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Who should be the Red Sox closer in 2022?
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Post by jimed14 on Jun 12, 2022 18:56:13 GMT -5
Jansen's stats can look absolutely garbage in 2 more appearances.
I don't expect him to keep it up.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Jun 12, 2022 19:01:36 GMT -5
A lot of talk in the daily thread about closers and whether or not Chaim should've done something different this off-season, so I thought I would dig this thread back up so that the whole daily thread doesn't just become consumed with one topic. But the MAIN reason I'm digging this thread back up is because I find that by looking at what the most obvious options were in the off-season, when it was created (see the poll), I think it's easy to see that there were precious few obvious closers who were available. I stated a month or so ago that the clear right answer was Jansen and that appears to still be true. He has now converted 17 of 20 of his save opportunities -- can you imagine how happy we'd all be if our team save % was 85%?? (Actually, we'd prolly mostly be griping about the three he blew...) And given that the team got under the CBT last season, there's no argument to be made that a team like BOS cannot afford a top-of-the-market closer. None of the other people named on this list is even close to what Jansen has been as a closer although the jury is still out on whether Whitlock will get a chance to out-perform him. Obviously, the starter experiment was necessary and pretty successful but with the IL stint halfway into the season (and with other options like Sale and Paxton in the wings), it may be better for Whit to return to the pen until next spring. [No, I didn't include trading for Kimbrel in the poll for obvious reasons (he's 11/12 in saves for LAD) and not Robertson either, as he had thrown only 18.2 IP since 2018 (he's 7/9 in saves for CHC).] Bottom line, there was really only one obvious closer available for Chaim to woo and that guy has performed as advertised, so you can either blame Chaim for not outbidding ATL for Jansen or not -- what you can't do is pretend that it would've been easy for him to just go out and "get a real closer." Given that you could get 2 blown saves if a bullpen gives up 2 runs in 6 innings (which is quite good), it's not ever going to happen. And it really is the dumbest statistic ever invented in baseball. True but Jansen is a traditional closer who has entered the game to begin the 9th inning in 25 of his 26 appearances so far. In the other appearance, he entered in the 8th inning for a 5-out save. Sure, he can't be ready every game but it's hard to argue that if the Sox had a similar guy, they'd have the same record that they have now.
Also, to your point, he actually got the win in one of the three saves that he blew. So yes, the stat is imperfect but it doesn't mean that having a good closer is a mirage.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 12, 2022 19:15:09 GMT -5
Yep. And what's more, I think it's notable that Atlanta has 11 blown saves, almost as many as the Red Sox, even though Jansen only has 3.
I keep seeing this implication that's like "if only we had a Proven Closer we would have won all the games we lost in the 9th inning" or something, but it doesn't work like that. For one, even Proven Closers blow games. For another, they're not available in every game, or every decisive inning.
And of course I've made the point many times that teams have a terrible track record of determining in advance who the reliable closers are going to be - see Matt Barnes for instance! - so the argument "they should simply have gone out and gotten a guy who was sure to be a dominant closer" is just empty, as far as I'm concerned. Name names as to who they should have gotten, and what opportunity cost you'd be willing to pay (in terms of salary and/or prospects); otherwise you're just engaging in wishful thinking. E.g., in the case of Jansen, which other free agents would you have passed on to spend $16 million on him? Story? Paxton + Hill?
None. They have no penalties other than tax money. If you're telling me that the owners would not allow Chaim to sign a closer like Jensen that he wanted to a contract that would not run past the window of tax-only surplus spending because they don't want to spend the money, then we have a much bigger problem. What? Yes, I'm absolutely telling you that the team has a budget. They'll go over the CBT some years (like this year) but only by so much. So there's an opportunity cost to every free agent signing.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Jun 12, 2022 19:27:52 GMT -5
A lot of talk in the daily thread about closers and whether or not Chaim should've done something different this off-season, so I thought I would dig this thread back up so that the whole daily thread doesn't just become consumed with one topic. But the MAIN reason I'm digging this thread back up is because I find that by looking at what the most obvious options were in the off-season, when it was created (see the poll), I think it's easy to see that there were precious few obvious closers who were available. I stated a month or so ago that the clear right answer was Jansen and that appears to still be true. He has now converted 17 of 20 of his save opportunities -- can you imagine how happy we'd all be if our team save % was 85%?? (Actually, we'd prolly mostly be griping about the three he blew...) And given that the team got under the CBT last season, there's no argument to be made that a team like BOS cannot afford a top-of-the-market closer. None of the other people named on this list is even close to what Jansen has been as a closer although the jury is still out on whether Whitlock will get a chance to out-perform him. Obviously, the starter experiment was necessary and pretty successful but with the IL stint halfway into the season (and with other options like Sale and Paxton in the wings), it may be better for Whit to return to the pen until next spring. [No, I didn't include trading for Kimbrel in the poll for obvious reasons (he's 11/12 in saves for LAD) and not Robertson either, as he had thrown only 18.2 IP since 2018 (he's 7/9 in saves for CHC).] Bottom line, there was really only one obvious closer available for Chaim to woo and that guy has performed as advertised, so you can either blame Chaim for not outbidding ATL for Jansen or not -- what you can't do is pretend that it would've been easy for him to just go out and "get a real closer."Yep. And what's more, I think it's notable that Atlanta has 11 blown saves, almost as many as the Red Sox, even though Jansen only has 3.
