Closing Time

The Nationals are undefeated. The Tigers are winless. It's early. But if there's been any theme at all these first few days of '08, it's been late-game meltdowns by "closers." I use quotation marks because there's a decent shot many of these guys will be middle relievers by the All-Star break.

Last night, Trevor Hoffman picked up right where he left off in '07, giving up 3 of his 4 runs on a Lance Berkman homerun, en route to a 9-6 Padres loss. Also last night, Brandon Lyon entered the 9th against the Reds with a 5-3 lead, but didn't retire a batter before giving up a 3-run walk-off to Edwin Encarnacion.

The night before that, Josh Hamilton took J.J. Putz deep for what proved to be a 2-run game winner. The M's promptly placed Putz on the DL with inflamed cartilage near his ribcage.

Monday, we saw a pair of "closers," Kerry Wood and Eric Gagne, give up 3-spots in the top and bottom halves of the 9th. The 0-2 Cubs proved their bullpen is, in fact, worse, when Bob Howry allowed another run in the top of the 10th, and the Brew-crew won 4-3. And perhaps the most Chernobyl-esque meltdown came in Philadelphia, courtesy of the never-reliable Tom Gordon. Flash gave up 5 runs on just 20 pitches to the jugger-not Washington offense as the Phils lost 11-6.

That's six multi-run 9th-inning implosions in just 35 games played, and it's not even counting Huston Street's blown save in Japan, or Jon Rauch's blown-save-turned-win Sunday night after Ryan Zimmerman's walk-off. The only reason Rauch was in the game was because Chad Cordero hurt himself warming up and hasn't pitched yet.

There's no way to know if this trend will continue, or for how long. But I do know this. San Diego, Arizona, Seattle, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia need to have a steady 9th inning man or they'll all miss the playoffs. There's just too much talent in their respective divisions.

Huston, We Have A Problem

Major League Baseball's regular season is underway in Japan, and it's off to a start Oakland A's closer Huston Street would like to forget. He blew the save in the 9th when he gave up Brandon Moss' first career homerun, a game-tying shot. Then in the 10th, he gave up a 2-run double to Manny Ramirez (Manny's second of the game) and Oakland went on to lose 6-5.

While I'm bashing Street, Jonathan Papelbon's debut in the Far East was nothing to write home about either. He nearly blew the save himself in the bottom of the 10th, allowing a run-scoring double to Emil Brown (Oakland's version of Manny Ramirez, I'm sad to say). The A's actually had the tying run on second and the winning run on first when JP got Kurt Suzuki to ground out, bringing an end to the ballgame.

Game 2 is tomorrow at 6:05 A.M. Eastern and it's an intriguing starting pitching matchup...Jon Lester for the Sox, Rich Harden for the A's. Oakland is still considered the "home" team for that one. After that, the next real game is March 30 when the Braves visit the Nats' new stadium on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. And on Monday, there are 14 regular season games.

Other performances of note from today's game...

Jack Cust, 0-4, 4 K's

Jason Varitek, 0-4, 3 K's

Travis Buck, 0-5, 2 K's

Daric Barton, 0-2, 3 BB, 2 R

Jack Hannahan, 2-4, HR, 2 RBI

Dice-K, 5 IP, 2 ER, 5 BB, 6 K's

Trevor's Off, Man...But Life Goes On

Understandably disappointed San Diego Padres fans are less than thrilled with closer Trevor Hoffman this morning. A sure-fire Hall of Famer and the game's all-time career saves leader (524) blew back-to-back chances Sunday afternoon and Monday night. Had he converted one or the other, the Pads, not the Rockies, would be playing ball in Philadelphia tonight.

Unfortunately, closers (especially the elite ones) are immortalized for their failures rather than their successes. Case in point, when you think of Dennis Eckersley, do you think of him recording the final out of the '89 World Series? Do you think of his unparalleled dominance in the late 80's and early 90's when he was an MVP and Cy Young Award winner? Or do you think of him serving up the walk-off homerun to Kirk Gibson in '88 against the Dodgers?

