Hankenstein

In his short tenure, Hank Steinbrenner has already shown himself to be a loudmouthed idiot; but, he made a good deal of sense in his most recent tirade about Joba Chamberlain:

I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now. There is no question about it, you don’t have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a setup guy. You just don’t do that. You have to be an idiot to do that.

Closers and Conventional Wisdom

Decent article about conventional wisdom versus Bill James with respect to closers.  Here’s a small sample:

In other words, don’t be cowed by the conventional wisdom that stipulates a ninth-inning lead must be handed over to a ninth-inning pitcher whose confidence about retiring the last three batters in a game is hard-wired into his brain. That’s how the world works these days, but the definition of a closer is not sacrosanct. To the contrary, it’s open to some tweaking. A committee of closers? Why not?

James believes that a traditional closer (i.e. the team’s best relief pitcher) is eight times more valuable in a tie game than when his team has a three-run lead.  I’m sure that’s about right, but the article doesn’t really elaborate;  it just concludes:  “When Bill James makes a case that a reliever such as Putz can be eight times more important in a tie game than he is with a three-run lead, trust the source.”

Rudy Returns

Rudy Seanez is back in the majors after signing a one-year deal with the Phillies. The lede of this story reads:

Phillies’ bullpen gets some help as Seanez signs

The first paragraph then begins:  “Phillies manager Charlie Manuel can vividly recall having Rudy Seanez on his club in Triple-A almost 20 years ago in the Indians organization.” (emphasis mine)

I guess by “some help,” the author liberally means a really old player that is now inadequate at pitching baseballs.

Bizarro World

I actually kinda agree with Ozzie Guillen here, but somehow, he’ll screw everything up.

Right On, Riske

 
“Sometimes people get too caught up in their roles, the seventh/eighth inning guy or the sixth inning guy. We’ve got so many great arms and power arms and command arms that we’ve got to make sure that a great arm is out there. It doesn’t matter who pitches what inning you’re out there for.”

Opening Day Bullpen Woes

 

Gloomy day for a bunch of bullpens yesterday. The Brewers (all the talk about Gagne needing to be a closer to be effective is nonsense), Tigers, Indians, Nationals, Rangers, Braves, and Pirates couldn’t hold onto post-6th inning leads.

I’d imagine that sitting in a cold bullpen all game and then coming in for your first action of the season isn’t the easiest thing to do. Free pass for all of the above teams, except the Tigers, who suck in all weather.