Surfing the Bullpenternet – 1/15 Edition

Things have slowed down a great deal at the Loogy Lounge, as well as in the Hot Stove. For those paying attention, we’re getting HOUSED in the Hugging Harold Reynolds post-season fantasy football league.  The good news is we have 10 players left.

Here’s some recent news and commentary from the Bullpenternet:

• Mets Geek breaks down the Hot Stove Winners and the Loser in both the AL and the NL:  They give the Rockies bullpen moves a “neutral” and the Royals bullpen moves a “loser” designation. [Mets Geek]
• There’s so little hope at Enron Field Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, that Jamey Wright is looking like some kind of answer for the Rangers. [The Ranger Rundown]
• Yankees fans are dreaming their outsized dreams: “If Goose Deserves To Be In The Hall……then Joba should stay in the bullpen. Think about it. Hey, at least Goose agrees with me, but middle relievers never get any respect.” [Five O'Clock Lightning]
• Tigers fans are rightfully feeling pretty good about themselves.  Can a killer line-up make up for a no name bullpen?  [Mack Avenue Tigers]
• How does Seattle replace fan-favorite George Sherrill? You know, if they have to… [Bleeding Blue and Teal]
• And one more Yankees bit. Janks Fans, put Joba in the rotation. Billy Traber is in the house…so, is RHP Scott Strickland and LHP Heath Phillips. NJ.com notes: “Looks like the Yanks bullpen strategy is quantity, not quality.” [True Yankee Blog; NJ.com's Pride of the Yankees]

Bullpenternet: His Heart Is In The Right Place…

A fellow blogger, over at ArmChairGM, posted a story about how middle relievers kind of get the shaft in fame, power, adulation, and big contracts. But see Scott Linebrink. Kind of sounds like the thing that The Loogy Lounge would be all about right? Well, John Stevens is probably still breathing hard somewhere in the 50’s on the West Side of Manhattan because the fellow blogger ponders:

“Why is the closer’s role more important in baseball than then the middle reliever/set-up man? Why is the save a more prominent statistical category than a Hold?”

And the truth of the matter is, John Stevens has already answered this. It’s not. They’re equally asinine. You should be as unimpressed with a guy who enters with a three run lead and gives up two runs whether it’s the seventh inning or the ninth. They’re both terrible outings.

As I end this article, I wonder why Holds is even counted as a category? Is this just another Bill James way of tracking player information?

We don’t know either, guy. But it’s kind of a fun to make up new shit. And no, Bill James had nothing to do with it. John Dewan and Mike O’Donnell got plastered one night at Sully’s and decided that Calvin Schiraldi was getting NO respekts….and they did something about it.

Is Holds going to someday be as important as Saves?

Yes. The hold became as important as the save on the day it was invented in 1986.

I question all of these things because I feel every ballplayer on the teams 40 man roster deserves respect. Therefore I salute all of the George Sherrill’s of the world. It doesn’t matter what inning they pitch in, just as long as they do their job.

And, guy, we salute you. May the middle reliever get the same massive overpriced contracts as each of his fellow overhyped teammates.

Surfing the Bullpenternet – 11/28 Edition

This installment of the bullpenternet has news, analysis, wild conjecturing, father-daughter games, and shopping!!

• Sox fans break down the upcoming Rule 5 Draft, focusing on the Royals’ AA Loogy Carlos Guevara (among others). (SOSH)

• Retrospective: former-DOE-daughter relieved former-MLB-no hitter-father in 1956 American Legion game: rambling article follows 51 years later. (Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune)

• Red Sox miss out on Kerry Wood, consider signing Percival or…Japan? (Yardbarker; DaBigTicket)

• A bad week for a few middle relievers: following the Joe Kennedy tragedy, Indians’ relief pitcher Juan Lara’s career is cut short. (ESPN)

Surfing the Bullpenternet

A quick look at what others are saying about middle relief:

• ‘Anorexic’ Mets: Mets fans start sweating (and stop spell-checking) after they failed to sign Cordero or Linebrink. (Mets Fever)
• Yanks fans, on the other hand, are ecstatic that some other bonehead GM overpaid Linebrink before Cashman could. (The New York Yankees Baseball Blog)

• It may have been the going rate, but you don’t have to like the Linebrink and Cordero signings; why not try the “trial and error” method for constructing a bullpen? (Hardball Review)
• For his part, Keith Law sees a troubling trend this offseason: (ESPN Insider)
  

  After Steve Karsay’s four-year deal, signed before the 2002 season, went bust, we saw just one three-year deal given to a reliever (Armando Benitez, who threw 118 innings with a 4.55 ERA during the deal) until B.J. Ryan’s five-year deal, signed in November of 2005. That month, we saw the destruction of the market’s reluctance to give long-term deals to relief pitchers, especially middle relievers, and the result has been a relative flood of three-, four-, and even five-year contracts for such free agents. After two winters of these contracts, however, the track record is already not good.

• Dbacks fans give out unsung hero awards to Edgar Gonzalez, Brandon Lyon, and their pitching coach, Bryan Price. (AZ Snakepit)
• Did you ever wonder who owns the “Most Consecutive Games with a Home Run Allowed by a Relief Pitcher” record? Yeah, me neither. (Recondite Baseball)