Mets bullpen watch: Part IV

Week four of Bullpen Watch is our final edition, as Spring Training is over and the bullpen appears to be solidified. Last week’s predicted bullpen consisted of the following pitchers:

1. Bobby Parnell
2. Josh Edgin
3. Brandon Lyon
4. LaTroy Hawkins
5. Scott Atchison
6. Pedro Feliciano
7. Greg Burke

It was an interesting week. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, Feliciano, Hawkins, and the injured Tim Byrdak were to be informed by March 26th if they had made the team. Hawkins made it but Feliciano did not.

It had been reported that Feliciano’s velocity may have been a concern, but the official reasoning was that he needs to build stamina in his shoulder since he currently can’t pitch on back-to-back days. Both he and Byrdak have elected to remain with the organization and Feliciano will report to AAA to open the season.
That being said, below is a list of the final bullpen roster with their Spring Training statistics. The list is ordered by innings pitched.

There are two interesting things to note here. First, the Mets chose to go with an eight-man bullpen rather than the typical seven. This is not unheard of, especially at the start of the season when starting pitching may not yet be ready to go deep into games. Though the Mets pre-Spring Training rotation showed great promise, it’s essentially in shambles at the moment. Johan Santana has most likely pitched his last game as a Met, his replacement Jeremy Hefner was hit on the elbow by a comebacker, Shaun Marcum may start the season on the disabled list, and Dillon Gee has been getting clobbered. The extra arm in the bullpen seems a necessity, though it will probably filter down to seven at some point.

The other interesting note is that lefty Rice made the bullpen instead of Carson. Carson was not particularly good. In fact, he was pretty bad. But unlike Carson, Rice was not on the 40-man roster and required someone be removed from it. Also, the 31-year-old Rice will be making his major league debut this year after 14 years in the minors. You read that right. Rice had a great spring, though, and Mets manager Terry Collins wanted two lefties.

The makeup of the current bullpen is a nice mix of veterans and youngsters. Parnell, Edgin, and Familia have the potential to be a fine young core of it moving forward and the veterans bring a bit of stability on top of their experience. Basically, the same as most bullpens across the league.

This collection of pen arms just might be pretty good, though. At least it should be better than last year. The bullpen has been an Achilles heel of Mets teams for so long I’m not sure we know what a good one looks like anymore, however.