authority. And by simply coming into the clubhouse on a regular basis so that the players can talk/complain/interact with Bernazard, if I were Wille, I would consider that undermining.
Good point by whoever it was about not needing a long man. When you really think about it a long man is just someone who isn’t good enough to bring in in an important spot. If you can fill your bullpen with good reliable pitchers you are better off. There is no harm in having a good pitcher do mop-up duty (let’s hope there’s not too much of it to be done), or early inning relief.
Not to keep rehashing last year but if we had gotten a quality reliever at the break who would not be here in the offseason?
Does that mean we would have yet another reliever and no Santana?
what is the defintion of a long man?
I say a guy who can pitch 3-4-5 inn.
That means Sosa or Show b/c they have been starters or relievers.
I don’t think Show will be that guy.
I think it is Sosa.
Show’s injury was ligament damage that cannot be surgically corrected, if I remember correctly, it either heals itself or it doesn’t and… I don’t like the sound of that, y’know?
Moreover, he was mediocre on HGH and was terrible without it.
There ain’t nothing left on that train.
dave: what is the differenece what would have been left if Minaya had done his job last summer. If he had made a trade for a decent reliever you’d have had a playoff team. And a different package would have been thrown at the Twins. He’s been harping for 3 years that the team is built for now, yet he forgot one year. I was going to lay off him but since he “did his job” statement, he lost my respect.
scoopcoop the long man is usually the biggest bum in the pen. Sosa is clearly a more flexible, talented, and valuable commodity than Shoeneweiss (who is not ggod enough to warrant a nickname), so shouldn’t be the long man. If Sanchez isn’t up to his 2006 form, which is very likely, especially in beginning of season, Sosa will split 7th oinning duty with Feliciano. Schoeneweis was a mistake that shouldn’t be rewarded for a permanent injury that the Mets physical missed and he shouldn’t be rewarded for his steroid use.
Schoeneweis? One thing about relief pitching is they can be down one year and lights out the next. A lot of people in the AL east were happy to see him go. And last year a lot of people in the NL east were happy to see him come in a game.
I think that it was OK for Omar to challenge the players. And where was he supposed to get that impact bullpen guy last year and at what cost? If he had traded a good prospect or two for a guy then he’s not in the Santana trade. And let’s face it the bullpen was wore out from coming into every game and early.
We can argue the merits of what should have happened all year but the fact is the Mets had the team to do it last year and they let it slip away on all facets of the game. That is not Omar. That is playing and managing.
I love Willie but I watched him bring in Sosa for two innings in a game they one. Then the next night they were up by 6 runs. Does he rest the guy? No. He’s back in for 2 innings. This is not a good way to rest your guys down the stretch. And I am sure that he has learned from it. And where was Peterson? shouldn’t he have said “Hey WR—Let the guy have a day off. One of myriad examples of bad choices down the stretch.
Face it the collapse last year was a perfect storm of the Mets fading and the Phils getting hot. Not because we lacked a relief pitcher.
Did the Brewers retain Mota?
clm: I have to disagree 100% on this post of yours.
Schoenweiss had ERA of over 6 with Toronto in 2006 so I don’t think the AL celebrated when he went to the Reds late in the year.
The bullpen sucked from day 1. He (OMAR)talked to DC and wouldn’t make a move. High price yes, but Santana doesn’t guarantee anything. We have little back up strength and injuries to the 5 or 6 spot in lineup very possible. and pen praying for health of a guy out a year and a half. Last year he knew his pen was killing the team with basically 4 guys Willie could trust and he slept. OMAR cost the pennant not Willie. Willie used sosa to death to try to protect the top guys and it didn’t work. Having 3 dead weights caught up to the team, and Omar slept thru it.
Yes, it was OK for Omar to challenge the players but he seperated himself from the results and did a lousy job of it. He did good he said so if we lose you suck and Omar is still good, which is very lame and egostistical. I have to back Omar Padilla on this one. A team effort doesn’t stop by part of the team! I guess Omar ain’t part of the team .
The longman is not the bum of the pen. You hide the bum in the pen as the mop-up man, just to eat innings when you’re down or up by 5 or 6.
And that’s gotta be Horror Show’s role, mop-up and very limited one-or-two-lefties situations.
The long man is the guy who can get out of the pen when the starter has imploded but the game is still in question and go in, only giving up one or two runs in four or five innings.
Sosa’s the only reliever on this team with a shot at that role. This is not to say that he can’t also be used in occasional short situations, it’s just that you’ll have to handle those occasional short situations in a smart manner.
I think you got it wrong Mike C. The mop up and the long man are usually the same guy. Up 9-1 he pitches the 9th, Starter gets bombed he pitches 3-5 or 6.
Omar:
The difference is we would have made the playoffs and that is pretty much it.
Today we would not have Santana and we probably would have another reliever in the pen. We would have an average staff and no realistic shot at the World Series.
That is the difference.
This is 20/20 of course, but perhaps not. Perhaps Omar made the decision not to overpay for a reliever who will not make a material difference in the team for a shot at making a material difference on the team for years to come.
Dave
dave you do not know that we wouldn’t have santana if we got a releiver last year. how much of an omar apologist can one be?
so dave you must have a great boss who lets you not do your job one year but forgets about it because you did it the next year. where do i get such a boss?