Reports out of New York Mets camp so far have revealed projected fifth starter Freddy Garcia has not impressed, while Tim Redding has been delayed with shoulder and foot injuries. Meanwhile, veteran Livan Hernandez has looked good, working hard and he is expected to start Saturday against the Detroit Tigers.

While Livan is the younger Hernandez brother, and listed at 34 years of age, he still could possibly be 50 years old.

When Hernandez was signed, Mets GM Omar Minaya said one reason was because of the World Baseball Classic, he wanted as many arms as possible in camp. The Mets* have 8 pitchers on the various WBC rosters including Oliver Perez, Francisco Rodriguez, JJ Putz and Pedro Feliciano.

*It seems like the Mets have about half the entire roster of the WBC Puerto Rico squad.

When Pedro Martinez hurt his hamstring last season during his first 2008 start, I wrote a piece in an earlier post. At that time, Martinez was going to be out for two weeks, and the Mets were in flux with who was going to fill those innings.

To fill the missed starts by Martinez, Minaya and Willie Randolph (remember him?) went with a conglomeration of Nelson Figueroa, Claudio Vargas, Brian Stokes (not bad as a reliever, but only OK as a starter), Brandon Knight and Tony Armas, Jr.

They missed the opportunity to go with a youngster, but also missed the boat on getting a secure veteran.

Available near the trading deadline (and possibly sooner for the right player) was Livan Hernandez of the Minnesota Twins. The Twins allowed Hernandez 23 starts in 2008 before releasing him in late July, not because of performance but to bring up Francisco Liriano from Triple A Rochester. Hernandez was the best free agent signing before the 2008 season (1 yr/$5 million), as they used him while getting Liriano ready after Tommy John surgery. Liriano made 19 “rehab” starts in AAA before replacing Hernandez, and Liriano didn’t even need all those starts, as he dominated Triple A hitters.

Hernandez started out 10-3 with the Twins, throwing 140 innings (avg. 6 per start), but went 7+ innings in 11 of his 23 starts including 2 CG’s. The way the Mets bullpen was used early last season, getting Hernandez from the Twins around June or early July (even though he was not as effective stat wise) would have helped the Mets stability in the rotation, as well as the tired bullpen.

The above “starters” used by the Mets in Pedro’s absence made 14 starts, throwing 79 innings (5.6 per), going 6-5, 5.13 ERA and a WHIP of 1.46. Not horrible, but not good.

The instability of using five starters in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle was detrimental to the decision making of the manager, not knowing what he was going to get on a single night. With Livan, you knew he would give you solid starts most of the time, and the deep start (7+ innings) half the time, giving an overworked Aaron Heilman, Joe Smith and Pedro Feliciano some breathing room.

At the Winter Meetings this past off season, I asked Twins manager Ron Gardenhire what Hernandez meant to his team, and he said Livan was “invaluable” both as a innings eater and “second pitching coach” for the youngsters. It wasn’t a given that Hernandez would have been available when the Mets needed him most, as they also used Hernandez’ durability (and also the similarly built Boof Bonser) to give innings breaks to youngsters Glen Perkins, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey and Scott Baker. All in all, the Twins perfectly managed their rotation, mixing the veteran innings eater Hernandez (and also Bonser) to ease their young pitchers into the majors.

The Twins only used 7 starters all year.  Meanwhile, the Mets used 11 different starters.

The Mets trading a young prospect such as Jonathan Niese, Bobby Parnell, Eddie Kunz or Fernando Martinez for the Twins’ Hernandez was unlikely, but one of those top prospects definitely would have gotten Livan much earlier in the season, WHEN HE WAS NEEDED MOST.

However, since the Twins were in a rebuilding mode in 2008, they likely would have given up Hernandez for a combination of two lower-tiered prospects from Daniel Murphy (highly likely since he was a third baseman, something the Twins needed in their system), 1B Mike Carp and pitchers Michael Antonini, Dillon Gee or Jose Sanchez.

Remember that at that time Murphy was NOT considered a top prospect, and could have probably been traded as part of a deal, one the Mets should have made last season - a deal that would have vaulted them to the top of the Eastern Division, and a playoff spot.

Now the Mets do have Livan Hernandez - it is just a year too late.