When you think of Mariano Rivera, do you think of his 8 career wins and 34 saves in the postseason? Or do you think of Luis Gonzalez blooping one over Derek Jeter's head in Game 7 in '01?

Closers are like kickers in the NFL. When they do their job, the common reaction from fans who really don't know any better is, "good, it's what they're supposed to do!" But when they don't, people get irate, regardless of the pressure involved in the situation.

"How hard is it to get 3 outs/kick a football 35 yards, straight?" these people ask.

The answer they don't want to hear is, "sometimes, it's pretty damn hard!"

The problem is, the Hoffmans, Eckersleys, Riveras, and Adam Vinatieris of the world usually make things look so easy because they're so good. So when they blow a game or miss a kick, people wonder what the problem is. Chances are, no regular person has ever had to perform even a simple task with so much (your team's season, or a championship) riding on the outcome, so they have no way of grasping the mental toughness required to not fold completely. Couple that with the fact that in do-or-die situations, the other team (also all professionals) is under an equal amount of pressure to make make you fail. Somebody has to lose in these situations. Unfortunately for Hoffman and the Fathers, it was them both times.

So all of that said, where should Hoffman rank in terms of the game's all-time greats? There's no denying his sustained success. He's played 15 years in the big leagues, recording 40+ saves a total of 9 times. I don't care what anybody says, that ain't easy. But in terms of postseason success he hasn't had nearly as much and this recent ineffective spell isn't helping people forget. He took the loss against St. Louis in the '96 LDS, and also lost game 3 of the '98 World Series against the Yankees. In his defense, he's only thrown 13 career postseason innings, but to his detriment, his ERA over that time is a run higher than his career average, and his 1.23 postseason WHIP is on the high side as well for a closer.

But he's hardly the first elite closer who hasn't been nails in October. The Eck's postseason ERA was an even 3.00 but his ERA in the World Series was 5.79. Lee Smith's postseason ERA was 8.44 in 4 appearances. Billy Wagner's is 8.71 in 11 appearances.

So San Diego fans can be upset at Hoffman, and baseball fans can think he's overrated. But the reality is, 2 bad games shouldn't nullify 14 excellent seasons any more than one bad start shouldn't cost Jake Peavy the Cy Young this year. Let's remember a 13-inning game that's decided by one run is never just one guy's fault.

There's No Jinxing Jenks

Thanks to a 1-2-3 9th yesterday against the Seattle Mariners (it took him all of 7 pitches), Chicago White Sox closer Bobby Jenks is now one out away from setting the major league record for consecutive batters retired, at 42.

If he gets the lead-off man in his next outing, it will mean he hasn't allowed a hit, walk, error, hit by pitch, or catchers' interference in 14 innings of work.

The Sox play at Oakland, Tuesday night.

Based on this photo, it seems Jenks wishes this streak meant anything for his miserable team, which fell to 13.5 back of the first place Detroit Tigers after Sunday's loss.

Dealing

Josh Beckett and John Lackey are making most of the headlines this morning because they both notched their 15th wins of the season last night. They're the top stories (along with Rick Ankiel) because baseball fans and baseball writers remain inexplicably enamored with a statistic that doesn't measure a pitcher's skill and dominance with the same precision as less sexy stats like WHIP, OPS against, quality start percentage, and K:BB ratio. And that's wrong.

To earn a win, you only need to pitch 5 innings, leave with a lead, and have it hold up. This really means you need to be on a team that scores a lot of runs, plays good defense, and has an excellent bullpen. I'd say the Red Sox and Angels get check-marks in all three categories, no thanks to Beckett, Lakcey, or any of their other starting pitchers.

