Dave Dombrowski

[Dojji]

Wrong, the Sox bullpen, and particularly Timlin and Embree were very good in the postseason, which is why Grady's decision cost him his job.

Timlin gave up 0 earned runs in 9.2 innings that fall.

Embree gave up 0 earned runs in 6.2 innings in that post season.

Scott Williamson gave up 1 earned run in 8 innings.

 

Try thinking a little deeper.

 

I didn't say Little didn't screw up up. But you can't completely dismiss the dismal regular season performance by that year's bullpen. The Red Sox had exactly 2 relievers with a serious sample size of innings pitched and a sub-4 ERA, and one of them (Kim) wasn't available in the postseason.

 

Again, it was still a mistake by Little, if only because Pedro himself said he was done, he gave his point-to-heaven that he always did after he thought he should come out, and that should have been a red flag for Little that Pedro didn't have a lot left in his arm. But he lived through that regular season and knew the pen was due for a regression to the mean, and that made it easier to take a risky decision that backfired spectacularly.

[dgalehouse]

Last night Kimbrel made the mistake of not thinking Smoak might be swinging at the 3 and 0 pitch. Threw the fastball right in there. Other than that , he struck out the side. Blew the save , but not the game.

[Dojji]

Last night Kimbrel made the mistake of not thinking Smoak might be swinging at the 3 and 0 pitch. Threw the fastball right in there. Other than that , he struck out the side. Blew the save , but not the game.

 

I can't be too upset about anyone giving up a solo shot to one of the best hitters on the opposing team.

 

I am a little concerned about Kimbrel and walks this year, but beyond that, it's hard to deny that he's been one of the most effective RP's in the league.

[a700hitter]

Last night Kimbrel made the mistake of not thinking Smoak might be swinging at the 3 and 0 pitch. Threw the fastball right in there. Other than that , he struck out the side. Blew the save , but not the game.

Better to not walk the tying run and face the winning run. Smoak just beat him that time.

[a700hitter]

Wrong, the Sox bullpen, and particularly Timlin and Embree were very good in the postseason, which is why Grady's decision cost him his job.

Timlin gave up 0 earned runs in 9.2 innings that fall.

Embree gave up 0 earned runs in 6.2 innings in that post season.

Scott Williamson gave up 1 earned run in 8 innings.

 

Try thinking a little deeper.

So Theo signed an elite closer in Foulke for 2004 as overkill when he still had Williamson, Timlin and Embree coming back for 2004?

 

The posse showed up unarmed today.

Edited August 8, 2018 by a700hitter

[SoxnCycles]

I didn't say Little didn't screw up up. But you can't completely dismiss the dismal regular season performance by that year's bullpen. The Red Sox had exactly 2 relievers with a serious sample size of innings pitched and a sub-4 ERA, and one of them (Kim) wasn't available in the postseason.

 

Again, it was still a mistake by Little, if only because Pedro himself said he was done, he gave his point-to-heaven that he always did after he thought he should come out, and that should have been a red flag for Little that Pedro didn't have a lot left in his arm. But he lived through that regular season and knew the pen was due for a regression to the mean, and that made it easier to take a risky decision that backfired spectacularly.

 

Scott Williamson has 3 saves in that series again the Yankees.

I'd say that's more relevant to the situation than whatever happened in the regular season.

So Grady didn't go to the bullpen in October because they sucked in July?

He was worried about "regression" in the 8th inning of a game 7 of the ALCS?

Evidently Grady Little and you were the only people in the free world that were worried about regressing to the regular season mean in 2 innings.

 

I take back what I said.

Stop the deep thinking before you hurt yourself.

[a700hitter]

LOL! @ posse getting insulting with Doji who has been nothing but respectful in his discussion today.

[dgalehouse]

The deep thinkers have brilliant minds , but rather thin skin.

[SoxnCycles]

LOL! @ posse getting insulting with Doji who has been nothing but respectful in his discussion today.

 

f*** off Johnny Cochran. Doji can take care of himself.

[Bellhorn04]

Theo Epstein has generally been willing to pay top dollar or close to it for his closer. That says a lot to me.

