User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Buy MLB playoff tickets, plus 2011 World Series, 2011 ALCS tickets and NLCS game tickets. We also have Texas Rangers playoff schedule, tickets to Red Sox games and Yankees game tickets. Plus, buy Phillies baseball tickets, Tigers playoff tickets and the biggies like ALDS baseball tickets and 2011 NLDS tickets. |
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
Page rendered in 0.4835 seconds
54 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. RB in NYC (Now with New iPhone!) Posted: July 30, 2010 at 01:08 PM (#3603406)Anyway, Howard is right that K-Rod does the job "the vast majority of the time" but he's also blowing a lot of saves. His lowest save percentage in LA was 87%, and that was the only time he was under 90. His two years in Queens have been 83 and 81. This is unfair, but he suffers even more from the comparison to Rivera who has been at 96 and 91 those years.
He's got a 130 ERA+ for the Mets. 112 last year. Save % in low 80's as RB says. That's not good for a closer.
That's borderline losing your job.
Actually, he has a 166 ERA+ this year. I think you may have been looking at Johan Santana (who has a 130) by mistake. K-Rod is frustrating, and he is prone to some blow-up kind of outings, but he's generally OK. Just the kind of pitcher I don't want any more of, because I'm sick and tired of pitchers who don't throw strikes (and the Mets' staff is yet again in the bottom 5 in the NL in walks -- 4th right now), but unlike some of the Mets' pitchers who don't do so, he at least strikes people out. So there's that.
Gotta tell you, if saves are a meaningless stat (and they are), I'm not using save percentage to evaluate a pitcher.
ERA+ is 166, not 130, like Sam says. And Sam, look at the top closers around baseball. How many have been significantly more effective at not walking people than K-Rod? Heath Bell, the All Star, has a 3.5 BB/9. Brian Wilson, 3.3 BB/9. Even Billy Wagner is right at 3 per nine. I mean, Leo Nunez is around 2.4... are you trading K-Rod for Leo Nunez? And you don't even want to know Carlos Marmol's walk rate.
I agree with you in general- the Mets, again, are walking too many hitters. But K-Rod isn't, frankly, not when you take his overall performance into account. If every Mets pitcher had K-Rod's walks, but also K-Rod's Ks and HR rate, there wouldn't be a problem.
No. I used the sum feature on BBRef to get his Met career.
As I said, K-Rod is the kind of pitcher -- nibbles, runs high pitch counts, walks a few too many -- that I don't want any more of. I can live with him, because (as you say) he has the strike outs and the overall package is effective. When you combine him with the rest of the Mets' relievers, though, most of whom also walk too many (Nieve, Pedro, Mejia (when he was there), Dessens), the whole thing ends up being a mess. You combine K-Rod with an otherwise efficient bullpen, handing him fewer runners on base, it would be stronger overall.
You could try looking at the AL:
Rivera: 1.4
Soriano: 2.0
Bailey: 2.5
Soria: 2.6
Feliz: 2.6
You are right though, that K-Rod has been pretty good for the Mets and is not one of the problems the team has.
But that's where we disagree. Give me a bullpen with ONLY K-Rod kind of pitchers- 3.5 BB/9, yes, but 10.8 K/9- and I'll take my chances.
This is a good point. But then, there's the other side of it: strikeout rate. Soriano at 7.7 per nine. Bailey at 6.5 per nine. Even Feliz and Soria, both of whom I love, are around a K per inning lower than K-Rod.
Even Rivera is 2.4 K/9 lower than K-Rod. Naturally, I'd take Mo over K-Rod. But that's the point of the piece.
Save percentage is meaningful for a closer. Unlike wins for a starter the closer has close to complete control over whether or not he earns the save. Obviously not all save situations are created equal so maybe K-Rod is dealing with more difficult save situations than most but his job is, almost entirely, "close out a game with a 3 run lead or less in the 9th inning." If he is not doing that regularly he isn't doing his job.
It's frustrating to watch, and I'm sympathetic to that. Interestingly enough, K-Rod has had around his career-low walk rate this year. He had a bad 2009, but this year he's been well above-average.
