Figured I'd pound this one out before tomorrow's inevitable Pirates preview. After being banished to Sunday, it appears Phil begged for and got a mid-week column comprising of belching out statistics from MLB.com on the Cubs weekend opponent, tossing in a few comparables from this point last year and adding a dash of catcher efficiency and/or one-run game records.
In other words, it's that 'putting him in a box' I was talking about, giving him something even Phil's laziness can't mess up.
This week's offering says Kerry Wood is better than Jason Isinghausen and Eric Gagne, because the world revolves around the Cubs and their immediate competition. Everybody else just plays for fun.
Let's get started.
Kerry Wood never has been a more effective pitcher than he has been in 2008, at least when he is measured by most standards.
This is my new favorite Phil qualifier: When Measured By Most Standards, taking over for Entering The Weekend.
It's just so elusive. Say you have ten standards to judge whether you should marry someone.
And say 'most' are met, like she has all four limbs, she's not bulimic, she enjoys breathing.
But a 'few' aren't met, like she has a fecal fetish, she's bi-polar, she loves My Boys.
Well, you're not going to marry that person, are you? 'Most' doesn't necessarily make a bride.
Let's see where Phil is going with this.
He entered the weekend series against Arizona having made 16 appearances. He had allowed 11 hits and three walks in 17 innings. The opponents' batting average against him was .183, the best of his career, with a .258 on-base percentage, again the best of his career. He had 5.3 strikeouts for every walk, again his best mark. He has thrown only 13.4 pitches per inning, by far the most efficient pitching of his career.
Entering the weekend? Two Philisms in the first 25 words! Holy Cow!
These are nice statistics to offer a loyal Phil reader, although most loyal Phil readers who comment on his columns are misanthropic douche-bags like myself who get their rocks off picking apart the guy's strange meanderings into the stupid.
And I think this column is an attempt to quash the flames coming from some Cub fans to remove Wood from the closer's role and give it to Marmol, which is just more stupid stupidness given the huge gap that opens up in the setup role and Marmol's inexperience.
But a few problems here.
1.) Embarrassingly small sample size.
2.) Wood's whole career was as a starter. Give me the ten best starters in the history of the game and the ten best closers in the history of the game. Compare their numbers. Of course the relievers numbers are going to be better when 'measured by most standards'.
Closers, especially in the last twenty years, usually come into the game in an advantageous situation (i.e., one to three run lead). They also only have to face the heart of the lineup about a third of the time (and only one time through in the rare case) or they face a bevy of pinch hitters who have been sitting on their ass the whole game. None of the hitters have seem their stuff that day to calculate pitch sequence, velocity, location of said closer and the losing team in usually playing catch-up because, well, they're losing. It's a relatively good gig for Wood. He has many advantages at the outset.
Well shit, give him the Rolaids Relief Award.
He struck out Chris Young and induced groundouts from Jackson and Upton on May 9 of this year. That backs up everything. It's just so 'of the moment'. More J-School 101.
Yet Wood's move into the closer's role means a closer inspection. His performance, for many, has been defined by the three times in nine chances that he could not convert a save situation—failures against Milwaukee, Colorado and Pittsburgh.
But...but...but.
A 66% success rate in the closer's role is something to look at. Again, embarrassingly small sample size and his peripherals aren't bad. But he's already plunked four batters this year and when he's missed the strike zone, he's missed bad a few times.
I don't in any stretch of the imagination think Wood should be replaced but if I were a Cub fan, I'd be feelin' some Thigy vibes in some respects.
Where's he going with this?
Luckily for the Cubs, they aren't the only teams in the National League Central who have had trouble nailing down leads. In fact, Wood is an All-Star compared with the 2008 versions of Jason Isringhausen, Eric Gagne and Jose Valverde, the ninth-inning specialists in St. Louis, Milwaukee and Houston, respectively.
Talk about damning with faint praise.
And he just said the Cubs have had trouble nailing down leads yet Wood is Good? To make a case - any case - you don't use the reeking, rotting flesh of the league as comparables even if they happen to play in the same division.
In that case, Juan Uribe is an All-Star because Asdrubal Cabrera has been worse at hitting baseballs, if only slightly.
Isringhausen's hometown is Brighton, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. That has made his success with the Cardinals sweeter than it might have been elsewhere, but it also has personalized the failures.
"My wife and I were talking about that the other night," Isringhausen told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "When I was in Oakland and I did bad, it wasn't near as hard. It's not near as hard as it is when these people are your neighbors and you see them at school the next day or out when you go to dinner. Every once in a while, Dad will say, 'Don't make me look bad at the coffee shop.' "
"My wife and I were talking about that the other night," Isringhausen told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "When I was in Oakland and I did bad, it wasn't near as hard. It's not near as hard as it is when these people are your neighbors and you see them at school the next day or out when you go to dinner. Every once in a while, Dad will say, 'Don't make me look bad at the coffee shop.' "
Now that's a nice dad. Thanks for the encouragement.
Gagne hasn't needed any ties to Milwaukee to make this a trying season. The burdens he carries are a $10 million contract, mentions in the Mitchell report and a standard set by predecessor Francisco Cordero, who left the Brewers as a free agent after going 44-for-51 in save situations.
Call me crazy, but I think Milwaukee's concerns may have been legitimate when considering signing Cordero to the biggest contract in terms of dollars for a closer in the history of the game. Last year, he had a 4.57 ERA after a ridiculously unsustainable April and May with a 6.55 ERA away from Miller Park overall last year.
IDK. Give a 33 year-old closer this kind of change? Let's see how the Reds feel in 2011 when Cordero's 36 and collecting $12 million.
Now we're comparing Triple-A hitters to Major League hitters.
This is what is called regressing and is generally considered not to be a good thing.
"I'm trying to say it humbly, but it doesn't matter what I say, it's going to come out cocky," Kennedy told the Scranton Times-Tribune. "You just know. I woke up today and told my wife, 'I just have a feeling I'm going to make these guys look stupid.' … I felt like I was getting better and better every time [with the Yankees]. It just led up to this. It was inevitable for me to do well. It was just a matter of time."
I remember pitching well against Mater Dei in high school after getting my ass handed to me against Dyersville Beckman. I was not a good pitcher. It was high school. Even I kept it in perspective. It was Mater Dei. Striking out seven eight-graders paled in comparison to giving up prodigious shots to a couple of guys who went on to play in the minors.
It just didn't mean that much.
It's called context.
No comments:
Post a Comment