Toby Hyde provides frank, fair and thorough analysis of Jenrry Mejia.

What to do about Mejia must be quite a debate among baseball people around the table in Port St. Lucie. Here’s what they are probably talking about?

1. Is he a starter or reliever?

Answer: We don’t know yet and at some point soon a decision will be made about his development. His size and durability are an issue. Here’s where the greatest debate occurs. There’s been no clear signal. But the fact that he’s still in camp as a reliever may signal that they Mets are leaning toward the later. If they plan for him to start, they would have sent him out already.

2. What about his size?

Answer: When compared by size, use Roger McDowell and David Cone as examples.

McDowell came to camp in 1985 after missing a year for surgery. He’s been a starter in the minors, but made the club because of an amzing sinker. He was tried as a starter in Cincinnatti and it proved to be s disaster. He have neither the stamina or pitch selection to be effective. McDowell never started anothet game in the big leagues and remains a Met legend most notably for his brilliant five innings of relief in Game 6 at Houston in the NLCS.

Cone arrived in late during spring training in 1987 from Kansas City via a trade for Rick Anderson and Ed Hearn. He started the year in the bull pen but quickly moved to the rotation after Bobby Ojeda’s elbow finally blew up. Similar in size Mejia, Cone proved to have both the stamina and pitches to start. He fell only six wins short of 200 career wins.

3. Is he too young?

Probably not. Plus, according to Hyde, he has mastered English and observers marvel at his intelligence and work ethic.

4. Opinion?

Reliever. He has only two pitches mastered. According to Hyde, his 3rd pitch, a curve, is not good enough. It may take another season in the minors to make it serviceable. The fact of the matter is that it just may never be servicable. He’s not dominated consistently enough as a starter in the minors. Ultimately, he compares more favoribly with McDowell than he does Cone.

5. Plan?

Start him pitching out of the bullpen in Binghampton as the closer. It’s a place where he’s comfortable and can have success. Bring him to the big leagues when he’ll get more work in May.

6. Outlook?

He’ll be more durable as a reliever and can ultimately set-up Francisco Rodriguez later on this season. Darryl Strawberry’s comparison this spring to Mariano Rivera is worth noting. If he becomes anything close to Rivera, everyone will be more than happy.

The Mets may be thinking about what happened with Joba Chamberlain. If Hank Steinbrenner hadn’t opened his big mouth, the mistake might not have been made to attempt to make him into a starter. Either they had to let the owner save face or Steinbrenner took a page out of how his father would have acted in pre Joe Torre-Brain Cashman days. Note Jeff Wilpon’s been quiet.

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Joe Janish does a good job in extending my own remarks. I agree with him that Putz probably should have been shut down when persistent pain surfaced in his elbow. I’m hesitant to comment in depth as I was not there to hear Putz’ own feedback of how he was feeling. There is no way of knowing what he was saying to the Mets staff as he was aware of his own contract situation.

Reagrding Putz further, a question should be asked at as to whether of not the Mariners were candid with the Mets about Putz’ health. That does not absolve the Mets, however, from doing their own physical exam like they did before signing Pedrom Martinez in 2004. Did they receive his medical records? If they recieved accurate ones, they should have been concerned as it would look much like Janish’s timeline. Putz was apparently hurting enough when he arrived in camp for it to be an issue during his spring training physical exam. Consideration via hindsight does not reflect well on the Mets. But the Mariners were indeed aware of Putz’ history and can be said to have knowingly traded damaged goods.

The rehabilitation for removal of foreign bodies from of the elbow is relatively short, and in hind sight a more prudent decision would have been for an arthroscopy when pain persisted. A noteworthy comparison is that a similarly injured Johan Santana is doing so well right now. I have no way of knowing why that decision was not made.