My point is, while they've definitely both enjoyed tremendous seasons and easily rank among the game's best right now, they're not alone. So why do they deserve extra credit for things they cannot, and do not control? If Joel Pineiro was Boston's closer and had coughed up of 4 of Beckett's wins this year, but his other numbers were exactly the same, Beckett's 11th win of the season yesterday would have been completely under the radar. It baffles me, but I digress (for the record, Chris Young has the best WHIP in baseball at 1.00 while Beckett is 10th at 1.11 and Lackey is 30th at 1.24; Young also leads in OPS against at .520 while Beckett is 9th at .639 and Lackey is 25th at .688; nobody has a higher quality start percentage than Dan Haren at 92%, Lackey is 15th at 71%, Beckett is 16th at 68%; and C.C. Sabathia's 5.92 is the best K:BB in the game, Beckett is 3rd at 4.83, Lackey is 25th at 2.93.)

Instead, I want to focus on two other pitchers who have been (with all apologies to Dick Vitale) dominant with a capital "D" of late, but haven't received the same praise. I'm talking about Brandon Webb and Bobby Jenks.

Webb is more than halfway to Orel Hershiser's seemingly unreachable record of 59 consecutive scoreless innings, running his total to a club record 33 after last night's shutout against the Nationals. Here's how hard this is to do. A guy leads off the inning with a perfect bunt base hit, the next guy hits a groundball to your second baseman whose only play is to first (runner moves up to second), and the next batter hits one to your third baseman, who throws it away. A run is in and a ball hasn't left the infield.

Throwing one shutout is hard enough in baseball. Webb's thrown back to back shutouts now, en route to tossing 33 straight over the course of 5 starts. That goes above and beyond hard. And putting 59 consecutive goose eggs up on the scoreboard is, as Webb desrcibed it, "probably around Cal Ripken territory...one of the most difficult ones to reach."

For Webb, it's always been about control. He fanned 10 and walked 1 last night, and over the course of his streak, he's struck out 29 and waked just 6. For the season he has 155 K's and 56 walks (thus the 2.77 ERA and 1.21 WHIP), but back in his 16-loss season of 2004, he walked a worst-in-baseball 119 hitters. The sinker was sinking almost too much. Now though, it appears he has it more than under control.

Next, we go to Jenks, who's complied a streak that is arguably even more impressive than Webb's, in that his tied a league record. Big And Wide has retired 38 straight hitters. That's a perfect game, plus 11 more outs, out of the bullpen. After blowing a save against the Indians back on July 17, then retiring 3 hitters to force extras, Jenks has posted 12 straight 1-2-3 outings. And these haven't been meaningless mop-up innings. He got saves in 8 of those appearances, a win in another, and 3 times he was protecting a 1-run lead.

Manager Ozzie Guillen called it "amazing" saying Jenks' streak is even more impressive than fellow Sox hurler Mark Buehrle's no-hitter earlier this season, because Jenks is facing a new team each time out.

Interestingly, Jenks is now tied with another, shall we say, "rotund" pitcher for the league record- David Wells. Wells came into his infamous hung-over perfect game in 1998 having retired 10 straight Royals the start before. After going 27 up and 27 down against the Twins, Boomer retired Red Sox leadoff man Darren Lewis in his next start before allowing Darren Bragg to single to left field, thus ending his streak at 38 straight hitters (those Red Sox Darrens in the late 90's will get you every time).

If Jenks goes 1-2-3 in his next outing (the Sox host the Mariners today at 2:05) he'll have tied Jim Barr's major league record of 41 in a row, set 35 years ago when pitched for the San Francisco Giants. Unlike Jenks, Barr was a starter as well.

But the Sox aren't great this year so it could take Jenks a few days to potentially tie and break the record. Unfortunately, if he's going for history Tuesday, he probably won't be the biggest story of the day in baseball, or even in his own city. That's because Carlos Zambrano will be gunning for his 15th win against the Reds that night.

Closer Alert!

In what could be a sign that the Jorge Julio experiment is already over, Henry Owens saved the Marlins' 5-3 victory over the Brewers tonight. He gave up a single to Prince Fielder, and took 19 pitches to get through the 9th, but unlike JJ, Owens threw mostly strikes.

For the year, he hasn't allowed an earned run in 5 innings, but he also has exactly zero strikeouts in those 5 innings- not a great statistic for a 9th inning guy. Plus, he turns 28 in a few weeks, has 9 big league innings under his belt, and has 5 career walks and just 2 career wiffs.