I keep seeing this implication that's like "if only we had a Proven Closer we would have won all the games we lost in the 9th inning" or something, but it doesn't work like that. For one, even Proven Closers blow games. For another, they're not available in every game, or every decisive inning.
And of course I've made the point many times that teams have a terrible track record of determining in advance who the reliable closers are going to be - see Matt Barnes for instance! - so the argument "they should simply have gone out and gotten a guy who was sure to be a dominant closer" is just empty, as far as I'm concerned. Name names as to who they should have gotten, and what opportunity cost you'd be willing to pay (in terms of salary and/or prospects); otherwise you're just engaging in wishful thinking. E.g., in the case of Jansen, which other free agents would you have passed on to spend $16 million on him? Story? Paxton + Hill?
Sorry, I just went through the entire Braves schedule. As I mentioned before, Jansen's role has been strictly the traditional one-inning, 9th inning closer's role (except for one 5-out save). He has blown two saves that the Braves later lost in the 10th inning. In both of those games, the Braves were on the road and scored first and another reliever blew another save in the bottom of the 10th. So Jansen was already in those games, which accounts for different pitchers blowing saves in them. In the other blown save that Jansen has had, the Braves wound up winning the game. In one other game, Jansen was apparently off-limits and didn't pitch and another pitcher came in and blew a save in the 9th. Every other blown save by the Braves has come in the 6th, 7th, or 8th inning (i.e. the Braves had a lead and a reliever blew it in that inning), when Jansen would not have been brought in.
Again, I was not married to the idea of signing Jansen and I did not vote for him in my own poll. But the simple fact is that he was the only bona fide closer on the market (to borrow language from Bob Ryan) and he has pitched like a bona fide closer for the Braves this season. And if Chaim had outbid the Braves for Jansen, and if Jansen had pitched for the Sox like he's pitched for the Braves, very well in a traditional closer's role, the Sox would probably be in 2nd place right now, behind NY, just like the Braves are. In this case, it does work exactly like that.
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Post by kingofthetrill on Jun 12, 2022 23:19:53 GMT -5
There is more than one way to improve a team. I imagine not having a 1B that just passed an OPS of .600 3 games ago would make up a bunch of those games too.
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Post by soxinsf on Jun 13, 2022 11:21:00 GMT -5
There is more than one way to improve a team. I imagine not having a 1B that just passed an OPS of .600 3 games ago would make up a bunch of those games too. Not that 1B has been worth more than a bucket of warm spit, but focusing there overlooks the other positions whose OPS are around .600–namely RF CF LF. In other words, pointing a finger at Bobby and failing to mention every OF on the roster leaves the argument several tacos short of a combination plate.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 13, 2022 12:11:50 GMT -5
Yep. And what's more, I think it's notable that Atlanta has 11 blown saves, almost as many as the Red Sox, even though Jansen only has 3.
I keep seeing this implication that's like "if only we had a Proven Closer we would have won all the games we lost in the 9th inning" or something, but it doesn't work like that. For one, even Proven Closers blow games. For another, they're not available in every game, or every decisive inning.
And of course I've made the point many times that teams have a terrible track record of determining in advance who the reliable closers are going to be - see Matt Barnes for instance! - so the argument "they should simply have gone out and gotten a guy who was sure to be a dominant closer" is just empty, as far as I'm concerned. Name names as to who they should have gotten, and what opportunity cost you'd be willing to pay (in terms of salary and/or prospects); otherwise you're just engaging in wishful thinking. E.g., in the case of Jansen, which other free agents would you have passed on to spend $16 million on him? Story? Paxton + Hill?
Sorry, I just went through the entire Braves schedule. As I mentioned before, Jansen's role has been strictly the traditional one-inning, 9th inning closer's role (except for one 5-out save). He has blown two saves that the Braves later lost in the 10th inning. In both of those games, the Braves were on the road and scored first and another reliever blew another save in the bottom of the 10th. So Jansen was already in those games, which accounts for different pitchers blowing saves in them. In the other blown save that Jansen has had, the Braves wound up winning the game. In one other game, Jansen was apparently off-limits and didn't pitch and another pitcher came in and blew a save in the 9th. Every other blown save by the Braves has come in the 6th, 7th, or 8th inning (i.e. the Braves had a lead and a reliever blew it in that inning), when Jansen would not have been brought in.
