Same Stuff, Different Offseason

By Taryn "The Coop" Cooper
Posted Tuesday, November 6, 2007

As I was going through my heroin…erm…Mets news on Sunday morning, I found an interesting story via Buster Olney's blog that I thought I would share with you today.

Although I can’t post it here (due to subscriber rights), Buster Olney in his infinite wisdom suggests that, of all things, the Mets have looked into the availability of pitcher Jason Jennings. Olney even goes so far as to suggest that Jennings, who had been linked to other teams like the Cardinals, Cubs along with the Mets last offseason and is a current free agent having finished an injury-ridden season with Houston, makes a lot of "sense" for New York.

Huh?

I remember when Jennings initially showed up on the Mets radar prior to being traded to the Astros last year. I definitely thought to myself -– this dude is seriously overrated. Even for a back-end starter.

Then again, given the market for mid-tier starters, dudes who can go six or seven innings per start are a hot commodity for baseball teams.

So he has some redeemable qualities, I admit. He’s young, for example, being on the right side of 30, which is a huge issue for pitchers. Save 2005 and 2007, he’s pitched close to or above 200 innings per season a majority of his career. With the expected loss of Tom Glavine, that automatically fills that need. A career WHIP of 1.55. Not good, not bad… Okay, I know, it’s not that great.

On the flip side, Jennings is not a .500 pitcher career-wise. Close enough at 60-65, but still no cigar. Plus a lifetime ERA of 4.91.

Granted, some of those stats may be inflated (or deflated…) due to the majority of his career having been played in Coors Field. Would pitcher-friendly Shea help his stats, along with the run support he’d surely get from the offensively gifted (though temperamental) team? Maybe -- his stats at Shea are respectable, with a .500 W-L average plus a WHIP lower than his career average. So maybe Olney’s suggestion of him being a good fit for the Mets isn’t too far off the mark.

So the verdict on my end? Well, just glazing over his stats and judging what I have seen of him, I have one thing to ask Omar and crew.

What the f……um, heck?

I ranted on My Summer Family about the exercising of Moises Alou’s option (which for the record, I was against here) and the resigning of Damion Easley. Now as long as these guys are not misused, I am okay with it for now. If Easley is used as the bench and role player he is supposed to be, that’s great. If Moises isn’t injured by the third inning of Opening Day, I’ll be okay with that too.

But the idea of Jason Jennings in a Mets uniform screams not only of Wilpon Coupons, but the idea that somehow, the Mets don’t deserve at least a little better.

Now The Coop may sound like a broken record in touting the idea of orchestrating a trade for Jon Garland of the White Sox. But it’s something that makes a heck of a lot more sense for the Mets than inking an overrated free agent (is there such a thing?) like Jason Jennings. Heck, even Tracy Ringolsby at Fox Sports agrees with me somewhat. Okay, maybe not exactly about Garland becoming a Met, but the fact that the White Sox are rebuilding and have pitching out the wazoo. And hey, the White Sox may even want just a center fielder or shortstop (so we can give them Reyes for Garland when we sign A-Rod…I kid, I kid -- never happen and I would never ever EVER endorse a trade for Reyes, even for Jon Garland). My point is, we have outfielders out the wazoo to fulfill that need.

Jon Garland’s stats are so easily translatable into the National League. He’s got a 92-81 lifetime W-L record, a lifetime career WHIP of 1.37 and ERA of 4.41.

See where I’m going? THIS IS THE TRADE THAT MAKES SENSE, PEOPLE.

Of course, being a Mets fan, we hear all about the trade rumors that make absolutely zero sense for the Mets because some sports writer is bored in the winter time and feels the need to get The Coop riled up over nothing.

But besides that…Omar Minaya shocked us all by orchestrating some landscape-altering trades that changed the face of the organization in the 2005-06 offseason. Admittedly, we got spoiled. But we got to see how his brain worked. He was able to pick the needle in the haystack (Nady, Perez, Maine, etc) and generate beaucoup returns.

Am I the only one that sees this is exactly what he needs to do this year?

Look, I’m sure Jason Jennings is a nice guy and I’m sorry his 2007 season was cut short by injury, but if he is signed, I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably pull each hair out of my head one at a time. If Omar thinks this move will be more of a John Maine-looking move rather than the Scott Schoeneweis or Guillermo Mota move I see it becoming, this could be bad. Plus, we shouldn’t even touch the dude with a ten-foot pole after having spent 2007 injured. Have we not learned anything from Victor Zambrano-gate?

Of course, deep down I think we should expect nothing less than that from Mets management. Even dating back to the M. Donald Grant era, folks, so definitely get your seat belts on.

It’s a bunch of the same stuff, but in a different offseason.

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