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There are some interesting articles in the papers today about the Metties. First up is an article from the New York Post about the pressure Rick Peterson is facing after the Mets recent makeover. Victor Zambrano and Kris Benson are both excited to start working with the Mets pitching coach, Benson in particular after Tom Glavine gushed mightily about his work (Benson and Glavine share an agent).

Two quotes stand out for me, though. This one regarding Zambrano's control problems:

"The fact that his walks are high, we feel we can maybe do some things to help him in that area."

Very convincing, yes? This one is my favorite, though, RE: The Naysayers:

"I'm not interested in what anybody thinks about the deals. When we go back to the research we all did as an organization with our scouts, with Jim, with our owners and the due diligence to make this acquisition, if there's something that we missed, I'd be very curious what it is."

Basically an F-You to everyone who questions this deal. Of course, many questions still remain, and it looks like we're going to have to wait for the answers.

Another article today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explains how the Pirates got the better of the Benson deal. The author, Brian O'Neill, describes Ty Wigginton as a "right-handed clone of Rob Mackowiak", accurate enough I suppose.

In today's Daily News, Bob Raissman praises WFAN Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen and Howie Rose for not sugarcoating the Mets problems this season.

Rose on Matsui:

"It's getting worse, not better, for Kaz Matsui. Again, no range to his left. ... A good major league shortstop gobbles that ball up going to his left."

And Cohen on the Mets collective malaise:

"It's the same old story ... For all the urgency Art Howe placed on this game, the Mets approached this one the way they approached last night - without a whole lot of interest."

Compare that refreshing realism to the Mets TV team. Raissman quotes Dave O'Brien from the other night:

"... There's certainly time to meld the new pitchers into a winning staff and make a run."

The jackpot article of the day is definitely this one, also from the Daily News, penned by Adam Rubin. It's a virtual quote-a-thon with Rick Peterson. First, he talks about minor league pitchers and the expectation that they pitch a certain number of innings before being called up to the Show. Kazmir had 210 minor league innings under his belt, well shy of the 500+ that Peterson thought he should have (and that current Mets Al Leiter and Tom Glavine both exceeded before making their big league debuts).

"When his name came up in regards to this trade, now you start looking at high school pitching profiles in the big leagues. So we did our due diligence - 'Let's name some guys. Let's look at our team.' We've got two of them. Tom Glavine was a high school guy. He logged 530-some-odd innings and then started his career 9-21 with about a 5.00 ERA.

[...]

Okay, so let's look at Scott Kazmir. First of all, he hasn't even hit the halfway mark in innings pitched. And when he comes to the big leagues, what is our expectation? Is he going to be better than Tom Glavine when he comes to the big leagues? That's a tall order to ask. And Tommy was 9-21. So you start to say, 'Can you get somebody over the next three years who you think possibly can help our team win right now because our players on the field - one of the youngest infields in baseball - are maturing and getting ready to win soon?' How long do you want to wait for Kazmir? That's the question - not how good Kazmir is or what his value is. We know what his value is. But, realistically, Al Leiter had 690 minor-league innings."

Based on these numbers, Peterson didn't see Kazmir cracking the Mets starting rotation for possibly another two seasons, and predicted less-than-instant success when that time finally came. Certainly Glavine is a different type of pitcher than Kazmir, though Leiter was a flamethrower in his early days before blowing out his arm early and resorting to a more cerebral approach.

Following through with that logic, say Kazmir cracks the rotation in September of 2006, given a year of ineffectiveness, he's not really helping the Mets until 2008, three full seasons from now. Zambrano, he feels, can help the Mets right now (or at least as soon as next season), as well as several years to come.

My favorite quote is this one, though:

"We didn't go out to make a trade for the car that won the Indy 500 the last two years. We said, 'They were in the race. We think this could be a lot better.' We think this player can grow, and mature and be better than he already is. He was fifth in the league in comprehensive batting average against him last year behind Pedro Martinez, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Esteban Loaiza, who had a career year. He was like second or third versus righthanders, with I want to say a .208 batting average. That's pretty good. And he's eight games over .500 with Tampa Bay. If you have five starters on your big-league staff who are eight games over, how are you doing?"

Disclaimer: The following is hopeless optimism on my part. I'm going to move forward because I've grown tired of dwelling on the negativity surrounding these trades, of which there is a plethora.

It's important to understand that the Mets got, in their opinion, the best pitcher "available". Translating Peterson's analogy, the top cars, the Priors, Woods, Santanas, Hudsons, simply aren't available. The Devil Rays, despite a surprise season, are not in the race, and probably won't be for at least a couple of years as their stud prospects gain experience.

Zambrano was available, and Peterson obviously thinks very highly of him. We take a leap of faith, of course, as his acquisition meant saying goodbye to one of our own, a kid we've followed for two seasons now. We look at our metrics, though, and we say that Zambrano is not so great, certainly not worthy of our best prospect. But despite our analyses, number crunching, and our weather-beaten copies of Baseball Prospectus, we don't know what Rick Peterson knows. The Mets were applauded for luring him to New York. The man is a god in some circles (these circles), and it wouldn't be a complete stretch to say that he has a bigger plan and that he knows what he's doing.

By all accounts, Zambrano is nasty. Wild, but nasty. His stuff has been compared to Pedro's, though that's sacred ground that you're treading on when you make such a comparison. But what if you had a chance to acquire a 29-year-old Pedro Martinez that nobody knew about, but it would cost you your top prospect? Surely that's what Peterson must have thought, because he did handsprings and backflips when the Mets pulled off the trade.

Time will heal the wounds of this trade, though they will heal a lot faster if Zambrano turns out to be as good as Professor Rick says he is.