Again, I was not married to the idea of signing Jansen and I did not vote for him in my own poll. But the simple fact is that he was the only bona fide closer on the market (to borrow language from Bob Ryan) and he has pitched like a bona fide closer for the Braves this season. And if Chaim had outbid the Braves for Jansen, and if Jansen had pitched for the Sox like he's pitched for the Braves, very well in a traditional closer's role, the Sox would probably be in 2nd place right now, behind NY, just like the Braves are. In this case, it does work exactly like that.
You do a good job here of showing how one good-not-great closer is not a panacea!
Meanwhile, you aren't answering the question I asked: what would it have been worth to sacrifice to add Jansen to the roster? Let's say, for instance, no Matt Stram (he has been roughly as effective as Jansen), no Paxton, and no Rich Hill (meaning fewer bullpen innings from Houck and/or Whitlock since they'd have to be used more as starters). In that scenario, even the bullpen would be worse off. So no, I don't think that would have gained the Red Sox the 4-5 wins in a third of a season that would have them in second place.
Based on your earlier comment, maybe you disagree with the premise that the Red Sox have only a finite amount of money they are willing to spend on the roster, in which case, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about the perceived reality. (Though in a world where money literally didn't matter, why shouldn't they have just gotten Scherzer or something?)
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Post by blizzards39 on Jun 13, 2022 13:10:17 GMT -5
I want Whitlock back in the pen. And between him and Houck one of the other is last man standing. That said rotation is more than potential shaky ( but a 5-6 inning Whitlock only helps that so much) Let the 4-5 IP starts be sale and or Paxton. Hopefully one or the other stays healthy and contributes. At some point I’d also like to see Bello. Maybe straight out of the pen. Keep spots starts for crawford/wink/seabold. On top of that cross fingers on EVO. Oh BOY
Evo Pivetta Wacha Hill Sale/Paxton
Closers Whitlock/Houck Rest of guys fall in behind.
Might be enough
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Jun 13, 2022 14:51:51 GMT -5
Sorry, I just went through the entire Braves schedule. As I mentioned before, Jansen's role has been strictly the traditional one-inning, 9th inning closer's role (except for one 5-out save). He has blown two saves that the Braves later lost in the 10th inning. In both of those games, the Braves were on the road and scored first and another reliever blew another save in the bottom of the 10th. So Jansen was already in those games, which accounts for different pitchers blowing saves in them. In the other blown save that Jansen has had, the Braves wound up winning the game. In one other game, Jansen was apparently off-limits and didn't pitch and another pitcher came in and blew a save in the 9th. Every other blown save by the Braves has come in the 6th, 7th, or 8th inning (i.e. the Braves had a lead and a reliever blew it in that inning), when Jansen would not have been brought in.
Again, I was not married to the idea of signing Jansen and I did not vote for him in my own poll. But the simple fact is that he was the only bona fide closer on the market (to borrow language from Bob Ryan) and he has pitched like a bona fide closer for the Braves this season. And if Chaim had outbid the Braves for Jansen, and if Jansen had pitched for the Sox like he's pitched for the Braves, very well in a traditional closer's role, the Sox would probably be in 2nd place right now, behind NY, just like the Braves are. In this case, it does work exactly like that.
You do a good job here of showing how one good-not-great closer is not a panacea!
Meanwhile, you aren't answering the question I asked: what would it have been worth to sacrifice to add Jansen to the roster? Let's say, for instance, no Matt Stram (he has been roughly as effective as Jansen), no Paxton, and no Rich Hill (meaning fewer bullpen innings from Houck and/or Whitlock since they'd have to be used more as starters). In that scenario, even the bullpen would be worse off. So no, I don't think that would have gained the Red Sox the 4-5 wins in a third of a season that would have them in second place.
Based on your earlier comment, maybe you disagree with the premise that the Red Sox have only a finite amount of money they are willing to spend on the roster, in which case, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about the perceived reality. (Though in a world where money literally didn't matter, why shouldn't they have just gotten Scherzer or something?)
I definitely wanted Scherzer on something like the deal the Mets gave him -- okay, not 3/$130m; that was way higher than I thought it would go. I was down for 3/$100-110m and yes, I think that would have reduced the amount that would've been spent on other free agents.
But that's apples and oranges compared to the 1/$16m that Jansen got or the 2/$30m that might have topped the Braves' bid.
