closing the deal

Halfway around the word, you can't stop me from loving you......................
Lol, a little ateens to get me pumped up for the LSAT.


Anyway, today's discussion focuses on closers. The prevailing evidence seems to be nowadays to "not pay for saves," that you can find them on the waiver wire, new ones come out of nowhere, set-up men get promoted, people get trades, etc. For example, just this year joakim soria, antonio alfonseca, kevin gregg, and al reyes all have 4 or more saves. Before this year i would have responded about these players, " WHO?"

But what really makes saves such an interesting art is the demotion/ promotion of closers and the mindset of different managers, whether they're willing to pull the trigger and put the better guy in the 9th instead of giving veterans more "respect." Case in point, Todd Jones. He has a bunch of saves to start the season, but just like last year, he's not holding up and has a ballooning ERA. This guy's good for about 2 months before his arm tires and you need to put a different, live arm back in. Right now i have rafael soriano, the flamethrower, and am getting frustrated by bobby cox refusing to take down bob wickman. Although, bob wickman hasn't really done anything too terrible yet. Another one: Joe Borowski.

Then there's the case of the Houston astros. Brad Lidge has been a tier-1 closer in previous seasons with great K/9 ratios, but he started the year slow, and phil garner replaced him w/ dan wheeler, who's no slouch himself. But now the roles are REVERSED and lidge is gonna replace wheeler. It's so interesting, really like a soap opera when all these different individual cases come up. Much like WWE where there's different angles and storylines involving different wrestlers/ feuds, different teams all have their unusual closer situations.

Except the following teams, of course: LA Angels, San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins, NY Mets. Barring just a freak injury, none of K-rod, Hoffman, or Big Country Joe Nathan is coming out of the closer spot. Other closers all have their questions, even mariano rivera, isringhausen, and other guys you might think are safe are not.

Brian Fuentes is not gonna be on the Colorado Rockies by the end of the year. They'll have a new closer. Jonathan Broxton got shelled tonight as the temporary closer for takashi saito. I thought he might be able to even step into the role and take over permanently, but that possibility seems to have gone awry for him.

And san antonio starts their run to another championship. Only a matter of time now. Might be one of the most one-sided NBA finals in league history.