When you combine him with the rest of the Mets' relievers, though, most of whom also walk too many (Nieve, Pedro, Mejia (when he was there), Dessens), the whole thing ends up being a mess. You combine K-Rod with an otherwise efficient bullpen, handing him fewer runners on base, it would be stronger overall.
I think that's a pretty insignificant concern, actually. The overwhelming majority of the time K-Rod (or any modern closer) enters the game, there is nobody on base. He's starting with a clean slate, so the rest of the bullpen's performance is irrelevant to his performance.
That's not to say that it isn't incredibly frustrating as a fan, after watching the 7th inning and 8th inning tightrope-dancing to then watch K-Rod pitch himself into a 1st and 3rd with no outs situation. That, however, is mostly aesthetics.
You can't expect everyone at the ballpark to be totally rational, and the guy who's blown 12 saves in 69 chances--coming off a period when he only blew 22 in three times as many chances--is going to get some boos. That's just how it is.
Last year he was -.5 (which feels about right to me)
So far this year he's +1.
To date that's not good value for money.
And #12, he's entered with runners on base 9 times this year. 9 all of last year, so he's being used in a slightly different manner this year.
Why are you surprised at anything Mo does at this point? It is really ridiculous what he has been able to do.
K-Rod hasn't been bad this year, but he was pretty bad last year and simply hasn't been among the premier closers in baseball since coming to the Mets.
And because of all that they wind up sacrificing games because they're either too scared to use him when there's not a save situation; or too scared to take him out when he's in a save situation but not going well. And I think that mindset infects the entire team at times and leads to their pathetic ineptitude in close games on the road.
Were I running for GM, my platform would be: Trade K-Rod in the next 24 hours and start thinking for yourself.
In other words, you're just being a troll. Pitcher with a 166 ERA+ us "borderline losing his job." Seriously you should take poison.
He could have given up a 3-run HR to Pujols and a double to Holliday and still gotten a "save."
It's a silly part of a silly rule that inexplicably calls this a "save situation."
Seriously--they guy is just a machine.
This is basically saying "Gotta tell you, if wins are a meaningless stat, I'm not using losses to evaluate a pitcher."
Wins are meaningless, losses are not. Blown saves are even less meaningless than losses, because sometimes there's very little you can do to avoid the loss. Blowing a save is always at least a little bit the pitcher's fault.
Ummmm..... this is not an intelligent strategy.
Unrealistic maybe, but hardly unintelligent. He's got 29 million coming to him.
OK, I admit I forgot about the contract. But the point is, given the decisions that are informed from the top by the Wilpons, expecting any relevant thinking to occur is the part that's not intelligent.
When you're following up a bullpen performance that is soul-crushingly and historically terrible, fan perception is critical. It was absolutely critical in terms of selling tickets and maintaining fan interest for the Mets to obtain the biggest name available, and that's what they did.
Was there a better, more immediate, more reliable, more fan-appreciated solution than signing the best available closer via free agency? The Mets had a tremendous hole and are a big market team. They absolutely had to sign K-Rod as a matter of public relations.
All closers are infuriating. The only Mets closers I have ever trusted are Armando Benitez and Billy Wagner, each for only a very short while before they realized they were Mets and started sucking.
I agree. Speaking for career, Billy Wagner is probably the third-best closer (behind Rivera and Hoffman) in the past 20 years, and he's far from a sure thing.
Obviously, the fact that FRod is torturous to watch for many fans is a problem. The fact that Billy Wagner has been brilliant for the team that's first in the NL East hasn't helped.
There's no doubt that the Mets desperately needed to sign a closer when they signed Rodriguez, but I think they could've gotten better value for their data, if not better publicity.
I do think Mets fans higher higher expectations for closers than fans of other teams because of Rivera's presence across town. But Rivera is the Honus Wagner of closers; there's no reason to expect that there will ever be another closer in the same class as Rivera. At sometime not too far in the future, Yankees fans will have to learn what it's like having a non-Rivera closer once Mariano retires, because no amount of money is going to buy the Yankees anybody that good.