As I said before, if Sox ownership is unwilling to make an investment of that size (Jansen), in addition to all the other signings (note that Jansen wasn't signed until camp had already started, so it could've literally been after every other signing), to shore up the most obvious area of need on the team, during a window when there is no penalty other than a tax on the amount spent over the CBT (i.e. a contract of three years or less), then the problem is much bigger than just a bad bullpen. But I do think they would have signed the check if Chaim had asked.
If, OTOH, Chaim simply decided that the players that he had already signed, along with the depth already on board, were sufficient to provide adequate relief without the risk of spending a lot of money on a single closer (who could flop, get hurt, etc.), that's a completely different question. I don't think it's either Jansen or Strahm/Hill/Wacha/Paxton, I think it could've easily been all of the above.
I think Chaim believed that what would have cost him $16m-ish was unlikely to provide him $16m-ish in value -- and it turns out that he was wrong because you don't have to take a leap of faith to see that with nine losses when leading after the 8th inning (per Guidas) and Jansen converting saves at an 85% clip, that $16m-ish would have already bought way more than 2 wins above the jokers who have tried to finish games for the Sox thus far.
And I was wrong too, because while I was Jansen-curious, I was not pounding the table for him the way I was for Scherzer/Verlander. Like Chaim, I also thought that AC would be able to patch things together with the guys who entered camp. But the bottom line is it's impossible to dispute that with 20/20 hindsight thus far, the best move would've been to sign Jansen. And it's interesting to me that he only got 3 votes in the off-season poll despite being the only capital-C closer on the list (sorry, more Bob Ryan...).
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Post by jimed14 on Jun 13, 2022 15:11:37 GMT -5
So who knew for a fact that Jansen would be better than he was last year and will continue to be better? Don't we all realize by now that relievers fall off cliffs constantly? His numbers compared to Barnes over the previous 4 seasons.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Jun 13, 2022 16:09:24 GMT -5
So who knew for a fact that Jansen would be better than he was last year and will continue to be better? Don't we all realize by now that relievers fall off cliffs constantly? His numbers compared to Barnes over the previous 4 seasons. Absolutely! Nobody knew anything for sure and nobody knows what the future holds. He could fall apart, he could wilt in the playoffs (something he's done before), or he could throw the last pitch of the season and then leap into his catcher's awaiting embrace (probably the other way around with him). Just saying that as of right now, Jansen would've clearly been the best play.
It's also interesting to me that he was the only established (10 years, 350 career saves), traditional closer on the list and he turned out to be the best play, which would be obvious to plenty of knee-jerk fans but questioned by most people reading this. Any 13-year-old who said "Jansen's the most expensive cuz he's the best and most famous, so he's the obvious choice," would've actually been right; whereas a big-league front office with a team of analysts might have crunched the most sophisticated data out there and recommended against him.
At the end of the day, after the analysis has been done and the decisions have been made, the results are the results.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 13, 2022 16:32:27 GMT -5
So who knew for a fact that Jansen would be better than he was last year and will continue to be better? Don't we all realize by now that relievers fall off cliffs constantly? His numbers compared to Barnes over the previous 4 seasons. Absolutely! Nobody knew anything for sure and nobody knows what the future holds. He could fall apart, he could wilt in the playoffs (something he's done before), or he could throw the last pitch of the season and then leap into his catcher's awaiting embrace (probably the other way around with him). Just saying that as of right now, Jansen would've clearly been the best play.
It's also interesting to me that he was the only established (10 years, 350 career saves), traditional closer on the list and he turned out to be the best play, which would be obvious to plenty of knee-jerk fans but questioned by most people reading this. Any 13-year-old who said "Jansen's the most expensive cuz he's the best and most famous, so he's the obvious choice," would've actually been right; whereas a big-league front office with a team of analysts might have crunched the most sophisticated data out there and recommended against him.
At the end of the day, after the analysis has been done and the decisions have been made, the results are the results.
You're obviously not interested in my opportunity cost argument, but even if you think they simply should have added an additional player on top of their other additions to the roster, why does Jansen turn out to have been the "best play"? He's 94th in the majors in ERA among relievers, 25thish by FIP (min. 20 IP).
Like, why not say they should have signed Jason Adam for $1 million, or David Robertson for 1/4, or Luis Garcia for 2/7, rather than Kenley Jansen for 1/16, if it's just a hindsight judgment? You can say they should have spent a ton of money on the famous closer, or you can say they should have gotten the guy who retrospectively turned out to be the best reliever available (as of 1/3rd of the way through the season), but these arguments actually point in different directions.
