Barry Jive wrote:

ReadingPhilly wrote:

smitty wrote:WTF Jonah Keri? Papelbon's contract is bad because Manuel uses him wrong and Crash proved it? I think every team uses their closer the same way pretty much. Keri writes Papelbon would be more valuable on another team because he would be used better? Like who. (Whom?).

FFS.

sabr people aren't good at valuing relievers or understanding how they are used.

I think the point is that if you're just gonna use a guy in the 9th inning of a game you're probably gonna win anyway you shouldn't pay him $13 million. Papelbon is one of the best in the game at doing that job but he's not so much better than everyone else that you should jump at the chance to pay him a ton of money to do it. "closer" is just not as important a job as it's made out to be. Valverde had a "perfect season" last year and he sucks.

as for Craig Kimbrel, he made 590k last year so the Braves can use him however they damn well please. Papelbon was used like a typical closer. to be worth 13 million he needs to do more than that and Charlie's never going to make him

Your point is a good one.

That is not the point Keri was making. He wrote that Manuel did not use Papelbon correctly and other managers are better than he at using their closer. I think that is TFBS. Kimbrel was one example because he was awesome last year. I don't care how much money he makes. He still was used the way he was used-- less effectively than even Manuel used Paps.

Also, yes Valverde was real good,last year. And other clowns are real good in other years. But Papelbon is real good every year, year after year. It's valuable to not have to play closer roulette every year. Papelbon has reduced the need for his teams to have to do that to zero for many years now. Every year, some teams never do solve their closer problem and lose a lot of games in the process. I've seen the Mariners do it quite often.

While I agree that spending big money on a closer may not be the best move ever, it's not totally terrible. Papelbon must continue to be great/near great for him to be worth his contract. And he can go blooey at any time. But he has been one of the better bets to be a great pitcher for many years in a row now. And that is not all that common. Especially with reliefers.

Grotewold wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:

td11 wrote:but an equally valid point can be made that finding cheap, elite relievers who can close are really really hard to find. guys have a very high flameout rate as closer.

But do you really need "elite"?

Jim Johnson, Fernando Rodney, Tom Wilsenheim, Santiago Casillia, JJ Putz, Grant Balfour, Casey Janssen. These guys aren't elite. But they were fine. There are scores of other relievers out there that can close if you put them in the 9th inning.

Does that apply to all max-payroll, championship-aspiring teams, or just the Phillies (for whom that was the case going into last year)?

That's the part I'm not getting here.

It all depends on your payroll flexibility. If you have a $180m budget, but only a $90m payroll, and your a 90 win team at $90m, by all means go spend on a closer.

If you have a $180m budget and a $170m payroll such that you can only afford crap players for your OF, then you should have seen that coming, planned accordingly, and not given out the largest relief pitcher contract of all time.

I guess I'm saying $15m closers are a luxury that should only be purchased when the house is in pristine shape and you have alot saved away for a rainy day.

Buying Papelbon is like buying this sweet outdoor grill/kitchen setup while there's a hole in the bedroom ceiling and the basement rotting from too much flooding.

td11 wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:

td11 wrote:but an equally valid point can be made that finding cheap, elite relievers who can close are really really hard to find. guys have a very high flameout rate as closer.

But do you really need "elite"?

Jim Johnson, Fernando Rodney, Tom Wilsenheim, Santiago Casillia, JJ Putz, Grant Balfour, Casey Janssen. These guys aren't elite. But they were fine. There are scores of other relievers out there that can close if you put them in the 9th inning.

Papelbon is certainly better, but you're paying exponentially more for marginally more value.

Fair enough but I don't think you can say the phils didn't try to use cheaper options before pap... Contreras, chan ho, madson, etc. It's because of those guys' inconsistency that amaro went after pap. I mean, pap's #s were right behind mo's when he signed so were Yankees paying exponentially more for marginally more value, especially when they had both soriano and robertson. Robertson sucked as closer when mo got hurt, too

Idk for every cheap closer success story there are 5 failed attempts.

But that's always the case regardless of how much you're paying your closer. Papelbon could have easily flamed out last year, and maybe the Phils got lucky he didn't. As it stands, he pitched 70 innings and was 24th among qualifying relievers in FIP. That's good but it's not elite. I understand this comes across as hindsight but the point is that relievers are volatile by rule.

It does make sense that a team with championship aspirations lock down an elite reliever if they can get one, but usually the teams that have championship aspirations have them in large part because they're getting good relievers at bargains, not spending a ton of money on them.

You mentioned the Yankees spending a ton of money, which is a fair point, but Cashman didn't even want Soriano and was undercut by his boss on that signing. Robertson had a tough run as a closer but he was very good on the season and he only made $1.6 million last year. He was arguably better than Papelbon on the season.

The Phillies would look a whole lot better if their bargain players had come through last year, but they didn't and it blew up in their faces. But that's the point--even signing an elite closer couldn't save them.

Trent Steele wrote:I guess I'm saying $15m closers are a luxury that should only be purchased when the house is in pristine shape and you have alot saved away for a rainy day.

Buying Papelbon is like buying this sweet outdoor grill/kitchen setup while there's a hole in the bedroom ceiling and the basement rotting from too much flooding.

Good point. But the team that signed him was coming off of a 102 win season and were favored to win another division title and compete for the WFS.

smitty wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:I guess I'm saying $15m closers are a luxury that should only be purchased when the house is in pristine shape and you have alot saved away for a rainy day.

Buying Papelbon is like buying this sweet outdoor grill/kitchen setup while there's a hole in the bedroom ceiling and the basement rotting from too much flooding.

Good point. But the team that signed him was coming off of a 102 win season and were favored to win another division title and compete for the WFS.

