Felix the Reliever
Dave · July 10, 2005 at 8:09 pm · Filed Under Mariners
By the way, Felix Hernandez is making his return to the mound tonight. As a reliever. To help limit his workload, he’s going to continue to work out of the bullpen while in Triple-A.
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37 Responses to “Felix the Reliever”
Good news. Not that we need anymore with the Angels sweep.
Moderate usage now: good news! Let’s just hope the brain trust doesn’t suddenly notice that he’s got the stuff to make a killer closer.
Does that mean he’ll be up in the majors before September?
Is this the beginning of the fizzle of another Mariners prospect?
If history has taught us anything, it is. Here’s hoping history doesn’t repeat itself for the millionth time.
> To help limit his workload, he’s going to continue to work out of the bullpen while in Triple-A.
Hey, just like Curt Schilling!
We can’t know, but it’s possible they’ve been/are resting him now so that he can stand up to finishing the season with the Ms. Standby for Felix starting in Cleveland on July 23 after they trade a starter in the next few days. They can get by with only 4 starters until then.
That would create a spot on the 25 man roster for 8 games. Leone for the bench (but not third)?
#6: Who wants one of our starters in trade? And which one? Put any one of the five in front of a less than stellar defense (e.g. Red Sox, Yankees) and they will look like garbage.
So they trade Eddie or Shiggy or even Nelson, and Franklin goes back to the pen to make room for Felix. Or even Meche (has anybody ever considered Meche for relief/closer?) If Eddie goes, Putz closes and everybody moves back a spot. Though if it was up to me I’d put Thrornton into the closer role, hope he gets lucky, and try to foist him off on someone else. Who can resist a big hard throwing left-hander as a closer? And you never know, he might grow into it. He can usually manage one good inning.
I think making Thornton the closer is a great idea, if by ‘closer’ you mean he is tasked with shutting the bullpen gate when another reliever enters the game. That’s as close to a major league field as he deserves to be.
[deleted – see comment guidelines, actually… don’t. Just leave.]
Well, at least the king is back. He goes 1 inning, strikes out 1 and gives up 1 hit.
Actually, Thornton as Closer is a great idea.
If he can nail down a few saves in a row he might develop trade value.
Lets only hope the brain trust doesnt leave him in the pen more then this 1 outing.If they do heads need to roll now not at the end of the year.You have the best prospect in all of baseball and you want to lighten his load?Well then let him warmup and start the game everyother day are every 3rd day but dont take any chances with getting him up and down during the games this is the future and he is close to being in seattle right now.
No one, not even the dumbest teams, are going to rate Thornton higher because he notches a couple of saves. It takes at least a year to get the Proven Closer label, and there is no way that any team would tolerate such crappy pitcher in such an important role for so long. While I advocate using the closer job to inflate pitchers values, I see no point in trying that with a someone who is so bad you don’t even want them on your team.
As for Putz, I think he is the ideal person for the job. He is good enough to get saves consistently, but he isn’t so good that he is wasted in the role. You don’t need someone who is ridiculously dominant to protect a three run lead for a half inning. Just about any decent reliever can do that. But a tie game or one run game in the eighth with men on base is when you should use your best reliever, even if you don’t leave him in to get the save. So having Putz be the closer and Rafael Soriano be the set up man would be preferable to Soriano being the closer and just about anyone else as the set up man, even though Soriano is our best reliever and would normally be thought of as the ideal closer.
#12: Thornton as closer a great idea? How likely is he to even nail down a series of cheap 3 run saves, let alone make a market for himself as a “proven closer?”
This year Thornton’s walked 26 guys in 30-1/3 IP. He’s given up 7 dingers. The league is racking up an .845 OPS against him. His WHIP is 1.85. His VORP is 2.5; Mike Myers has a VORP of 5.9 in barely half the innings pitched (17). You can find 2.5 VORP pitchers hanging around your local AAA ballpark, and they don’t have any appreciable trade value.
Can you really think Thornton can develop trade value before the trade deadline? I’d be delighted if they’d expose him to waivers trying to send him to Tacoma and found a sucker to take him off our hands.
Bloomquist will be the closer before Thornton…
Hush, be careful what you wish for.
Hell, considering how amazing Bloomquist has been lately, let him close. Let’s see if “Mr. Versatile” can go the distance and play all positions on the diamond.
Willie Bloomquist the igniter!!!
re:14
If ya want him off yer hands, just release the guy. No need to make sure he becomes someone else’s problem.
Is it too early to sign Reed to long-term deal?
What does signing Reed to a long-term deal have to do with the King?
Projected Records (From mgl at BTF)
The 5 numbers after the w/l records are chances of winning division, wild card, first round of playoffs, second round, and World Series
ANA 91-71 .86 .02 .46 .21 .12
TEX 83-79 .09 .04 .06 .02 .01
OAK 81-81 .05 .02 .03 .02 .006
SEA 74-88 .001 0 0 0 0
The M’s are 9.5 games out of the last playoff spot.
Nothing Josh.
I’m not trying to hijack this thread. I don’t think we’ll see a thread on Reed till the end of the season – even though he is the best story so far – so I thought I would ask.
Reed is hitting .259/.329/.356, good for a .243 EqA. His VORP of 4.0 ranks him 30th among major league center fielders. Even if we agreed that he had Mike Cameron level defense (which I don’t, and there’s almost no evidence for), he’s been, at best, a league average player.
Reed’s a nice talent, and he’s going to get better. I’m glad he’s on the roster. But I have no idea why you’d sign him to a long term deal right now.
Back to the topic at hand, do people think this means:
(1) they’re trying to keep his IP down so that he can start at the end of the season at Safeco, or
(2) his injury is more serious than we were led to believe and they’re trying to figure out a way to keep his arm attached to his body (please don’t let him be the second coming of Ryan Anderson).
25: I suppose that we have no reason to not believe them, but, yeah, I am skeptical about this move as well. I know that they want to keep his innings under 150, but I can’t help but think that they are worried that something else is amiss here.
I think Reed is a nice looking player, but he is a tough luxury to afford in an outfield that has no power. Ideally you have a couple power guys out there to compliment Ichiro.
I think Reed is a nice looking player, but he is a tough luxury to afford in an outfield that has no power. Ideally you have a couple power guys out there to compliment Ichiro.
The problem is we don’t have anyone who can do this in the minors, and as Dave’s post points out, we have issues with the pitching staff.
My inclination is to fix the pitching staff via King Felix, any deadline or offseason trade, and a free agent or three first, and figure out what the hell to do about catcher…THEN worry about the OF, where it looks like we have some good young talent, even if it’s shy on power.
The Angels broadcasters were so off-balance being swept by the M’s that they called WFB “The Mighty Bloomquist” on Sunday.
So it’s not just Rizzs. He’s “The Mighty Bloomquist”.
Ideally you have a couple power guys out there to compliment Ichiro.
“You are so good looking.”
“Thank you.”
“You are so good looking.”
“Thank you. You are so powerful.”
Reed is comparable to Damon.
Yes, Reed is comparable to Damon. Who, for the first four years of his major league career was considered a bust, and only had two productive seasons for his original major league organization.
#32: Except that Damon is the best leadoff hitter in the game today. (For Ichiro fans, call him one of the best two.)
Where exactly does one find the stats like VORP?
MLB.com apparantly doesn’t show it.
Tim,
Baseballprospectus.com