Julio's been awful, no doubt (0-1, 16.88 ERA, 9 hits, 4 walks, 0 K's in 2 2/3), but I'm not sure if Owens is the long-term answer for the fish.

The Whole Brad Lidge Thing

Whoever said good closers are (a) overpaid (b) easy to find (c) easy to replace and (d) completely overrated, I submit to you Brad Lidge. This is a guy who was absolutely filthy for 3 seasons (2003-2005). In 228 appearances, he finished 118 games, saving 72 of them. He only blew 13 saves (or one every 17.5 outings). His strikeout to walk ratio was 3.75:1. He averaged 12.83 K's per 9. He allowed 1.08 base runners per inning and his ERA was 2.59. These are exemplary numbers for any closer, especially considering they span a three-year stretch.

Then came October 17, 2005. It was game 5 of the NCLS and Lidge was fresh off saves in games 2, 3, and 4. It was the top of the ninth. There were two outs and runners on first and second when Albert Pujols slugged an 0-1 pitch onto the railroad tracks in left field to tie the game.

The look on Lidge's face in this photo is what I find interesting. It's as if in that moment, three years of dominance were rendered utterly meaningless. Everybody wondered if that majestic, although ultimately meaningless post-season home run (Houston won the series the next night) would cause Lidge long-term harm.

Now that Lidge is setting up for Dan Wheeler, I think that question has been all-but-answered because his numbers speak for themselves.

After game 5, Lidge (who went on to lose two World Series games, one after giving up a walk-off to light hitting Scott Podsednik) has suffered statistical setbacks across the board. His strikeout-to-walk is down (2.85:1), his strikeout per 9, while still fantastic, is down slightly (12.44), his ERA has more than doubled (5.46), his WHIP is through the roof (1.46), and he has just 32 saves (with 7 blown saves) in 83 outings (good for one every 11.8 appearances). What's worse, especially for a closer, is that he's starting to be a gopher-ball guy. He allowed a round-tripper once every 13.2 innings during his 3 years of dominance. Since game 5 though, someone's taken him yard once every 6.7 innings.

I doubt Lidge will ever be as good as he was during his pre-game 5 days, just because he set the bar so incredibly high. I also wonder what, if anything he'd be worth in the post-season. He served up two monumental bombs to two completely different types of hitters, in two completely different parks, and clearly hasn't recovered, mentally. And while I'm a little surprised that Astros Manager Phil Garner made the change as early as he did, I think it's the right one because for a pitcher, especially a reliever, brain injuries take a lot longer to heal than body injuries, and sometimes they never do.

Top Five Fantasy Questions

As someone who's participated in a fair share of fantasy drafts, I have a pretty good idea of how this year's draft will go.

But I also know that this year, like every year, there are going to be a few things that we just won't know until we're well into the draft, and in some cases, well into the season. So here is my list of top five fantasy draft question marks.

#5. Who's closing and who's best?
ESPN says it's K-Rod. Last year's numbers say it's Joe Nathan and history says it's Mariano Rivera. By the way, B.J. Ryan had the best ERA (1.37) out of all of them! Personally, I think you have to factor in the teams these guys are closing for, and how many opportunities they'll likely get. That, in my mind, gives K-Rod the clear edge as the guy who should go first. That's a much easier question to answer than "who will get the most save chances for the Red Sox?" A handful of guys are competing for that job (Joel Pineiro, Mike Timlin, Manny Delcarmen, Craig Hansen, Julian Tavarez) which means there's no clear-cut favorite. There's also some debate in Cincinnati, Florida, and Kansas City. Cheap saves are always a great thing to find on the waiver wire, and there's absolutely no way to know who they're going to come from, without checking every day (remember Joe Borowski and Salomon Torres last year?).

