Daily Graphing – Aaron Heilman

Aaron Heilman has been mentioned recently in many trade rumors, all involving big name players such as Manny Ramirez and Barry Zito. Lets take a look at why he's such a hot commodity on the trade market.

Looking at his rolling ERA, you can see he basically gave up nothing towards the end of the season. Since being moved to the bullpen he gave up 16 runs in 70 innings of work, an ERA of 2.91. In the last two months of the season he gave up a mere 2 runs in 33 plus innings of work. This was good enough for him to split the closers job in the final weeks of the season where he went 4 for 4 in save chances.

His strikeouts per nine inning (K/9) have been on the rise since he was moved to the bullpen. As a reliever his K/9 sits at an elite 9.8 compared to 7.2 as a starter.

He's even managed to decrease his walks per 9 innings every year he's been in the majors. There's still room for improvement, but if he continues to strike out batters at his current rate, he can probably live with an average walk rate. Francisco Cordero, the Ranger's closer, finds success with a similar strikeout rate and a much higher walk rate.

To add to the good news, he's also a ground ball pitcher! What's not to like about him? It's quite clear that Aaron Heilman has tremendous upside as a reliever, and maybe even as a starter. As you can see there's a reason why so many teams are interested in him and it will take a big name player for the Mets to move him.