{"id":2753,"date":"2017-05-16T14:53:13","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T20:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2753"},"modified":"2017-05-16T14:53:13","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T20:53:13","slug":"neil-before-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2753","title":{"rendered":"Neil Before Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So the Mets are trying to address a ghastly bullpen and today announced they’d signed Neil Ramirez to a contract and he’ll be in uniform tonight — No. 55 — as they face Arizona.<\/p>\n

The extent to which Neil Ramirez can be\u00a0the “answer” is a matter of some debate — he’s been released by two clubs already this year and has yet to match a short stretch of success he had as a Cubs rookie a few years back — but I’d agree it’s time to do something. This bullpen in particular is churning up memories of 2008 when similarly disappointing returnees and a merry-go-round of cheap acquirees (Luis Ayala, Brandon Knight, Tony Armas, Scott Schoeneweis, and so on) seemed basically\u00a0infected with a strain of lost\u00a0confidence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And while the bullpen pitchers\u00a0are ultimately at fault, some of the blame needs to go to old Terry, whose use of the pen reeks of his lack of confidence in some guys and over-confidence (and overuse) among others; and to the rotation, whose poor efforts require more help\u00a0than the club has been able to offer (and who repeatedly commit the sin of giving back every run the club scores as soon as possible); and to the offense, who, especially early on, made every game a do-or-die bullpen situation by failing to support the starters or give them any breathing room. Good teams simply cannot allow themselves to have their fates determined by 12th or 13th best pitcher on them (or the best relievers working to protect 5-run leads) and the way to do that is to make better starts and hit the ball harder.<\/p>\n

It could be, the best move for the bullpen would be\u00a0to turn Curtis Granderson and Jose Reyes into pinch hitters; get Robert Gsellman two weeks of starts in Las Vegas and got get Zimmo and Cecchini already.<\/p>\n

But for now, the best move\u00a0is Neil Rodriguez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So the Mets are trying to address a ghastly bullpen and today announced they’d signed Neil Ramirez to a contract and he’ll be in uniform tonight — No. 55 — as they face Arizona. The extent to which Neil Ramirez can be\u00a0the “answer” is a matter of some debate — he’s been released by two … Continue reading “Neil Before Me”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[375,623,744,100,386,767,716,299,511,343],"class_list":["post-2753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brandon-knight","tag-curtis-granderson","tag-gavin-cecchini","tag-jose-reyes","tag-luis-ayala","tag-neil-ramirez","tag-robert-gsellman","tag-scott-schoeneweis","tag-terry-collins","tag-tony-armas-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}