#4. How far does A-Rod slide?
As I've said before, you can probably get A-Rod with the 4th, 5th, or even 6th pick this year, but likely not much later. His .290, 113 R, 35 HR, 121 RBI, 15 SB season a year ago left a lot of people disappointed (mostly people who took him before Albert Pujols, and finished 9th in their 12-team league). Pujols is the consensus number one this year, but how many other people will go before Alex? Johan Santana is the closest thing to Pujols among starting pitchers; dominant and consistent. Jose Reyes seems like this year's trendy choice for his combination of speed, power and run-scoring ability. It's hard to ignore Ryan Howard's 58 HR and 149 RBI. Alfonso Soriano went 40-40 and joined a much better offensive team over the winter. And Chase Utley is a stud at a very thin position. Heck, A-Rod might not even be the first third baseman taken in your league. David Wright is awfully good (.311, 96, 26, 116, 20) and Miguel Cabrera is awfully good (.339, 112, 26, 114, 9) and the difference between those guys and A-Rod is they're 24, while he's 31.

#3. Mark Prior?
The mere mention of his name has become a question in and of itself. I know a lot of people have given up on this guy, and for good reason. Yes, he's been on the DL 8 times in 5 seasons. Yes, he went 1-6 with an ERA over 7.00 in 9 starts last season before the Cubs put him on dry-dock. But the ghost of 2003 still lingers in some owners' minds. He turns 27 in September, he says he's healthy, so far it looks like he's healthy, and if he is, and stays that way, look out. ESPN has him 233rd overall (after Anibel Sanchez, and before Daniel Cabrera) and MLB.com has him as the 48th best pitcher (after Scott Olsen and before Tim Hudson). Nobody knows how he'll fare in 2007, but I know this much, he'll either get taken way too early, or way too late in your league.

#2. When do all the rookies go, and how will they do?
Delmon Young, Alex Gordon, Troy Tulowitzki, Homer Bailey, Phillip Hughes, Chris Young (not the tall guy on the Padres), and Kevin Kouzmanoff...you'll probably hear all these names called on draft day. Some will be good, some will be really disappointing. The key is picking this year's Hanley Ramirez, rather than this year's Jeremy Hermida. Delmon Young is easily the most highly-touted of the group, and he probably won't disappoint, but for some reason I get the feeling that, like Prince Fielder last year, he's not going to deliver, relative to where you'll have to pick him. Fielder had a solid first season (.271, 28, 81) but you know how many other guys put up comparable numbers and went a lot later in the draft, simply because they aren't named Prince Fielder? I fear the same will be true of Young. Gordon is battling for KC's third base job, TT has shortstop locked up in Colorado which could afford him the opportunity to put up some good numbers, Bailey and Hughes are expected to be big-time contributors to the Reds and Yankees' pitching staffs in the future, Young has to beat out Eric Byrnes in Arizona but has 30-30 potential, and Kouzmanoff plays in San Diego (check minus). And before you point out the fact that I forgot the biggest rookie of 2007, please read on...

#1. How good is Daisuke Matsuzaka, really?
ESPN.com ran a really interesting story on the gyroball he allegedly throws, and how nobody can hit it. It's thrown kind of like a football, it's said to spin sideways like a bullet coming out of a gun, and the end result is an uber-slider that breaks down a foot, and up to three feet opposite arm side. I stumbled upon this blog and spent probably half an hour reading it and following his links. It's called "Matsuzaka Watch," and it's about Dice-K, and Dice-K alone. There's also an interesting CBS News piece on the gyroball , which I found through the ESPN E-Ticket piece. Anyway, the Sox spent boatloads to get him, Japanese pitchers don't exactly have a fantastic track record in the US (see Irabu, Hideki) and baseball writers' early reviews have been mixed. He's ranked 99th overall on ESPN (after Chad Cordero, before Alex Rios), and he's ranked 70th overall on MLB.com (after Michael Young, before Dan Haren). There's even a where to draft Matsuzaka article out there. I don't know what to think, honestly. I'm sure he'll probably go high in a lot of drafts just because of the elusive factor and because of what people are saying about him. But rookies, in general, go a lot higher than they should and there are probably much safer 5th and 6th round picks out there. It's just a question of whether you want to play it safe on draft day.