There's nothing wrong with the hindsight argument, so long as we're all honest that that's what it is. But if it's a "they should have signed the famous closer" argument, then let's drop the talk of Jansen's good-not-great stats through mid-June and just look at the history of famous closer guy signings, which is... not great, as I've pointed out upthread.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jun 13, 2022 17:04:00 GMT -5
Absolutely! Nobody knew anything for sure and nobody knows what the future holds. He could fall apart, he could wilt in the playoffs (something he's done before), or he could throw the last pitch of the season and then leap into his catcher's awaiting embrace (probably the other way around with him). Just saying that as of right now, Jansen would've clearly been the best play.
It's also interesting to me that he was the only established (10 years, 350 career saves), traditional closer on the list and he turned out to be the best play, which would be obvious to plenty of knee-jerk fans but questioned by most people reading this. Any 13-year-old who said "Jansen's the most expensive cuz he's the best and most famous, so he's the obvious choice," would've actually been right; whereas a big-league front office with a team of analysts might have crunched the most sophisticated data out there and recommended against him.
At the end of the day, after the analysis has been done and the decisions have been made, the results are the results.
You're obviously not interested in my opportunity cost argument, but even if you think they simply should have added an additional player on top of their other additions to the roster, why does Jansen turn out to have been the "best play"? He's 94th in the majors in ERA among relievers, 25thish by FIP (min. 20 IP).
Like, why not say they should have signed Jason Adam for $1 million, or David Robertson for 1/4, or Luis Garcia for 2/7, rather than Kenley Jansen for 1/16, if it's just a hindsight judgment? You can say they should have spent a ton of money on the famous closer, or you can say they should have gotten the guy who retrospectively turned out to be the best reliever available (as of 1/3rd of the way through the season), but these arguments actually point in different directions.
There's nothing wrong with the hindsight argument, so long as we're all honest that that's what it is. But if it's a "they should have signed the famous closer" argument, then let's drop the talk of Jansen's good-not-great stats through mid-June and just look at the history of famous closer guy signings, which is... not great, as I've pointed out upthread.
As I see it, Bloom had three huge pivotal decisions this offseason, not counting offering Xander something in the vicinity of reasonable and or making it hard for Devers to go to free agency, so we'll put that aside, along with the Story signing which probably relates to Decision 2 and the future Xander resolution. Decision 1: Give ERod all that money or hope that a pitcher who had 40 good innings after a lot of bad ones for half the cost plus a 42 year old. I know we were both in agreement (which is rare for us) that extending E-Rod whose results were a lot worse than his FIP was probably the better decision...by a lot.....and my ego certainly isn't too big to say what is becoming increasingly obvious....Bloom looks like he was absolutely right in his assessment and we were wrong (no need to stutter around it like Fonzie). Decision 2: The Renfroe deal....and NOT securing a guy to replace Renfroe's offense in RF - and yes you can say Story replaces that offense, but to me you had good/average offense in RF and struggles at 2b and now you have the reverse albeit with better defense. The prospects they got look iffy and I don't know how much better they really are with JBJ in RF than had they spent less money to keep Renfroe. Hamilton doesn't look like much of a prospect and despite the promising power, I'm not convinced that Binelas is much more than a AAAA player, so at this point I think the jury is still out on this decision. Decision 3: Not getting a closer. If Bloom can identify Wacha as a better option than E-Rod, then why can't he pinpoint a guy who should be able to compete for closer innings? Unless he thought Strahm or Diekman were those guys? I tend to doubt it, that he was trying to build up the LH relief depth which was lacking last offseason - it came home to roost when Taylor was expended and they had to put in Martin Perez to face Brantley in one of the biggest ABs of the season and it failed. So I tend to think that Bloom figured...we're fine with what we got. Barnes will probably snap back. Which isn't the case. Maybe he thought Houck or even a surprise like Schreiber is a real option? Who knows? All I know now is that there have been a helluva lot more walkoff losses than wins and a lot of close game leads in the 9th that have slipped from the win column into theloss column. Maybe Bloom is vindicated and it was up to Cora to figure out that Houck is the guy...or Schreiber...certainly not Robles.... It just reeks to much of bullpen by committee hope somebody figures it out and don't suffer too much if they can't for awhile. Take the losses until then, if then, and fix it if another possibility on the market comes up. I mean I fixate on the closer hole that they haven't fixed yet (we'll see if Houck is the guy - I had hoped he'd be a starter..), but the fact of the matter is they'd still be light years behind the Yankees even if they had vintage Papelbon on the team. They'd probably be in 2nd place, hosting the wild card game instead of being the road team, but as I've pointed out, I'm not even sure much of that matters anyways with this playoff format....so maybe they can continue to let games slip away until they figure it out because perfection is not needed to make the post-season anymore anyways.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 13, 2022 18:00:20 GMT -5
You're obviously not interested in my opportunity cost argument, but even if you think they simply should have added an additional player on top of their other additions to the roster, why does Jansen turn out to have been the "best play"? He's 94th in the majors in ERA among relievers, 25thish by FIP (min. 20 IP).
