New York Mets Pitching: Fighting For The Five Spot

The New York Mets have a battle on their hands for the number 5 spot in the rotation. Five pitchers have legitimate shots to get that role. Tim Redding, Freedy Garcia, Livan Hernandez, John Niese, and Bobby Parnell are the leading candidates. Conspicuous in his non appearance is Pedro Martinez. It seems apparent according to Omar Minaya that Pedro is not in the Mets plans for 2009. Personally I think it's a mistake and I hope this decision does not come back to haunt the Mets. all of these pitchers have tremendous upsides but age, injury and other intangibles could still lead the way for an unknown, or not yet signed comodity to come in and compete for the last spot. I would like to hope that the Mets could keep all of these guys because a lot of negatives can happen to the pitchers during the course of the season. Last year the Mets used 14 different starters. Hopefully this year will be better. (link)