Rotation Concerns

There's no hotter topic in Metsville than the status of our starting rotation.

Most people focus on the fifth starter "battle" between Freddy Garcia, Tim Redding's dead arm, Young Jon Niese, and the presumed front-runner, Livan Hernandez.

If Hernandez ends up getting the job what can we expect? On the plus side, the guy still delivers innings. He pitched 180 innings in 2008, the first time since 1999 that he did not reach the 200-inning plateau.

On the negative side, Livan's strikeout numbers have fallen precipitously and consistently since 2004. Hernandez followed that 186-K campaign with 147 strikeouts in 2005, which became 128 in 2006, then 90 in 2007, and finally 67 last year. Since his K numbers started trending south his ERA has gone fom 3.60 in 2004 to 6.05 last year (including an eye-popping 8.03 in 8 games with the New Rox).

So that, ladies and gentlemen is our fifth starter. If only that were the most of my concerns.

The really troubling thing about our rotation is that we have two guys coming back from injury (Johan and John Maine), one guy who figures to be a major injury risk in 2009 (Mike Pelfrey), and one guy who is generally unreliable (Oliver Perez).

Maybe it's naive of me, but if I'm honest I'm not altogether worried about Johan. The back-and-forth about his injury status earlier this month was troubling, but it does seem like the situation has stablized.

John Maine is a different story. The guy's getting shelled in spring training to the tune of a double-digit ERA. I'm as big a believer as anybody that spring training is basically meaningless, but for a guy like Maine who can be absurdly hard on himself, the confidence element worries me. It's easy to see him reading too much into his poor performance in March and letting it affect him come April.

As for Pelfrey... let me put it like this. He's thrown 294.2 innings in his three-year major league career. 200.2 of them came last year. Conventional wisdom in the big leagues is that young pitchers should throw only 30 more innings year-on-year; if they exceed that number, their risk of injury rises. Pelfrey threw 48 more innings in 2008 than he did in 2007, including 128 more at the Major League level. If he goes down with injury, who replaces him?

As impossible as it would have been to believed even a year ago, All-Or-Nothing Ollie is the one guy entering camp without a halo of question marks. Way to go, Ollie.

You hate to be pessimistic, and yes, I'm considering a lot of worst-case scenarios up above. But what if even one of them comes true? What if Maine needs to spend time in the minors to get his head straight? What if Pelfrey breaks down? What if Livan is Livan? Troubling questions, all.

* * * * *

On a cheerier note, me and the wife saw the Pogues in concert on Saturday. Ever been to a Pogues concert? Their fans do NOT fuck around. I've never been in a mosh pit like that.

Shane MacGowan was his terrible, terrific self. He stumbled out there 30 minutes late, a bottle of white wine in one hand. He sang his heart out for the next 30 minutes, stumbled off stage for 5 minutes, and returned clutching a new bottle of wine.

As my girlfriend kept saying, the other guys in the band (none of whom appeared to be drinking) must HATE him, but damn if they don't need him.

If mosh pits aren't your thing, head for the back of the concert hall. Or if you're in the pit, suck it up. Trust me, it's all worth it when they break out into that timeless refrain: "... And we often heard him say / I'm a free-born man of the U.S.A.!"

- A.F.O.M.G.