Mets trolling the garbage heap, interested in Joel Piñeiro.

Jon Heyman is tweeting that the Mets are interested in Piniero if his price tag falls below the $30 million mark over 3 years.  The 31 year old right hander had a career year for the Cardinals this year.  He was 15-12 and had an e.r.a of 3.49 over the span of 214 innings.  His strongest point, only 27 walks all year.  The problem is, he has been well below average for too many years leading up to this.  I view him as a right handed version of Oliver Perez.  He was built up so much as a young Mariner and never materialized.  I guarantee you his 2010 stat line looks nothing line his 2009 stat line.  I pray that the Mets do not spend money on this guy.  Why not explore Jon Garland, Randy Wolf, or even Jason Marquis.  All three are better than Pineiro.  I would even be a fan of signing Brad Penny on the cheap and bringing his surly attitude to New York.  He has electric, sinking stuff and is not afraid of anything.

This all may be posturing by Minaya as to who he really covets.  Also, we can hope that the Cardinals want to retain Pineiro and sign him so all this is worthless.

Comments

[JJ]

How can you call him "a right handed version of Oliver Perez" right after you mention how he only walked 27 batters last year? Ollie does that in a month! And I agree with you on Wolf and Marquis but Piniero is better than Garland - that dude sucks.

[Brian]

To clarify, I meant that he is like a right handed Perez in that he should be a better pitcher. He was touted early on with a lot of expectations but, for some reason, could never get it all together. You are right about his control, I was more talking about the aura around him from his days dating back to Seattle. Wolf is the best of that heap.

[JJ]

I figured as much. But it is interesting that they are almost the opposite type of pitchers, Perez being wild with great stuff and Piniero's stuff is not as good but he has excellent control. he's a #3 starter at best, but it's that control which makes me think he's worth going after for the right price (a big if) bec he'd add some consistency to the rotation (200+ inn. and around 15 wins is pretty realistic). I originally thought I'd prefer Marquis to him but then I read Marty Noble say he prefers Piniero to Marquis so I took a look at the numbers. Piniero had a better year last year (Coors was not the reason cuz Marquis had similar home/road splits). And overall, they've had pretty similar careers, and are pretty similar in most every way - same height, 10 pounds difference, born within a month of each other, and most importantly neither are K pitchers. That being the case, Piniero league best walk rate last year gives him the edge for me - not really a fluke to have only 27 walks in 214 innings. He might be better than we both think. Tho I agree with you Wolf is a guy with K stuff who is a bulldog and the type of guy fans love. He's also a #3 starter but I would trust him to start a game 2 in the playoffs, and has the mentality to start a game 1 if Johan was unavailable. Behind Lackey he's prob the best (healthy) starter available on free agency.