Was this really deserving of a BBTF thread?

Christ, this is going to get ripped apart.

Ripped apart? I don't find anything in here all that objectionable.

Well that's a good start.

Just figured the whole concept was too gimmicky for this forum.

Ripped apart? I don't find anything in here all that objectionable.

The most important situations in this series are probably going to be in the 7th and 8th innings. Guess who is going to be pitching in those situations?

There is little doubt that Betancourt is their best short reliever. He is an elite reliever. The Indians know that. For some reason, they don't think he can handle 9th inning or other high pressure situations. Who knows if they are right or wrong, but you can't really quarrel with that. If they did not know that Betancourt was a better reliever than Joe, that would be a different story.

And Borowski is not that bad. He is around an average or a little worse closer.

Finally, in a 5 game series against any team, whether you pitch Betancourt or Borowski in "save" situations is NOT going to make a whole lot of difference in terms of win expectancy. It is not like they pitch Borowski in all high leverage situations and Betancourt in low or average leverage situations. Betancourt gets plenty of high leverage situations where you DO want your best reliever even though it is not a save situation.

Yes, ideally, assuming that Betancourt could handle all situations (which the Indians brass don't think he can), you would want both Raffy's and Betancourt to handle all high leverage situations, with the highest leverage going to Betancourt and then you would "platoon" the other Raffy and Borowski.

Speaking of closers and their "regimented" use, in the 9th inning of the COL, PHI game, OF COURSE (of course, of course, of course, of course), Fuentes should have been left in there against Howard (who led off the inning) and THEN Corpas brought in. Any creative manager would have realized and done that. It is a no-brainer. It is not like Corpas is Rivera or Nathan or some other 10 year proven closer, such that his feelings would have been hurt had he not been brought in to start the 9th.

For some reason, they don't think he can handle 9th inning or other high pressure situations.

He's been used as a closer before, actually, and it didn't work out.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/gl.cgi?share=1&n1=betanra01&year=2004&t=p#45:53:sum

If the Indians are using that as the reason they think Betancourt can't close, they've got problems.

mgl- I do understand that the difference isn't really meaningful if they both end up pitching. My fear (as an Indians fan) is that they end up losing it with Borowski without having used Perez or Betancourt.

mgl- I do understand that the difference isn't really meaningful if they both end up pitching. My fear (as an Indians fan) is that they end up losing it with Borowski without having used Perez or Betancourt.

You may not LIKE that scenario, but it is only one of many, many scenarios, good and bad. The only think that counts is what each strategy produces in expected win percentage. And as I said, it is not going to make a hill of beans exactly which situations each one pitches in a 5-game series.

Speaking of closers and their "regimented" use, in the 9th inning of the COL, PHI game, OF COURSE (of course, of course, of course, of course), Fuentes should have been left in there against Howard (who led off the inning) and THEN Corpas brought in.

So you're saying with a man on base in the top of the ninth, Hurdle should have let Fuentes bat for himself?