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Over at <i>Newsday</i>, Ken Davidoff tries to take Heath Bell's side as he rips the Mets, specifically the pitching coach they assigned to him, one Rick Peterson.
But while he's got the ammo (the deal did suck, was shortsighted, and they are overpaying their pen), the writer seems unconvinced, (1)noting that the Padres are woeful, and (2) not noting that they stuck with Trevor Hoffman way too long.
Still, this sort of indictment of Peterson is good for the history file. To his credit, Davidoff goes Peterson for a rebuttal. I'd like to get Franco and Stanton's perspective also.
<blockquote>New Padres closer Bell no fan of Mets' Peterson
Ken Davidoff
11:38 AM EDT, March 29, 2009
As the Padres' new closer, Heath Bell is replacing a legend in Trevor Hoffman, and that's both an honor and a challenge. But Bell has a more short-term goal on his mind.
"I thought it would be really cool to get the first save at Citi Field," the former Met told Newsday last week in Miami at the World Baseball Classic.
The Mets are paying a total of $24 million to three closers this season, one of whom, Billy Wagner, might never pitch.
Out in San Diego, meanwhile, Bell will earn $1.255 million to close out the likely few leads his team brings into the ninth inning.
The woeful Padres will open Citi Field when they face the Mets on April 13. The irony is not lost on Bell, the primary piece to what has become one of Omar Minaya's worst trades. On Nov. 15, 2006, Bell and Royce Ring went to San Diego in return for the ultimately useless Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson.
"I wanted to close in New York," Bell said. "I never got the opportunity."
The righthander was signed by the Mets as a non-drafted free agent in 1998, and his stay in Flushing was rather forgettable - he bounced between the big-league club and Triple-A Norfolk - yet he displayed his potential as a power pitcher. He struck out 105 in 108 innings, putting up a 4.92 ERA. In his past two seasons with the Padres, setting up for Hoffman, Bell had a 2.73 ERA in 171 1/3 innings, striking out 173.
Bell, 31, has fond memories of his time in New York, of hearing it from the Shea Stadium fans when he deserved it. Yet he also holds some poor memories, and the star of those is former Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson.
Peterson, Bell said, was "negative, negative, negative" with him. "I would go out there 1-2-3 but leave a pitch up or something like that, maybe it was a ball. It wouldn't be 'good job' [from Peterson]. It was, 'Hey, you're jumping [in the delivery] again. You've got to stop jumping."
He added, "In '04, any time I gave up a run, it would be, 'Kid, we're going to send you back to Triple-A. You're never going to make it if you pitch like that.' He literally chewed me out every single time.
"If you ask John Franco, he used to come to me and say, 'Hey, don't worry.' Mike Stanton and David Weathers would say: 'Hey, don't worry about it. You can pitch. Just forget about that guy.' But it was hard."
Peterson, reached by phone Friday, is used to this kind of negative feedback. While with the Athletics, Peterson clashed with the late Cory Lidle, as well as Ted Lilly and Mark Mulder.
"It's the nature of coaching," he said in a telephone interview. "It doesn't matter if he likes me or doesn't like me. The bottom line is, he's got a good career going, and I'm thrilled for him.
"Some of the things we said to Heath, he kind of took offense. But as a coach, I've got to get the best out of them. You can get in a heated discussion, but it's because you care."
In any case, Bell is happy to be in Southern California, where he grew up. And he'll be ecstatic if he can accomplish that first goal of 2009, making the Mets wonder, in what will be a celebratory week for them, why they gave up on the hard-throwing righty.</blockquote>
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