Thursday, May 15, 2008

Gagne, the bullpen and Prince Fielder

I was going to write this as a comment to Juice's blog, but it started to get too long so I said screw it, new post! I hope last night will shut some people the fuck up for a while. Everyone that was screaming for Gagne's head because other people in our bullpen were so much better. Pro tip: They're not. Out of all the guys in our bullpen, no one has any extensive closing experience at all. I will make an exception for Torres here because he probably had a closer role for about a year total, but then I'm going to take that exception back right away because at the beginning of the season he very clearly stated he doesn't want to close. He's not comfortable in that position and feels he'd do much better as a set up guy. Enter Mota, some 34 year old career set up guy. Juice claims he didn't seem mentally tough out there last night. Really? Because with all the closing experience he should be able to tap into that mental toughness whenever he wants.

Mota's not a closer, Torres doesn't want to close, Shouse is a lefty specialist, Stetter is mostly a left specialist(I saw his "mental toughness" in the 9th a few days ago, not impressed), McClung is still on the team? This all leaves us with one POSSIBLE, POTENTIALLY viable pitcher to close other than Gagne. Mr 87 MPH fastball that seems fast because of a funky delivery motion David Riske. Who got hurt last night anyways so toss his name out the window if you were even considering it for a second. We have Gagne, if this season is going to work out, it's going to be with him as the closer, no one else in the bullpen, RIGHT NOW, is going to be any good at closing, unless Turnbow gets struck by lightning down in Nashville, goes brain dead, gets called up and then can still face a batter and throw pitches.

I don't believe Ned is going right back to the committee bullpen though, I think he was just doing something about what I was complaining about yesterday, giving Gagne a rest after he pitched 3 innings in 2 days. Better to give someone else the ball than chance a reliever after consecutive nights and multiple innings pitched. This post was more about bitching at fans that think the committee is better than Gagne, than bitching about the bullpen decisions from last night specifically.

Also, let's continue my Prince Fielder hate indefinitely, you can say what you will about Mota, but a 3 run game in the 9th is a much different situation to work with than a 1 run game and that fat fucker booted another ball today. He's fucking up routine grounders, that is unacceptable for a first baseman, especially one that's supposed to be such a superstar that deserves over 10 million a year. Well if you're getting the money because of your hitting alone Prince, you better start earning it, because right now he looks like an overweight version of Bill Hall, who's got an inflated OBP because of what he "might" do.

I also just read that Braun is about to sign a monster 7 year contract today. I think that pretty much just punched Fielder's ticket out of town. Hopefully he doesn't shit the bed on his way out and we only get 30 cents on this dollar.

3 comments:

Juicelaw said...

Ned Yost wrote the first 80% of that post.

You are probably right, but that doesn't mean Gagne doesn't suck, and is a terrible human being.

Nice to see Cordero shit the bed last night.

Prince will turn it around.

Bear's next post will probably be in praise of Rickie Weeks, followed up by a post of how he thinks Catholic priests fucking little boys is OK.

Bear said...

No, weeks needs to step it up or get out of that lead off spot. They keep making the argument that he is scoring runs, but here's the kicker. If he's scoring runs by hitting under the Mendoza line, how would someone that's hitting .270-.290 not score more runs?

Bear said...

Hmmm, the more I look at it, his OBP is .311, vs a .190 average, that's pretty remarkable. I just don't feel like we have another option here either. Fielder, Braun and probably Hart are off limits, they hit the ball too hard and if we blow them up at the top of the lineup, nobody below them could hit them in. The rest of the people in the lineup are hitting just as shitty as Weeks, so it's a toss up man