Dr. David Altcheck took over for Dr. James C. Parkes after the 1991 season. Altchek was a departure from the conservative Parkes in that he appeared to recommend surgery for players much quicker than would have Parkes. Whe Joe McIlvaine returned to the Mets as GM in 1993 he asked Altcheck why there appears to have been so many surguries. The Mets contracted their physician care out to a hospital that payed them a lot of money for a few years before they turned to Altcheck before the 2004 season.

In the cases of Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and Putz there seems to be a change in philosophy to opt for surgery. I doubt that that philosophy is driven by Altcheck. Last season the Mets also clearly displayed similar hesitancy in placing these same players on the disabled list. Observers are probably wondering outloud about how long Santana was hurting before it was decided to perform surgery on him.

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Joe Janish does a great job today of sifting through the story and asks all the right questions.

At any rate, my surprise begins with the news that the Mets never made any inquiries about Putz health prior to the trade and that the club trivialized his injury. Significant assets were committed to get Putz and now he is gone without anything resembling compensation.

A Mets statement somewhat contradicts Putz:

We were aware that [Putz] had a bone spur before the trade,” the statement said.

“He had the same condition in 2008 and was able to pitch with it. J.J. underwent an exam during spring training and an additional exam and MRI before he was cleared to play in last year’s WBC [World Baseball Classic]. Unfortunately, the spur did flare up again in May and he missed the rest of the season.”

Putz seems to be overatating his problems with the Mets as the Mets did an MRI on Putz before they let him go the the WBC. Putz said nothoing of this is his interview. To say the Mets mishandled or mistreated him is false. They took a chance on Putz elbow would be a non factor and probably relied on much of what they Mariners were telling them.

Pitchers frequently pitch with spurs or chips present within the elbow’s hinge joint. Unless problems begin – meaning pain – they are allowed to pitch. But when a pitcher begins hurting, it’s shut down time. As in Putz case and from the timeline that Janish provided, it appears that the bone spur that Putz developed is something we see quite frequently. To make a comparison, the development is similar to that of heal spurs after years of plantar fasciitis on the bottom of a foot. We often inject painful heal spurs with some success.

Unlike a shoulder where a bursa sack can be injected, the elbow does not provide such an effective target for costisone. Putz received and injection last year in May last year likely intended to decrease the spur.

The easiest path has been to jump in another public Mets beat down and I would have if the medical staff hadn’t done an MRI prior to Putz going off to the WBC. A larger issue that provides much more interesting dynamics comes up when one notes the large number of Mets whom participated in the WBC suffered season ending injuries last season. The list include Putz, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Johan Santana, and Oliver Perez. All of these injuries can be categorized as being of the over use variety.

The Mets don’t seemed to have publically advanced this theory as it could cause them considerable political problems within the industry. Having said this, it will intersting to see how the Mets handle the issue in the run up to the next one in 2013.

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Little things….Santana’s elbow, Pelfrey’s calf, Maine’s reluctance, Oliver’s weekned in Mexico. Nevermind the fifth starter, but whomever it is will be further along that the fisrt two slots somehow. Hell, maybe the Mets need to be getting a 6th starter ready.

Joking aside, this is not a bad thing. Let them get their full steam that first start, and rely on all those relievers that the Mets will keep. Heaven knows Putz and K-Rod will be ready when they return after some fine tuning in split squads and AAA games.

I still want to see Bobby Parnell and Jon Biese start in AAA so they get regular work. Maybe even use Parnell to close games, then bring him up when you know he can take the seventh and anothther out before or after. Niese needs to dominate AAA for a few starts while he is able to take a regular turn. And the Mets want their fifth starter to take the fifth day.

The stregth of the club is in its pitching staff. It is very close to happening

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From Metsblog.

Poor kid played his ass off last spring and worked himself into the everyday leftfielder before missing the season with with a shoulder injury. Now this. Pagan looked as if he would make the club again, but its worse than that. The silent whispers will begin around the game that the once promissing outfielder is injury prone and cannot be counted on at the major league level.

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