I wonder why no one has made mention of this yet, but when is Dan Warthen going to get some credit for the Mets' pitching success this year? I know the bullpen has had it's ups and downs of late, but pitching coaches have always had a bigger impact on the starters, anyway.
In 343.1 innings pitched this season, Mets starters are a combined 20-14, while allowing 340 hits, 144 walks and 265 strikeouts. That's good for a combined ERA of 3.80 and WHIP of 1.41, although that high WHIP is mostly because of Perez and Maine. Perhaps the most impressive stat is they've only given up 33 HR in that span.
What's really intriguing and impressive to me is that you've seen two young guys develop new, dominant pitches. Pelfrey has developed the best splitter in baseball and Niese has developed a cutter that's even better than Al Leiter's. Yea, that's right, I said it. I never saw Leiter get as many swing and misses on the cutter as Niese has. Of course, the credit isn't all Warthen's for the development of those two pitches. But then again, I don't recall Rick Peterson's guys having much success developing new pitches. It wasn't for a lack of trying on Peterson's part, though, as I'm sure we all know.
Bottom line is, Warthen deserves more credit than he's getting for piecing together one of the best rotations in baseball thus far with only one big name guy, Santana. Pelfrey is a big name now, but was also a big question mark coming into the season. Keep that in mind.
Dan "The Man" Warthen