[Slasher9]

Very much disagree with this. What we need to learn to do is adequately assess what the job of a closer is. Right now we're not doing that and it's leading to some extremely wonky conclusions about what the purpose of a closer is supposed to be.

 

By any objective standard Kimbrel is one of the best closers in baseball right now and worth every penny of his contract. But because contribution in a stop-loss position like Closer is hard to quantify (because the closer is only generally noticed when he fails), certain people are reaching the mistaken conclusion that difficult-to-quantify values don't exist or don't matter. Both conclusions are wrong.

 

We need to be able to at least adequately ballpark the proper value of a top end closer before we can even answer the question of whether it's OK to go cheap at the position.

 

The fact that sabermetrics can't actually give a reliable value for negative consequences avoided is no excuse to pretend that that value doesn't exist.

 

It never ceases to amaze me that people claim to put value in numbers and statistics without even a general understanding of how to use them. I'm a statistical novice myself, but at least i recognize the fact that failing to quantify something doesn't deprive it of value.

 

heres a statistic:

Rivera is 0 for 1 with a big fat L in World Series Game 7 games.

you originally said what would we do without an elite closer like Kimbrel in a game 7. that's my response. the GOAT closer blew his game 7 chance. perhaps the MFY win the 2001 WS if Joe Blow was the closer that year....

[Slasher9]

a boom!

 

mmmmkay. how much do you want to sign Kimbrel for? 5 years / $100MM?

[Slasher9]

you are the one who brought up the thing about the closer blowing game 7.

bingo.

[Slasher9]

The goal posts are moving this morning for the “closers are overvalued” argument.

whoops.

World Series winners:

ken Giles $550,000

hector rondon $5,800,000

greg holland $8,250,000

sergio romo $5,500,000

koji uehara $4,250,000

santiago casilla $2,200,000

fernando salas $498,000

brian wilson $6,500,000

[Slasher9]

We need GPS. I'm not sure we're in the same county anymore.

 

Kimmi is clinging gamely onto this idea that you can get the same production we're gettihg right now for Kimbrel, consistently, for less than we paid for him. I have no idea why she's so sure of this because she's admitted as such that closers have a kind of value that's difficult to properly quantify, AND that Kimbrel is among the very best in the business, which means that there aren't a lot of relief pitchers who can consistently replicate his value at all, and of the ones that are, how many of those are even acquirable from their current teams, much less more affordable than Kimbrel?

 

 

let me know which of the past 10 World Series winning teams spent an overpay on a closer contract.

[a700hitter]

f*** off Johnny Cochran. Doji can take care of himself.

And you are insulting him because you can’t even keep straight who has posted what, you tool. It is funny how you show up to throw in your very lame and usually wrong 2 cents when Kimmi can’t get herself out of a home she has dug for herself. Take your own advice.

[Slasher9]

Wrong, the Sox bullpen, and particularly Timlin and Embree were very good in the postseason, which is why Grady's decision cost him his job.

Timlin gave up 0 earned runs in 9.2 innings that fall.

Embree gave up 0 earned runs in 6.2 innings in that post season.

Scott Williamson gave up 1 earned run in 8 innings.

 

Try thinking a little deeper.

 

thank you.

[notin]

notin's analysis was a tad incomplete because he didn't include all the dollar figures.

 

The Atlanta-San Diego Kimbrel trade was a whole different animal.

 

In trading Kimbrel Atlanta unloaded the final 3 years of Melvin Upton's colossal bust contract. It appears this saved them about $50 million.

 

Well, closer to $26 million when you factor in taking back Maybin and Quentin.

 

Don’t forget, Atlanta was one year removed from back to back 90 win seasons. So if closers are so important, why did they suddenly let Kimbrel go and not even get back sufficient prospects to kick off a rebuild?

[Slasher9]

he had 2 bad games this week. Last night he gave a solo HR to a good hitter. If that's the worst we see from Kimbrel, we're doing pretty well out of all this.

 

he gave up the same amount of runs last night that barnes did and 1 more earned run than kelly. perhaps kelly and barnes are underpaid?

btw - kimbrel ERA is also higher than barnes and he's given up 5 more HR's. perhaps barnes should be the closer.

