Aaron's Requiem In The Key Of Ski

Aaron Heilman is starting to remind me of that guy in all of your typical 80's ski lodge movies who tries like hell to get the ski bunny to like him but she only has eyes for the obnoxious son of the lodge owner.

Of course in the movies, the protagonist always gets the girl. I can't help thinking that Heilman will get the girl in the end as well, except that his movie is taking a lot longer than 94 minutes.

I don't really know how else to feel about this past week's announcement that it will be indeed Brian Bannister and Victor Zambrano who fill out the Mets rotation, with Heilman returning to the bullpen. On the one hand, Heilman was fairly stellar out of the pen last season...and more importantly, many scouts see Heilman as a pitcher who is much better in his first time through the lineup than later in the game (Heilman, by the way, is 3-0/2.13 as a reliever in his career as opposed to 5-13/5.93 as a starter). But on the other hand, you want to see a guy who's worked hard to be the best starter he could be get his shot. Heilman has had decent success in winter ball and in spring training as a starter and let's face it: his name is not Victor Zambrano which is a plus, fairly or not.

Zambrano meanwhile, probably clinched his spot in the rotation with six innings of shutout ball against the Cardinals in Pedro's first start. My guess as to what bothers Met fans about Zambrano's inclusion in the rotation goes something like this: There seems to be certain guys like Heilman, who always seem to have to perform above and beyond repeatedly to get rewarded. While a pitcher like Zambrano, who's only crime is being the short end of a horrific trade, pretty much only has to shine once or twice and gets the benefit of the doubt. Now nobody knows what goes on behind the scenes, and I'm certainly not about to pretend that I do. But from an outsider's point of view, there still seems to be something attached to Zambrano...whether there's still an effort to keep him in a starting role to either justify the Kazmir trade, or because he's a waste out of the bullpen (I understand if it's the latter). But whatever the case, it's Heilman on the outside of the ski lodge looking in.

But like I said, Heilman will eventually get the girl. The starting rotation, from 1-5, is tenuous. And Aaron Heilman realized that eventually, one of those spots will be his. Whether it be because of Pedro's toe, Glavine's tree rings, Trachsel's back, Bannister's inexperience, or Victor's inability to hit the broadside of a Home Depot, something is bound to happen. It always does. And at that point, Aaron Heilman will get his ski bunny.