October 30, 2006:
I want Ted Lilly.
The former Yankee southpaw’s grown into a pretty solid pitcher after getting shipped out of the Bronx in 2002.
He’s been good for 12-15 wins a year on mediocre Toronto teams, and when he’s healthy he keeps his ERA in the fours. This season he held opposing hitters to a .254 average. That’s three points lower than Barry Zito’s mark.
Considering he pitches in the AL East — regularly battling the succession of behemoths that constitute the Yankee and Red Sock lineups — that’s an impressive number.
It’s also a number I’d expect to drop the day he took an NL mound. Maybe even significantly.
Pedro’s did.
In Boston in 2004, Petey allowed opposing batters to hit .238. When he moved to the NL, where fearsome designated hitters are replaced by feeble pitchers in addition to defense-orientated eight-hitters, that stat dropped to .204.
A similar drop could make Lilly the steal of the free agent class.
Is he an ace? No.
But that’s good. He won’t come with an ace-like pricetag.
He’d be perfect to slate in the middle of our rotation, ahead of John Maine and Oliver Perez.
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Staten Island Advance columnist Cormac Gordon’s got an interesting idea for 2007. He wants the Mets to pass on big bucks Barry Zito and instead sign Randy Wolf and Lilly to the rotation. He still digs six innings from our starters, then the Sanchez-to-Heilman-to-Wagner combo in the late innings.
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Mets in ’07!
Willie Ball 
You make a sound argument.And Lilly under the wing of Peterson may be a great pick. I also think the Mets should get serious about picking up Soriano for LF. One or two decent pitchers and Soriano and then I would not care what else they did this off season 🙂
I really really don’t want Randy Wolf. His ERA has been consistently in the low 4’s against the NL East. He also walks too many people. The only thing better about Lilly is he seems to be more healthy.
Phurrballe, why Soriano in left? Would you rather have Soriano and Chavez/Milledge/someone else or Soriano and Valentin?
Hmmm ….did not think about Soriano at 2B. I mentioned LF only because I do not think it wise that Floyd should still be out there and I have the feeling that no matter what Chavez did last year, he still will not start LF. I think Chavez proved his worth many times over last year yet every time Floyd even murmured he wanted back in, Willie was all too willing to push Chavez back on the bench. So I do not have faith that Willie will start Chavez even though his quotes said otherwise.
But back to Soriano, I am not sure now where Soriano would be a better fit but we have a need for his talents in two places actually. Even more reason now to make a play for him but my bets are Mets will not make a bid for Soriano for whatever reasons they use.
Huh? Interesting I might say.
Less money indeed.
On Soriano I still have my reservations… he gets big money and we might have to build another stadium to put his ego HA!
*-Desiree-*
Soriano is an interesting thought. The Mets do need a right-handed outfielder with power, and he handled left field better than I thought he would. But he obviously isn’t hitting leadoff for the Mets, if he comes here he’s NOT playing second base (and I’m sure that’s what he’s going to want), and how much money will the guy want? Interesting thoughts, all.
As has been well documented here I’m not much of a Barry Zito fan. My gut feeling is that Lilly will pitch 95 percent as well as Zito for one-third the price, but Jason Schmidt will heartily outpitch both.
I hit the send button too fast. I like Randy Wolf’s stuff but he’s constantly hurt. My feeling is to let Philly deal with him starting 10-12 games a year.