Still think Nunez can be an effective closer?

... · September 26, 2009

Jacobs

Nny · September 26, 2009

Yeah, Leo is always going to give up a lot of HRs regardless of what role he's in.

It doesn't matter what role he's in, the jacks are going to hurt and are going to keep him from being anything more than an average reliever. The issue is that the closer role normally means more high leverage situations. Giving up a jack in a high leverage situation is just asking to lose. Hence why we need guys who limit XBHs there.

That's just kind of the curse of our BP atm. It's filled with flyball guys. We have a couple of guys who'll probably regress some next year, especially in the case of Brian Sanches. When you give up a lot of fly balls, well, you're gonna give up a lot of HRs. Meanwhile it's rather hard for a ground ball to leave the park, hence why there's such a premium on ground ball pitchers. The only two GB guys are Lindstrom and Badenhop. The next wave of relievers should remedy this situation (Wood, Leorux, Tucker, Parcell, Voss, et al), as their all solid to severe GB pitchers.

Also, I said it before, but I hope we keep him in the closer's role and he packs up a couple more saves and then we trade him at the end of the season. He won't be worth what he'll get in arbitration IMO, at least with the payroll constraints that we face.

... · September 26, 2009

Nunez notwithstanding, there's also been quite a lot of whining over the course of the season about giving up so much power when we dispensed with Jacobs and Willingham.

Well, "power" or not, what counts is runs scored.

In '08 we scored 770 runs, 5th in the NL.

In '09, with 9 to go (before today,) we had scored 731, 4th in the NL.

That projects to 774 runs, a few MORE than last year.

We're also a bit more exciting team to watch simply because we're getting more total hits, about 100 more over the season:

162 games '08: 1397 hits. 859 1B, 302 2B, 28 3B, 208 HR. .254 average.

153 games '09: 1410 hits, 957 1B, 274 2B, 25 3B, 154 HR. .268 average.

Projected 162 games '09: 1493 hits, 1013 1B, 290 2B, 26 3B, 163 HR.

Little less power + better hitting generally = more exciting and more wins. Nothing against power, but we'll still have enough no matter how the off-season slicing and dicing goes.

It should also be noted that the 10-hit/game streak wasn't so extraordinary considering that we average 9.2 hits/game.

... · September 26, 2009

The only two GB guys are Lindstrom and Badenhop.

They're two entirely different pitchers, but in the long run I'd put my money on Badenhop. He's smart. He learns from his mistakes. He may not have as much raw talent as a Lindstrom, but he strikes me as a Smoltz/Glavine kind of guy. Likely to still be around 20 years from now in some role on some ML team.

Too bad we can't come up with about 4 more guys just like him.

Schnellders · September 26, 2009

We traded Jacobs for a 2009 knock out of the playoffs.Thanks alot Beinfest.

You're mad over getting rid of a DH with a .705 .OPS this year?

Too bad we didn't get Jae Seo or John Burkett...

John Burkett should be our closer.He is a friend of my family and myself.Believe me he can still pitch.

Throwing it by people in the back yard of a family and friends get together doesn't translate into success in the major leagues.

strike_ks97 · September 26, 2009

We traded Jacobs for a 2009 knock out of the playoffs.Thanks alot Beinfest.

You're mad over getting rid of a DH with a .705 .OPS this year?

Too bad we didn't get Jae Seo or John Burkett...

John Burkett should be our closer.He is a friend of my family and myself.Believe me he can still pitch.

Throwing it by people in the back yard of a family and friends get together doesn't translate into success in the major leagues.

bobbob1313 · September 26, 2009

We could have gotten better for Jacobs then this trash.

We traded Mike Jacobs for a 2009 knock out of the playoffs.Thanks alot Beinfest you genius.

You are, far and away, the worst poster on this board.

Fish Dynasty · September 26, 2009

Nunez isn't a good reliever regardless of the situation, and he has proven that throughout his career. And to think that he is doing all of this with a .253 BABIP. He'd probably have an ERA/FIP above six if it were at league average.

Nny · September 26, 2009

Nunez isn't a good reliever regardless of the situation, and he has proven that throughout his career. And to think that he is doing all of this with a .253 BABIP. He'd probably have an ERA/FIP above six if it were at league average.

BABIP doesn't have anything to do with FIP.

To be fair though, he likely isn't this bad with HRs. His HR/9 right now is 1.77, it's 1.36 in his career (Which is still really, really high). His HR/FB is 15.5% this season, it's 11% in his career.

He has a good BB/K, and has potential to be even better there. That helps he become at least a serviceable pitcher. But unless starts getting more GBs he's not going to be anything awesome.

Fish Dynasty · September 26, 2009

Nunez isn't a good reliever regardless of the situation, and he has proven that throughout his career. And to think that he is doing all of this with a .253 BABIP. He'd probably have an ERA/FIP above six if it were at league average.

BABIP doesn't have anything to do with FIP.

To be fair though, he likely isn't this bad with HRs. His HR/9 right now is 1.77, it's 1.36 in his career (Which is still really, really high). His HR/FB is 15.5% this season, it's 11% in his career.

He has a good BB/K, and has potential to be even better there. That helps he become at least a serviceable pitcher. But unless starts getting more GBs he's not going to be anything awesome.

When a I put BABIP there, I also meant to include his HR/FB%. He only has an 11% career HR/FB% because of his microscopic 3% last season. Not including last season, it would probably be at around 12 or 13%, so 15% isn't THAT much over his career average, although it could come down a little. The same thing goes for his HR/9, as the only full season where he had a HR/9 lower than 1.51 was last year.

He has a decent K/BB, but not a great one, and he hasn't shown improvement with his control since he entered the MLB. He's a career 4.79 FIP pitcher, and I don't see him becoming much more.

