If the Mets have one weakness heading into the 2006 season, it’s their starting rotation. John Donovan higlights this in his latest column and I’ve been saying it most of the off season. The Mets have a World Series Champion lineup. This team is going to score a ton of runs and they really took care of their bullpen with the Billy Wagner and Jorge Julio signings.
In the process though, they traded Jae Seo and Kris Benson, leaving our rotation pretty shallow. Steve Trachsel missed time last year because of a bad back and Pedro has the bad toe. Aaron Heilman’s never really done much as a starter and Victor Zambrano walks a ton of guys. Then there’s Tom Glavine, who looks like he’s always one season away from a major decline. According to the depth chart at MLB.com, our sixth starter is Alain Soyer, a Cuban defector who’s never thrown in the major leagues.
So if Trachsel goes down, or ever worse, Pedro misses time because of his toe, the Mets don’t have a bona fide starting pitcher to fill in. That either forces us to give up even more prospects to acquire a starting pitcher, or it forces the team to fight it out and hope they can just outscore the other team.
