Aaron Heilman: “Start Me Or Trade Me”

Bravo, Aaron. I am genuinely happy that you finally decided to speak up. However, you are about two and a half years too late. Since 2006 you have been stuck in the bullpen full-time and you have been miserable. To this day, I still do not know why the Mets placed you in the bullpen. You were never a reliever in any stage of professional baseball and you were drafted in the first round as a star starter from Notre Dame. Sure, you showed some signs of being a good reliever, but you could never sustain a consistent groove. As a starter, you developed a little slower than expected but you were finally showing some signs of brilliance (e.g., the one hitter against the Marlins in 2005…ironically enough it was Luis Castillo, who currently can’t hit a lick for the Mets, who broke that up) before you were put in the bullpen. Maybe you did something to Omar that he didn’t like, or maybe Willie Randolph just hated Notre Dame. You should have been a starter all along.

It was no secret that you wanted to start, but you decided to put your brave face on and say, “I’ll do what is best for the team.” Great, grand, wonderful…but what wasn’t best for the team was the tension this created. Writers, bloggers, radio hosts and fans alike discussed Aaron Heilman: he should be in the bullpen: he should start, he should relieve, he should be traded…I heard it all. All this resulted in was that microscope was placed on you. Every time you had a bad performance people questioned whether you were happy in the bullpen. Perhaps this affected your performance; we all saw you pout whenever you walked off the mound to a chorus of boo’s. Maybe you were not performing up to your best abilities because you were disatisfied with your situation, but you decided to stay quiet and pitch poorly in the bullpen.

I never blamed you for what happened in game 7 in 2006…you pitched a great 9th inning and you were unfairly pushed out to pitch the 10th because Billy Wagner wasn’t effective in the series. You should have been on the bench icing your arm in the 10th. You had a so-so year in 2007 and a miserable year in 2008. I never boo’ed you though, I always thought you were going to bust out of your shell….if you were put into the starting rotation. I have complained endlessly to my friends about how the Mets should either put you in the starting rotation or trade you. Whenever a starter went down with an injury or started to struggle, I got on my soapbox and spoke how Aaron Heilman would come through for us if we only gave him a chance to start. But three seasons later your no longer “a young arm” and your stats are poor…your trade value has plummeted. Who knows what the Mets could get for you if they traded you.

I am extremely confident that if you get traded and start you will become an all-star. Unfortunately, I do think you need to be traded. Being boo’ed for two straight years can take its toll on someone…you need a fresh start. So, Mr. Heilman, be prepared to become the next Jason Isringhausen (except in reverse). He was a starter who was traded and became an all-star reliever. You are going to be a reliever who will be traded and go on to become an all-star starter. It could have been different Aaron, if only you decided to speak up sooner.