Thursday, April 3, 2008
Stark's Life After Pedro
Over at his blog Jayson Stark has a 3 part segment on what the Mets are going to due now that Pedro is done for at least a month. Here is his outtake on the situation:
"• Life after Pedro: The Mets continue to pursue one of GM Omar Minaya's old pitchers from Montreal, Claudio Vargas, in the wake of Pedro Martinez's injury. But contrary to popular assumption, they're not interested in plugging Vargas right into their rotation, a week and a half after his release by the Brewers. Their plan would be merely to add him to their Triple-A inventory, along with Tony Armas Jr. and Brian Stokes. There are no indications, meanwhile, that the Mets are pursuing any of the other unemployed or designated-for-assignment starters out there: David Wells, Jeff Weaver, Robinson Tejeda, etc.
• Life after Pedro, Part 2: It's fair to question whether the Mets built enough starting-pitcher inventory over the winter. But they obviously thought they were deep enough, because we've never heard any of their decision-makers say they were counting on Martinez to make 30-plus starts this year. And with good reason. Pedro has made 33 starts only once in the past nine seasons.
It should be a really easy decision to sign Claudio Vargas. You are clearly going to need depth to fill in for injuries like this and there will be many more throughout the long season. I'm not too confident in pitchers like Brian Stokes, Tony Armas, and Nelson Figueroa and Vargas would add more depth and stability in case anyone else decides to drop down like Pedro did.
