Joe Smith was a huge surprise coming out of Spring Training 2007. At the start of last year, he had only one partial year in the minors. He really impressed in camp and made the team. He started out really good in the majors but slowly broke down over the season and had to go back to the minors for some time to regain his footing. This year ha has not been as dominant in Spring Training as last year, but his imposing and abnormal throwing style is what the Mets need in their bullpen to give it diversity and depth. So here is a look at some statistics of Joe Smith from Spring Training 2007 to Spring Training 2008.
ST 2007: 1.26 ERA, 12 G, 14.1 IP, 9 H, 2 ER, HR, 3 BB, 17 K
2007 ERA's Each Month:
Thru April: 0.00
Thru May: 1.52
Thru June: 2.90
Thru July: 3.03
July 27th – Sept 15th – Minors
Sept 16 to end of Season: 3.45
ERA season high: 3.56
ST 2008: 13.50 ERA, 2 G, 2.0 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, K
(stats from thebaseballcube.com and baseballreference.com)
Basically this shows a few things. One, as a 23 year old last season, he got tired, which is expected and would have been really surprising if that didn't happen, as to this Spring, already given up more earned runs than last Spring, all I can say is that hitters have seen him before and are familiar. This won't be a trend though and he will have better outings. I feel that he has a spot in that bullpen, and he just has to buckle down to keep it. It is his spot to lose.
Update:
The Mets just won their third straight game and for the third time, they won in the ninth inning or later, this case in extra innings thanks to Tejada and Abreu (Tejada with the walk off RBI, Abreu with his second run that was the winning run), even though his BA has not been up to par, he has been in the clutch, which is a pretty good talent for the bench.
