NY Sports Dog: Is It Time to Talk About Feliciano as an All-Time Great Met?

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Is It Time to Talk About Feliciano as an All-Time Great Met?

Pedro Feliciano came in last night and did what he seems to do every night--pitch, pitch well, and walk off the mound.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

As Gary Cohen is so fond of calling him, he really is Perpetual Pedro.

You won't find any Feliciano jerseys in the stands, his baseball card is worthless, he doesn't make the big bucks, and he can still walk around in the mall and hardly get noticed.

But he is a star for us.

In the last 4 seasons Pedro has averaged 79 appearances per year, and he has led MLB in appearances for the past two seasons.

For his career he has a sterling 3.21 ERA, and his ERA from 2006 through now is 2.92.

I asked on Twitter the other night, "Is it time to start calling Pedro an all-time great Met?"

The answers came back quite varied.  Some folks agreed, and others compared him to an NFL punter, ie, a specialist.

If we look at his career numbers we can see that he's actually faced righty's more than he's faced lefty's.  To be specific, he's faced a righthanded batter 743 times, against 645 for lefthanders.

But now comes the rub--

Righthanded batters hit .269 with a .781 OPS against him, whereas he dominates lefty's to the tune of a .210 BAA and .571 OPS.

That said, overall he has been outstanding.  His combined totals show a pitcher who gets guys out.  His combined BAA is .241 and the OPS against is only .683.

Looking at the top 5 Mets pitchers in appearances, we see Pedro already in 3rd place, just 19 games behind Tom Seaver.  He is 313 games behind John Franco, the all-time leader.

So while Pedro is not a dominant starter, or a closer of renown, he certainly is one of the premiere set-up men in the game.  He might just be the best set-up man the Mets have ever had, or at least in the top 2 or 3.

Though he developed primarily in the Dodgers farm system I'll call him a homegrown Met as he pitched extensively at Norfolk before honing his craft enough to stick in the big leagues.  I'll also add in the fact that he's only pitched for the Mets at the major league level.

Bottom line:  He may not truthfully be an all-time Met great right now, but he's certainly getting there.  In my book he is an "all-time good Met", and that is more than enough to satisfy this Mets fan.

 Player     W     L     ERA     G     GS     CG     SHO     SV     IP     H     R     ER   
J Franco 48 56 3.10 695 0 0 0 276 702.2 683 279 242
T Seaver 198 124 2.57 401 395 171 44 1 3045.1 2431 953 870
P Feliciano* 20 13 3.21 382 0 0 0 4 322.2 292 129 115
J Koosman 140 137 3.09 376 346 108 26 5 2544.2 2281 994 875
J Orosco 47 47 2.73 372 4 0 0 107 595.2 480 207 181
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you're right when you say he's an all-time "good" Met. He has been misused in the past, but he's been very good for us for a long time now. A gamer.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for finally giving some credit to Feliciano. He's a great relief pitcher, and has recieved little recognition for it. It annoys me that Mets management has been worried about who to use in a setup role for the past few seasons, when they've had the perfect guy all along. I would love to see Feliciano pitch a full 8th inning every night to set up K-Rod, instead of his frequent .1 or .2 inning bail-outs.

Dave Singer said...

I think Jerry just has to mix it up. Three straight days of Nieve, Pedro every day for a batter, Tak with the fewest relief appearances but the best K ration.

Jerry has tons of tools, and he uses them incorrectly about 30% of the time, which is a big number for a MLB manager.

fluffingthevoid said...

nice way to jinx him.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the jinx a-hole!

Dave Singer said...

LOL...I thought the same thing after the HR, and then I realized that one has nothing to do with the other.

That said, the fact that people would take the time to come here and post a comment made me feel good....thank you for paying attention and caring about both the Mets and this website.

We'll get 'em tomorrow.

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