This Oliver Perez guy

Reader Charles Star just sent along this link from the New York Sun: Perez Trade Ranks as One of Mets' Best.

A quick excerpt:

With two outs in the sixth, Perez gave up two singles and a walk to load the bases, and then surrendered a hard liner to give up two runs and end his day. David Wright probably could have snared the liner, and Perez's small collapse came after a long half inning in which he'd run the bases as the Mets sent eight batters to the plate, but a pitcher so incapable of a basic regularity in his delivery gets little benefit of the doubt. His inconsistency from season to season, game to game, and inning to inning is all of connected with his inconsistency from pitch to pitch.

Mets fans should be happy about this for two reasons, though. The first is that a less disciplined player can become a more disciplined one; the second is that a pitcher of Perez's immense gifts would never have been traded if not for this flaw. Perez either will or won't learn to focus, but if he does — and the first five innings of yesterday's game, along with most of what has so far been a very good season, prove that he can — he'll be an ace. If he doesn't, he'll be fitfully brilliant and very much worth having around.

"Fitfully brilliant and very much worth having around." Unless you're the Pirates. Then you'd probably trade him for a platoon player that you plan on sticking in the lineup daily, anyways. Check out Ollie's 2007 stats here. Yep, 36 Ks to go with 10 walks in 29 innings. Ugh.

Via Can't Stop the Bleeding.