Trachsel of My Tears

The news just gets worse for the Mets, as Steve Trachsel is now likely out for the year. David Pinto thinks Trachsel “shouldn’t be difficult to replace,” but I disagree. You’ll recall that, when Trachsel first came to the Mets, he started in an awful funk, 1-6 with an 8.24 ERA in 39.1 innings in his first 8 starts in 2001, leading to a brief demotion to Norfolk. But since his return in June 2001, Trachsel has been everything you could ask for from a pitcher of his unspectacular pedigree: in 116 starts over more than 3 1/2 years, he’s 49-41 (.544, vs. 219-317, .409 for the rest of the team sine June 8, 2001), with a 3.66 ERA in 715.1 IP, almost never missing a start. He’s averaged 8.67 H/9, 1.03 HR/9, 3.16 BB/9, and 5.65 K/9 over that span. Compare that to 20-28, 4.03 for Glavine as a Met; the next time Benson or Zambrano has an ERA below 3.80 in more than 100 innings will be a first. Even Pedro’s ERA was higher last year than 3.66, albeit in Fenway. And that production has come relatively cheap, with the Mets paying just $3.8 million per year, a pittance compared to many other contracts out there for far less successful and effective pitchers. Trachsel’s been durable and relatively cheap for some time now. Guys like that don’t grow on trees; ask Texas or Kansas City or Cincinnati.
It’s true enough that Traschel benefits from Shea Stadium, and that his declining strikeout rates and good luck on balls in play marked him anyway as a guy likely to decline this year, but we shouldn’t underestimate what Trachsel has meant to the Mets the past four years.