Like, why not say they should have signed Jason Adam for $1 million, or David Robertson for 1/4, or Luis Garcia for 2/7, rather than Kenley Jansen for 1/16, if it's just a hindsight judgment? You can say they should have spent a ton of money on the famous closer, or you can say they should have gotten the guy who retrospectively turned out to be the best reliever available (as of 1/3rd of the way through the season), but these arguments actually point in different directions.
There's nothing wrong with the hindsight argument, so long as we're all honest that that's what it is. But if it's a "they should have signed the famous closer" argument, then let's drop the talk of Jansen's good-not-great stats through mid-June and just look at the history of famous closer guy signings, which is... not great, as I've pointed out upthread.
As I see it, Bloom had three huge pivotal decisions this offseason, not counting offering Xander something in the vicinity of reasonable and or making it hard for Devers to go to free agency, so we'll put that aside, along with the Story signing which probably relates to Decision 2 and the future Xander resolution. Decision 1: Give ERod all that money or hope that a pitcher who had 40 good innings after a lot of bad ones for half the cost plus a 42 year old. I know we were both in agreement (which is rare for us) that extending E-Rod whose results were a lot worse than his FIP was probably the better decision...by a lot.....and my ego certainly isn't too big to say what is becoming increasingly obvious....Bloom looks like he was absolutely right in his assessment and we were wrong (no need to stutter around it like Fonzie). Decision 2: The Renfroe deal....and NOT securing a guy to replace Renfroe's offense in RF - and yes you can say Story replaces that offense, but to me you had good/average offense in RF and struggles at 2b and now you have the reverse albeit with better defense. The prospects they got look iffy and I don't know how much better they really are with JBJ in RF than had they spent less money to keep Renfroe. Hamilton doesn't look like much of a prospect and despite the promising power, I'm not convinced that Binelas is much more than a AAAA player, so at this point I think the jury is still out on this decision. Decision 3: Not getting a closer. If Bloom can identify Wacha as a better option than E-Rod, then why can't he pinpoint a guy who should be able to compete for closer innings? Unless he thought Strahm or Diekman were those guys? I tend to doubt it, that he was trying to build up the LH relief depth which was lacking last offseason - it came home to roost when Taylor was expended and they had to put in Martin Perez to face Brantley in one of the biggest ABs of the season and it failed. So I tend to think that Bloom figured...we're fine with what we got. Barnes will probably snap back. Which isn't the case. Maybe he thought Houck or even a surprise like Schreiber is a real option? Who knows? All I know now is that there have been a helluva lot more walkoff losses than wins and a lot of close game leads in the 9th that have slipped from the win column into theloss column. Maybe Bloom is vindicated and it was up to Cora to figure out that Houck is the guy...or Schreiber...certainly not Robles.... It just reeks to much of bullpen by committee hope somebody figures it out and don't suffer too much if they can't for awhile. Take the losses until then, if then, and fix it if another possibility on the market comes up. I mean I fixate on the closer hole that they haven't fixed yet (we'll see if Houck is the guy - I had hoped he'd be a starter..), but the fact of the matter is they'd still be light years behind the Yankees even if they had vintage Papelbon on the team. They'd probably be in 2nd place, hosting the wild card game instead of being the road team, but as I've pointed out, I'm not even sure much of that matters anyways with this playoff format....so maybe they can continue to let games slip away until they figure it out because perfection is not needed to make the post-season anymore anyways. Agree re: Decision 1! I will say, my own half-hearted and boring offseason plan of just keeping Eduardo and Schwarber was probably a lot worse than what Bloom actually did, so I certainly have no interest in hindsight arguments.
On the closer question... Let me just add one additional point of context. Bloom did in fact invest in a big money closer: Matt Barnes. Even going into this season many were still hoping he'd succeed in that role; see the results of the poll here. Regardless of that, though, if you thought they should spend big on another closer before this season, you're saying that Barnes' failure meant they needed to double down on the already-failed "spend big on relievers" approach. I won't repeat myself by explaining why I think that's a bad idea, but I think it's at least worth remembering that context.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2022 22:24:35 GMT -5
I guess “none of the above” wins the poll, or is the winner who ends the year with the most saves?.?.?.?.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Jun 13, 2022 23:52:48 GMT -5
Absolutely! Nobody knew anything for sure and nobody knows what the future holds. He could fall apart, he could wilt in the playoffs (something he's done before), or he could throw the last pitch of the season and then leap into his catcher's awaiting embrace (probably the other way around with him). Just saying that as of right now, Jansen would've clearly been the best play.