Nny · September 26, 2009

Nunez isn't a good reliever regardless of the situation, and he has proven that throughout his career. And to think that he is doing all of this with a .253 BABIP. He'd probably have an ERA/FIP above six if it were at league average.

BABIP doesn't have anything to do with FIP.

To be fair though, he likely isn't this bad with HRs. His HR/9 right now is 1.77, it's 1.36 in his career (Which is still really, really high). His HR/FB is 15.5% this season, it's 11% in his career.

He has a good BB/K, and has potential to be even better there. That helps he become at least a serviceable pitcher. But unless starts getting more GBs he's not going to be anything awesome.

When a I put BABIP there, I also meant to include his HR/FB%. He only has an 11% career HR/FB% because of his microscopic 3% last season. Not including last season, it would probably be at around 12 or 13%, so 15% isn't THAT much over his career average, although it could come down a little. The same thing goes for his HR/9, as the only full season where he had a HR/9 lower than 1.51 was last year.

He has a decent K/BB, but not a great one, and he hasn't shown improvement with his control since he entered the MLB. He's a career 4.79 FIP pitcher, and I don't see him becoming much more.

he hasn't had really any "full seasons". We're talking about 40 IPs. That's nothing. I'd much rather go with the overall career sample size. Last year took up over 20% of his career. To exclude 20% of a player's career it rather meh. Was he "lucky" that season? Yeah, very much most likely. But at that point you then need to pick and choose his entire career and then you're basically looking at nothing.

I mean if you play that game, this season he was unlucky, last season he was lucky, 06 doesn't count because it was 7 IP, that's only looking at 05 and 07. His HR/FB of those two years: 11.6%. Not excluding anything: 11%. So, yeah.

His control might not have had improved but we're talking about above average control regardless, and his strike out rates have increased. He's always had the "stuff" factor and this season it's come to fruition. I mean, you plug in his K's from this year with the rest of his stat line and you're talking about a 4.20 FIP, which is basically exactly average for a reliever.

Fish Dynasty · September 26, 2009

Nunez isn't a good reliever regardless of the situation, and he has proven that throughout his career. And to think that he is doing all of this with a .253 BABIP. He'd probably have an ERA/FIP above six if it were at league average.

BABIP doesn't have anything to do with FIP.

To be fair though, he likely isn't this bad with HRs. His HR/9 right now is 1.77, it's 1.36 in his career (Which is still really, really high). His HR/FB is 15.5% this season, it's 11% in his career.

He has a good BB/K, and has potential to be even better there. That helps he become at least a serviceable pitcher. But unless starts getting more GBs he's not going to be anything awesome.

When a I put BABIP there, I also meant to include his HR/FB%. He only has an 11% career HR/FB% because of his microscopic 3% last season. Not including last season, it would probably be at around 12 or 13%, so 15% isn't THAT much over his career average, although it could come down a little. The same thing goes for his HR/9, as the only full season where he had a HR/9 lower than 1.51 was last year.

He has a decent K/BB, but not a great one, and he hasn't shown improvement with his control since he entered the MLB. He's a career 4.79 FIP pitcher, and I don't see him becoming much more.

he hasn't had really any "full seasons". We're talking about 40 IPs. That's nothing. I'd much rather go with the overall career sample size. Last year took up over 20% of his career. To exclude 20% of a player's career it rather meh. Was he "lucky" that season? Yeah, very much most likely. But at that point you then need to pick and choose his entire career and then you're basically looking at nothing.

I mean if you play that game, this season he was unlucky, last season he was lucky, 06 doesn't count because it was 7 IP, that's only looking at 05 and 07. His HR/FB of those two years: 11.6%. Not excluding anything: 11%. So, yeah.

His control might not have had improved but we're talking about above average control regardless, and his strike out rates have increased. He's always had the "stuff" factor and this season it's come to fruition. I mean, you plug in his K's from this year with the rest of his stat line and you're talking about a 4.20 FIP, which is basically exactly average for a reliever.

43 innings over four years isn't that small of a sample size for a reliever. If you had to guess at what his future HR/FB% look like, I highly doubt he would ever have another season like 2008. Just because it happenes early in his career, and we don't have a huge sample size, doesn't mean we shouldn't exclude it.

You wouldn't have to play that game for this season. MLB average HR/FB% is closer to what he has this season than last season, and every year but last year he's had a closer HR/FB% to this year. You don't need to pick and choose that much.

His strikeout numbers are also way too inconsistent to judge, since they have either increased or decreased by three or more per nine for the past four seasons.

Sirspud · September 27, 2009

Yeah, Leo is always going to give up a lot of HRs regardless of what role he's in.

It doesn't matter what role he's in, the jacks are going to hurt and are going to keep him from being anything more than an average reliever. The issue is that the closer role normally means more high leverage situations. Giving up a jack in a high leverage situation is just asking to lose. Hence why we need guys who limit XBHs there.

That's just kind of the curse of our BP atm. It's filled with flyball guys. We have a couple of guys who'll probably regress some next year, especially in the case of Brian Sanches. When you give up a lot of fly balls, well, you're gonna give up a lot of HRs. Meanwhile it's rather hard for a ground ball to leave the park, hence why there's such a premium on ground ball pitchers. The only two GB guys are Lindstrom and Badenhop. The next wave of relievers should remedy this situation (Wood, Leorux, Tucker, Parcell, Voss, et al), as their all solid to severe GB pitchers.

Also, I said it before, but I hope we keep him in the closer's role and he packs up a couple more saves and then we trade him at the end of the season. He won't be worth what he'll get in arbitration IMO, at least with the payroll constraints that we face.

Maybe we can send him to the Cubs. They'll be in the market for relievers after the guy they brought in to close didn't work out. :cool

Nny · September 27, 2009