Last year, even when he appeared to be pitching well, Messenger's peripherals were perfectly in line with his career averages - which aren't very good. His WHIP last year was actually a major league best for him at an uninspiring 1.52 (his career minor league WHIP, to get away from sample size, is a whopping 1.50). He doesn't get a lot of strikeouts and he gives up too many walks to get away from it. When Messenger ended up struggling last year, that wasn't him having a rough stretch, that was him having a normal stretch. What success he had was almost entirely the circumstance of luck and probably a fair amount of inherited runners allowed. He's not very good, and over his career he's been very very consistent about being not very good.

When Sabean got him from the Marlins, he bought Messenger at his peak value because the ERA was oooh shiny with otherwise equal peripherals. His biggest achievement has been that he's not as worthless as Benitez, making the trade overall a plus for us.

He also catches flack because he took himself out of the game for weeks by the power of sheer stupidity, he looks like an Ogre, and he wears his cap with an off-center, flat brim.