[SoxnCycles]

he gave up the same amount of runs last night that barnes did and 1 more earned run than kelly. perhaps kelly and barnes are underpaid?

btw - kimbrel ERA is also higher than barnes and he's given up 5 more HR's. perhaps barnes should be the closer.

 

And Barnes doesn't piss down his leg if he has to enter a non-save situation.

[a700hitter]

whoops.

World Series winners:

ken Giles $550,000

hector rondon $5,800,000

greg holland $8,250,000

sergio romo $5,500,000

koji uehara $4,250,000

santiago casilla $2,200,000

fernando salas $498,000

brian wilson $6,500,000

If DD had paid the haul that Theo did for 2 months of Chapman, the long knives would be out for him. Maybe he should swap Kimbo for Giles to save a few bucks.

[Dojji]

whoops.

World Series winners:

ken Giles $550,000

hector rondon $5,800,000

greg holland $8,250,000

sergio romo $5,500,000

koji uehara $4,250,000

santiago casilla $2,200,000

fernando salas $498,000

brian wilson $6,500,000

You're not covering yourself with glory trying to compare rookie contracts and one shots with a guy who we paid to be a consistent year-in-year-out closer.

 

Jonathan Papelbon pulled in 11-13M a year once his cost controlled years were gone

 

Brian Wilson wasn't consistent enough to earn top dollar and still maxed out at $10M/year

 

Wade Davis earned 15M or so AAV after helping the Royals contend over the last few years. He's not performing well this year, I suspect he was hurt by park factors in Colorado somewhat, but up to that point he had been impressively consistent. And even with his struggles he's still the NL's saves leader.

 

Jason Isringhausen, another highly consistent closer, was well known for having signed team friendly contracts to stay with his preferred team, and still made 7-8M/year BEFORE the major revenue spike that drove everyone's salary demands through the roof

 

Kenley Jansen, the converted catcher who's become one of the National League's best power relievers over the last 8 seasons, is going to be earning nearly $20M next year.

 

And that's without what the Yankees were willing to pay for Mo and his help in winning 5 separate World Series. When it comes to money, the Yankees are outliers. But the bottom line is that teams pay for consistent closers because they know what the alternative is

 

I'll say it again. The more you price-lock yourself at a position, the more times you have to go back to the well and find a quality replacement, and every time you do, you run the risk of something going wrong like it did with Miller, Hanrahan, Jenks, Betances, etc after Papelbon, until we got incredibly lucky that Uehara's arm held up for 3 straight seasons as a closer despite being older than dirt in baseball terms.

 

And then after we rode Koji like a rented mule, and he couldn't do it anymore, we had to replace him again. And rather than losing perhaos multiple seasons to the Closer Audition Carousel like happened in 09-13, DD did what he had to do to secure the position for multiple seasons to ensure the team could be as likely to contend as possible.

 

The alternative of "wasting money" in most baseball positions is an audition carousel until someone sticks, and that can take awhile to prosecute, similar to 2003 and 2009-2011

 

This works great in small markets and it's a lot of how smaller teams build up to contention, but big markets usually need to trade resources for time.

 

Shortening the process of discovering our next closer is exactly why we bought high on Kimbrel, and as close as we were to contention with the young players coming into their own after '15, it was absolutely the correct move

Edited August 8, 2018 by Dojji

[Bellhorn04]

Well, closer to $26 million when you factor in taking back Maybin and Quentin.

 

Don’t forget, Atlanta was one year removed from back to back 90 win seasons. So if closers are so important, why did they suddenly let Kimbrel go and not even get back sufficient prospects to kick off a rebuild?

 

I certainly can't speak for what Atlanta's thinking was. It looks like the main objective on this deal was to cut payroll. They did offload a fair amount of payroll between Upton and Kimbrel.

[Slasher9]

If DD had paid the haul that Theo did for 2 months of Chapman, the long knives would be out for him. Maybe he should swap Kimbo for Giles to save a few bucks.