It's also interesting to me that he was the only established (10 years, 350 career saves), traditional closer on the list and he turned out to be the best play, which would be obvious to plenty of knee-jerk fans but questioned by most people reading this. Any 13-year-old who said "Jansen's the most expensive cuz he's the best and most famous, so he's the obvious choice," would've actually been right; whereas a big-league front office with a team of analysts might have crunched the most sophisticated data out there and recommended against him.
At the end of the day, after the analysis has been done and the decisions have been made, the results are the results.
You're obviously not interested in my opportunity cost argument, but even if you think they simply should have added an additional player on top of their other additions to the roster, why does Jansen turn out to have been the "best play"? He's 94th in the majors in ERA among relievers, 25thish by FIP (min. 20 IP).
Like, why not say they should have signed Jason Adam for $1 million, or David Robertson for 1/4, or Luis Garcia for 2/7, rather than Kenley Jansen for 1/16, if it's just a hindsight judgment? You can say they should have spent a ton of money on the famous closer, or you can say they should have gotten the guy who retrospectively turned out to be the best reliever available (as of 1/3rd of the way through the season), but these arguments actually point in different directions.
There's nothing wrong with the hindsight argument, so long as we're all honest that that's what it is. But if it's a "they should have signed the famous closer" argument, then let's drop the talk of Jansen's good-not-great stats through mid-June and just look at the history of famous closer guy signings, which is... not great, as I've pointed out upthread.
No, I'm not interested in pretending that FSG would draw the line at $16m for an established closer if that's what Chaim told them he needed. I also think we're talking past each other, in addition to going aroud in circles, because I'm talking about the guys who were in the poll, not every relief pitcher with a pulse that was available (frankly, that was covered by the "Someone I've never heard of" option, even though obviously we've all heard of Roberson but he had barely pitched in 3 years). I put the most likely candidates in the poll (hell, even Ryan Tepera made it in) and I even invited write-in candidates, which drew names like Lou Trivino and Trevor Rosenthal. Nobody wrote in Jason Adam or Dave Robertson or had any real reason to do so.
So what I'm saying is that of the most likely options, those that were essentially agreed upon by the posters to this space, Jansen was the best option, up to this point. It's retrospective. We all had a vote and we all had every opportunity to talk it over, all before the season started. And now we can look back and see how the various options have fared. It's that simple. You can't come in and say "well what about Jason Adam or Dave Robertson" now -- the time to do that was when they were available. You'd sure look smart now if you had! (btw, Adam is not a closer, nor is either Luis Garcia, so they don't qualify for the "who should be the closer" conversation).
Also, I don't get how much you want to trash Jansen's season thus far. He had a big stumble in his first appearance (after signing on 3/19 and missing some of spring training) and he had a rough patch in mid-May. Other than that, he's been fine. 18/21 saves; 38/9 K/BB; 0.9 WHIP; 2.2 FIP. If that's good-not-great, then I hope we end up with some great ones someday but I'll definitely settle for good-not-great.
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keninten
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Post by keninten on Jun 14, 2022 2:03:02 GMT -5
Chaim is an idiot. He could have signed Jason Adam for $900,000.
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Post by Don Caballero on Jun 14, 2022 7:16:44 GMT -5
Give based Koji a call and see if he can still put up 70 in the radar gun and let's jam.
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Post by nuttyredsox on Jun 14, 2022 7:33:42 GMT -5
You're obviously not interested in my opportunity cost argument, but even if you think they simply should have added an additional player on top of their other additions to the roster, why does Jansen turn out to have been the "best play"? He's 94th in the majors in ERA among relievers, 25thish by FIP (min. 20 IP).
Like, why not say they should have signed Jason Adam for $1 million, or David Robertson for 1/4, or Luis Garcia for 2/7, rather than Kenley Jansen for 1/16, if it's just a hindsight judgment? You can say they should have spent a ton of money on the famous closer, or you can say they should have gotten the guy who retrospectively turned out to be the best reliever available (as of 1/3rd of the way through the season), but these arguments actually point in different directions.
There's nothing wrong with the hindsight argument, so long as we're all honest that that's what it is. But if it's a "they should have signed the famous closer" argument, then let's drop the talk of Jansen's good-not-great stats through mid-June and just look at the history of famous closer guy signings, which is... not great, as I've pointed out upthread.
