While I am as excited as any New York Mets fan about the arrival of Johan Santana, I think one of the most underrated situations of this new season will be the revival of Pedro Martinez. Here’s a guy who was the most dominant force in the game for the better part of 6 years. 3 Cy Youngs, a career ERA under 3.00, over 200 wins with a winning percentage over .690%, and the ability to throw old men to the ground are just some of the strengths of this 5’10” 170 pounder has. Obviously last season was a bust, but I think most Mets fans already knew that when we signed him last season’s surgery was an inevitability. The real question remains, what Pedro are we going to see this year?

For the first time in his career Pedro will not be the resident ace on the staff. As I sit and laugh at myself like a drunk Irishman thinking of trotting out Johan Santana day one, and follow him up with Pedro Martinez on day two, I think back to the days of Dr. K and Sid Fernandez. Anybody else remember El Sid’s “rising” fastball? That thing was awesome. Back to my point though, Pedro will no longer have the pressure of being the only guy that the Mets need to rely on to get quality starts, and stop the bleeding. Relieving Pedro of some of that pressure, stress, and focus should do him a world of good. Pedro’s never been a stranger to the spotlight, but sharing a locker and some media attention with Johan will give him some breathing room to concentrate on staying healthy and dominating hitters.

Quality starts was one thing dramatically missing from the New York Mets pitching staff last season. With a healthy off-season and a strong rehabilitated body, Pedro should be able to provide us with several of these in 2008. Because he’s so easy to get along with and loose, he should also help relax Johan into the situation, as well as relieve some of the tension surrounding the Mets young arms, John Maine, Oliver Perez, and Mike Pelfry. I put the over under on Pedro throwing 175 innings this season, which is a far cry from his former 220 plus per season in the late 90’s. His first season in NY he tossed 217 innings however, so it’s not completely out of reason to hope for something close to the 200 mark. Getting the top two guys in the rotation to throw a total of 400 innings would give an insane amount of rest to our bullpen. God knows we need it.

Getting a healthy Pedro for an entire season could prove to be an incredible advantage for the Mets in the National League. Not many teams this past decade can trot out two of the most dominant pitchers in the game on back to back nights. The team that comes most quickly to mind, the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, got over 500 innings from Schilling and Big-Unit went on to win the world series that year. I’ll call it right now, if we get 500 innings out of our two studs, the championship is ours!