 

here's the forest and the trees:

you dont need a $20MM AAV closer to have a parade. or even a $10MM closer.

it seems some on here are arguing that you do.

well the facts (or statistics as some like to call them) say otherwise.

but as we see, you can have a parade without an "elite closer" on the duckboats.....

and one time the other city got to have a parade because of the "elite closer" (2001)....he ended up being just as reliable as byun yung kim.....

[Bellhorn04]

here's the forest and the trees:

you dont need a $20MM AAV closer to have a parade. or even a $10MM closer.

it seems some on here are arguing that you do.

well the facts (or statistics as some like to call them) say otherwise.

but as we see, you can have a parade without an "elite closer" on the duckboats.....

and one time the other city got to have a parade because of the "elite closer" (2001)....he ended up being just as reliable as byun yung kim.....

 

But the big picture on Rivera is:

 

96 postseason games/141 IP with that 0.70 ERA

7 League Championships

5 World Series Championships

[a700hitter]

here's the forest and the trees:

you dont need a $20MM AAV closer to have a parade. or even a $10MM closer.

it seems some on here are arguing that you do.

well the facts (or statistics as some like to call them) say otherwise.

but as we see, you can have a parade without an "elite closer" on the duckboats.....

and one time the other city got to have a parade because of the "elite closer" (2001)....he ended up being just as reliable as byun yung kim.....

But it doesn’t hurt if you want to have a team that wins consistently. I notice that you didn’t address whether You would be pissed if DD has done what Theo did to get Chapman. It is really disingenuous to list Rondon as the Cubs closer.

[Slasher9]

But the big picture on Rivera is:

 

96 postseason games/141 IP with that 0.70 ERA

7 League Championships

5 World Series Championships

 

i am not arguing the greatness that rivera was. but just perhaps the MFY win 7 WS Championships during that same time frame if someone else is the closer? do you really think they win 0?

[Yaz Fan Since 67]

Mo pitched the reliever equivalent of two full seasons in the post season. More men have walked on the moon than have scored an earned run against Mo in the post season. The meltdowns were rare, but they’re magnified in the playoffs

 

I will never understand how that cutter was so unhittable. Everyone knew it was coming and what it was going to do but few could hit the damned thing.

[Slasher9]

But it doesn’t hurt if you want to have a team that wins consistently. I notice that you didn’t address whether You would be pissed if DD has done what Theo did to get Chapman. It is really disingenuous to list Rondon as the Cubs closer.

 

I would expect DD to make a trade like that. he burns the Farm. but, yes, i would be pissed to give that much up for a rental. but when it turns into a parade you have to accept that rental/payoff. the reward (in this case) made up for the payment.

[Dojji]

here's the forest and the trees:

you dont need a $20MM AAV closer to have a parade. or even a $10MM closer.

 

1: If you are going for a one off shot at a parade, you're right. If you want a chance at a parade in any given season, a perennially consistent closer is vital to cut down on bullpen uncertanty. We proved that after we lost Papelbon and we were wildly inconsistent until we acquired.... guess what... another perennially consistent closer

 

2: An elite lineup or a second ace aren't "required" either. But like an elite lockdown back end of the pen, it sure as heck helps. We have won exactly zero World Series without a high end closer. Sure we had to find Koji after Plan A failed, but if we didn't have him, we don't win that Series because we don't get out of the ALCS against Detroit

 

it seems some on here are arguing that you do.

well the facts (or statistics as some like to call them) say otherwise.

 

Only if you misread them to a practically criminal level.

 

Or are you really saying we should try to be competing for championships the same way the Kansas City Royals do? If not, why use their championship (which they could not repeat) as an example of how we should be doing things when this team plays a whole different style of baseball where the point is to be competitive EVERY year?

 

but as we see, you can have a parade without an "elite closer" on the duckboats.....

 

But we never have. Unless you somehow think that Koji Uehara doesn't count as an elite closer?

 

and one time the other city got to have a parade because of the "elite closer" (2001)....he ended up being just as reliable as byun yung kim.....

 

Completely ignoring the 5 other World Series in which that closer was absolutely dominant is not reasonable, and shows just how well you "read" (IE cherry pick) your statistics.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Dojji