I fully expect to write this story as well, after Rivera retires following a magnificent age-50 season.
Devoting an entire offseason to making a show of how ashamed they were of the previous year a) got them nowhere and b) hasn't stopped fan bloodlust and scapegoating (as the article above details).
I agree they chose the best guy available at that position at that time, but I also think it showed a lack of imagination and guts. And to the extent they're having budget issues they would have better places to spend all that $$ than on a Brand Name Closer.
ditto
2009-2010, closers (10+ saves), by OPS given up:
Rk Player OPS SV From To1 Mariano Rivera .496 65 2009 2010
2 Andrew Bailey .500 46 2009 2010
3 Neftali Feliz .521 30 2009 2010
4 Jonathan Broxton .529 56 2009 2010
5 Billy Wagner .532 23 2009 2010
6 Joe Nathan .549 47 2009 2009
7 Huston Street .554 41 2009 2010
8 Jose Valverde .562 46 2009 2010
9 Carlos Marmol .571 34 2009 2010
10 John Axford .575 16 2009 2010
11 Rafael Soriano .575 55 2009 2010
12 Heath Bell .580 71 2009 2010
13 David Aardsma .602 56 2009 2010
14 Brian Wilson .612 68 2009 2010
15 Jonathan Papelbon .616 62 2009 2010
16 Ryan Franklin .617 57 2009 2010
17 J.P. Howell .627 17 2009 2009
18 C.J. Wilson .628 14 2009 2010
19 Joakim Soria .635 57 2009 2010
20 Francisco Rodriguez .639 57 2009 2010
21 Jason Frasor .644 14 2009 2010
22 Trevor Hoffman .657 42 2009 2010
23 Francisco Cordero .662 66 2009 2010
24 Frank Francisco .662 27 2009 2010
25 Chris Perez .669 12 2009 2010
Rk Player OPS SV From To
26 Mike Gonzalez .671 11 2009 2010
27 Leo Nunez .689 50 2009 2010
28 Ryan Madson .694 14 2009 2010
29 LaTroy Hawkins .701 11 2009 2010
30 George Sherrill .710 21 2009 2010
31 Brian Fuentes .718 66 2009 2010
32 Mike MacDougal .719 20 2009 2010
33 Jon Rauch .720 23 2009 2010
34 Bobby Jenks .721 50 2009 2010
35 Kevin Gregg .724 46 2009 2010
36 Manuel Corpas .734 11 2009 2010
37 Kerry Wood .734 28 2009 2010
38 Franklin Morales .747 10 2009 2010
39 Juan Gutierrez .748 12 2009 2010
40 Fernando Rodney .750 43 2009 2010
41 Matt Lindstrom .757 37 2009 2010
42 Octavio Dotel .763 21 2009 2010
43 Jim Johnson .770 11 2009 2010
44 Alfredo Simon .788 15 2009 2010
45 Chad Qualls .813 36 2009 2010
46 Matt Capps .824 53 2009 2010
47 Brad Lidge .885 41 2009 2010
There's KRod at 20
By ERA+ he's 24th
By WAR he's 21st
He's been a perfectly serviceable closer for the Mets, not great, not worth his contract, but serviceable, he hasn't been their biggest issue.
BTW, Mariano is God, and where the hell did Andrew Bailey come from?
My you're an ass. And way too ###### invested in the Mets. Seriously. There is absolutely nothing anyone could say about sports that would make me tell them to "take poison".
On the stats, so you just ignore the 112 ERA+ he put up last year? Met fans are booing based on his combined work as a Met.
A closer who converts less than 80% of his saves doesn't keep his job for long, unless he's got an obscene contract. In the low 80's%, Rodriguez is on the edge acceptable.
He's pitching like a $3-4M reliever in his Mets tenure, and making $11.5M. Fans should boo.
Well then let me reiterate, Rodriguez is a huge bust of a signing.
They got a guy that saved 90% of his games with a 190 ERA+ in his 4 full years closing in Anaheim, and he's saved 83% of his games with a 130 ERA+ for the Mets.
