Late Innings

A small bit of news from yesterday, the Mets signed Livan Hernandez (formerly with the Rockies and Twins) to a minor league deal worth about 1MM (not sure about all the stipulations.) Hernandez surprisingly won 13 games last year, however the 6.05 ERA was bad and the 1.67 WHIP was worse. He gave up 257 hits last year in only 180 innings! On the plus side, Hernandez is a true innings eater, and he has won at least ten games in nine seasons straight.

I don’t view Hernandez as a viable option, however the Mets did the right thing which is add more depth to the back end of their rotation. He’s also united with his brother Orlando Hernandez, who is planning on restarting his career as a reliever. Still Livan should be buried under the team’s depth chart. Jon Niese pitched well in his late season debut last season, and they gave a good chunk of incentive coin to Freddy Garcia. However the team would be best letting Tim Redding handle the bulk of the end of the rotation starts.