As I see it, Bloom had three huge pivotal decisions this offseason, not counting offering Xander something in the vicinity of reasonable and or making it hard for Devers to go to free agency, so we'll put that aside, along with the Story signing which probably relates to Decision 2 and the future Xander resolution. Decision 1: Give ERod all that money or hope that a pitcher who had 40 good innings after a lot of bad ones for half the cost plus a 42 year old. I know we were both in agreement (which is rare for us) that extending E-Rod whose results were a lot worse than his FIP was probably the better decision...by a lot.....and my ego certainly isn't too big to say what is becoming increasingly obvious....Bloom looks like he was absolutely right in his assessment and we were wrong (no need to stutter around it like Fonzie). Decision 2: The Renfroe deal....and NOT securing a guy to replace Renfroe's offense in RF - and yes you can say Story replaces that offense, but to me you had good/average offense in RF and struggles at 2b and now you have the reverse albeit with better defense. The prospects they got look iffy and I don't know how much better they really are with JBJ in RF than had they spent less money to keep Renfroe. Hamilton doesn't look like much of a prospect and despite the promising power, I'm not convinced that Binelas is much more than a AAAA player, so at this point I think the jury is still out on this decision. Decision 3: Not getting a closer. If Bloom can identify Wacha as a better option than E-Rod, then why can't he pinpoint a guy who should be able to compete for closer innings? Unless he thought Strahm or Diekman were those guys? I tend to doubt it, that he was trying to build up the LH relief depth which was lacking last offseason - it came home to roost when Taylor was expended and they had to put in Martin Perez to face Brantley in one of the biggest ABs of the season and it failed. So I tend to think that Bloom figured...we're fine with what we got. Barnes will probably snap back. Which isn't the case. Maybe he thought Houck or even a surprise like Schreiber is a real option? Who knows? All I know now is that there have been a helluva lot more walkoff losses than wins and a lot of close game leads in the 9th that have slipped from the win column into theloss column. Maybe Bloom is vindicated and it was up to Cora to figure out that Houck is the guy...or Schreiber...certainly not Robles.... It just reeks to much of bullpen by committee hope somebody figures it out and don't suffer too much if they can't for awhile. Take the losses until then, if then, and fix it if another possibility on the market comes up. I mean I fixate on the closer hole that they haven't fixed yet (we'll see if Houck is the guy - I had hoped he'd be a starter..), but the fact of the matter is they'd still be light years behind the Yankees even if they had vintage Papelbon on the team. They'd probably be in 2nd place, hosting the wild card game instead of being the road team, but as I've pointed out, I'm not even sure much of that matters anyways with this playoff format....so maybe they can continue to let games slip away until they figure it out because perfection is not needed to make the post-season anymore anyways. Dude, I couldn't agree more with your analysis, GREAT ANALYSE, YOU HIT THE BULLSEYE. I also think when they extended Barnes they though he was going to be answer for the closer. Cora needs to open his eyes and look at all other arms that are available, I rather see him giving an opportunity to others, them keep shoving Robles to us time after time.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jun 14, 2022 8:27:23 GMT -5
Chaim is an idiot. He could have signed Jason Adam for $900,000. Maybe (hopefully) you're being sarcastic, but that's not how free agency works
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cdj
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Posts: 14,196
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Post by cdj on Jun 14, 2022 8:37:17 GMT -5
If Houck’s sinker is gonna keep dropping 2 feet at 95 mph from the closers role I want him in it
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Post by incandenza on Jun 14, 2022 15:46:54 GMT -5
If it's necessary for health reasons, then so be it, but it would be awfully disappointing if they only ended up getting ~30 IP out of Sale this season. (And also a pretty dismal sign for how much he might be able to contribute in the next two seasons.)
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Jun 14, 2022 15:49:51 GMT -5
If Houck’s sinker is gonna keep dropping 2 feet at 95 mph from the closers role I want him in it I hope he grows into the role, attacking hitters rather than trying to get swings on pitches out of the zone.
The only glitch is the TOR/vaccine thing, if he's the full-time closer. That is easier to work around if he's a multi-inning/piggyback guy.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Jun 14, 2022 15:51:55 GMT -5
If it's necessary for health reasons, then so be it, but it would be awfully disappointing if they only ended up getting ~30 IP out of Sale this season. (And also a pretty dismal sign for how much he might be able to contribute in the next two seasons.)
Or maybe he's the wipeout closer? Maybe he needs to wait until he has a full spring training to get back into the rotation. Obviously better if he's a wipeout starter who goes 7 every 5 days but you work with what you have.
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Post by patford on Jun 14, 2022 16:04:40 GMT -5
If it's necessary for health reasons, then so be it, but it would be awfully disappointing if they only ended up getting ~30 IP out of Sale this season. (And also a pretty dismal sign for how much he might be able to contribute in the next two seasons.)
At this point getting 30 innings from Sale would be encouraging.
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