While they're paying him elite closer money, he's putting up scrap heap closer performance. Matt Capps has a higher save % the last two years.
At this point it's more likely to come as the last article of your daughter's long and distinguished career.
Snapper made a point. He was improperly corrected by Sam and Howard. You're free to disagree with his position, but there's been nothing trollish about his conduct here, though the same can't be said about yours.
You said:
Ok.
Granted, I have an irrational dislike of K-rod.
Having an assessment of a particular player's performance that differs from yours is not the definition of trollish. Telling someone to take poison or dragging his religious views into a baseball discussion most certainly is.
Shhhh. What are you trying to do -- instigate WWWM Week?
Yes.
There's a chance, sure. But the tens of thousand posts between them in which they haven't exhibited trollish behavior to anyone other than a clearly unbalanced Mets fan indicates that they, in fact, are not.
Yes and no. I think the way Snapper made his point:
He's got a 130 ERA+ for the Mets. 112 last year.
was ambiguous. Saying that K-Rod has (present tense) a "130 ERA+ for the Mets," can certainly be read the way we did, to mean this season, with the next sentence following up that he was even worse last year. I don't think we "improperly" corrected him -- I think it's fairer to say we prompted him to clarify his point.
But anyway, that's the whole purpose of a good discussion. If somebody says something -- in complete good faith -- that's a little confusing, it gets clarified. Snapper did that, no problem. Once he did, I saw what he was saying about K-Rod's overall ERA+ as a Met, shrugged, and basically agree with him that K-Rod's been adequate but overpaid. I'd be marginally less harsh about it, but we're in the same ballpark.
I have to say, if I really think someone is trolling, I just ignore them. That way leads to lower blood pressure.
Pretty much. That and the lack of content are predictable themes with him.
Isn't a big reason Roddy catches flack the silly contract, and how much it symbolized Minaya and the Wilpons foolish, laundry list approach to player acquisitions? That 17.5m vest is appalling. Minaya jumped in and signed Rodriguez early in the offseason, minutes before--it seemed--it became clear that salaries were going to be nothing like they had been previously. That, the overpay for Putz and lack of due diligence wrt Putz's health, and then the FOs absurd inability to figure out that the team had severe problems at least as likely to cripple it as the bullpen have all helped make Rodriguez a target. Add in that he hasn't been overly impressive and you've got a guy with at least a small bull's eye on his back.
Nobody appreciates your content.
A closer that converts less than 80% of his saves will 9 times out of 10 lose his job. At 82% Rodriguez is near that territory. The fact that his albatross contract means he won't actually lose his job says nothing about his performance.
K-Rod has a 166 ERA+ this year over 50+ innings, 10.8 k/9 and a 3.1 k/bb. This is the guy you are saying should lose his job.
You are a troll.
Literally, since it's pretty clear he's a robot of some sort.
I didn't say he should lose his job. I said his save conversion % is close to where closers often lose their jobs.
I'm explaining why the Mets fans hate him, are booing him, and are pretty justified.
Total saves may be meaningless, but save percentages and blown saves aren't.
Full disclosure: I don't follow the Mets. But is K-Rod often brought in with inherited runners? If so, that might pad his blown saves total and hurt his percentage, without really reflecting on his ability to "close" in the normal way that the word is used.
But if he's used only as a closer at the beginning of an inning, that low 80's percentage isn't what I'd be expecting out of a player with that fat a contract. Doesn't mean he should be losing his job, but it does mean that he's overpaid.
I said his save conversion % is close to where closers often lose their jobs.
is this even true, by the way?
No way I'm moderating anything in response to the little, bitter man (Freeballin) ;-)
You've got to allow me a little internet exaggeration/snark.
Page 1 of 1 pages
I was reacting to the article which is basically saying Mets fans are idiots for booing Rodriguez and are holding him to ridiculous standards. That's just wrong.
He was bad (for a closer) last year, and regardless of his ERA, an 81% SV% this year is inadequate for a highly paid closer. I was snarky b/c it's the internet. Can't have any fun around here?
My bad. I guess he was close to losing his job.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main