Fair. But you had to have been blind not to see that things were going to come to a head quickly. The payroll was close to max and Hamels needed to be extended. Vic was a FA. Pence was a $15m player. Polanco wasn't coming back. Howard tore his achilles. Utley missed half the season in 2011.

If you're going "all in" in 2012, that's all good with me, but there's a price to be paid.

Trent Steele wrote:

smitty wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:I guess I'm saying $15m closers are a luxury that should only be purchased when the house is in pristine shape and you have alot saved away for a rainy day.

Buying Papelbon is like buying this sweet outdoor grill/kitchen setup while there's a hole in the bedroom ceiling and the basement rotting from too much flooding.

Good point. But the team that signed him was coming off of a 102 win season and were favored to win another division title and compete for the WFS.

Fair. But you had to have been blind not to see that things were going to come to a head quickly. The payroll was close to max and Hamels needed to be extended. Vic was a FA. Pence was a $15m player. Polanco wasn't coming back. Howard tore his achilles. Utley missed half the season in 2011.

If you're going "all in" in 2012, that's all good with me, but there's a price to be paid.

I agree. They went all in. It's what everyone wanted them to do I'd guess. I need to look at last season's off season thread again. Pretty sure most of us were predicting 95 wins or more. We didn't think Utley was gonna miss any time. Howard was supposed to be back in April. Pence looked great as a Phil in '11. Vic was looking fairly awesome. We had the Aces.

I think the above was the exact type team that should sign a Papelbon. He certainly worked out a helluva lot better than Madson would have or Contreras or Qualls or Bastardo did.

Barry Jive wrote:
You mentioned the Yankees spending a ton of money, which is a fair point, but Cashman didn't even want Soriano and was undercut by his boss on that signing. Robertson had a tough run as a closer but he was very good on the season and he only made $1.6 million last year. He was arguably better than Papelbon on the season.

The Phillies would look a whole lot better if their bargain players had come through last year, but they didn't and it blew up in their faces. But that's the point--even signing an elite closer couldn't save them.

i think your last point is a great one, and yet the brandon league got whatever absurd deal he got this off season. but along those lines, signing an elite closer does mitigate the risk of handing over (arguably) your highest leverage innings to a kid and/or bum. i think having pap let them feel comfortable about letting a bunch of the young arms find their way last year. without pap, maybe they end up signing up a bunch of qualls/gregg/durbin types idk.

i agree that robertson had a better year than pap on paper, but most of that success came in the 8th inning (44.2IP, 1.61 ERA, and a 0.576 OPS against) and not the 9th (11.1 IP, 5.56 ERA, .790 OPS against). the 9th inning save situation is a different beast, imo.

also, trent-- to your point about do we really "need" elite-- being the phillies, don't we? the entire team is built around pitching, they want an elite guy at the end.

i feel like there are certain positions and roles that the phillies place great emphasis on and closer is one of them (wagner, gordon, moving myers from SP, lidge, pap).

Plus, when Chuck doesn't have a good closer his head kinda explodes. He doesn't much like reliefers anyway. At least with Paps, he can relax a little.

you're going off 11 innings, man. ninth inning schminth inning.

anyway that's a good point about the closer thing, but I feel like that's because Charlie stinks at bullpen management and needs a guy he thinks he can trust as a security blanket.

Barry Jive wrote:anyway that's a good point about the closer thing, but I feel like that's because Charlie stinks at bullpen management and needs a guy he thinks he can trust as a security blanket.

def agree there, cholly loves having one guy, always had.

but i def remember robertson getting handed the 9th inning keys after mo's injury and he blew like 3 or 4 games. i'm not gonna look that up right now because arnette moultrie

Barry Jive wrote:you're going off 11 innings, man. ninth inning schminth inning.

career:

8th inning-- 126 IP, 1.86 ERA, .556 OPS against
9th inning-- 42 IP, 4.29 ERA, .817 OPS against

1 wrote:young
young
poo

They can loop this, like "We WIll Rock You"

Barry Jive wrote:anyway that's a good point about the closer thing, but I feel like that's because Charlie stinks at bullpen management and needs a guy he thinks he can trust as a security blanket.

Which makes him exactly like pretty much every other manager in MLB I believe.

are you trying to tell me you watch the games, td

he had a blown save+loss on May 9, June 28 and July 2 last year. for his career in save situations he's 1-5 with 5 saves and a 1.75 ERA in 87 2/3 IP, OPS against of .610. but that includes save situations where he's probably coming out for Rivera in the 9th anyway. in late and close situations (7th inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck) he's got an OPS against of .583. in high leverage situations he's got an OPS against of .586. he's pitched 42 ninth-inning IP and has an ERA of 4.29 in them with an OPS against of .817.

you beat me to it but i'm gonna go with those bigger high-leverage samples over 42 innings spread over his age 23-27 seasons

Barry Jive wrote:anyway that's a good point about the closer thing, but I feel like that's because Charlie stinks at bullpen management and needs a guy he thinks he can trust as a security blanket.

I mean, what are we really talking about here? Using Pap in the 8th inning a little more, or demoting him after few bad games (which, in 2015, would void that "easily reachable" option)?

That's Kheri's primary justification for an excellent player having one of the worst contracts?

Manuel's terrible usage worked out OK in 2008, got us right to the finish line in 2009, and wasn't an issue the next few years. And putting a premium on bullpen certainty and fixed roles has worked out pretty well for the Giants.

i haven't been talking about Keri since maybe the second or third post of this discussion

re: Charlie's bullpen managment, it worked in 2008. if you want to call giving Brad Lidge the 10th-most games finished in the majors with an ERA over 7 "getting us right to the finish line" en route a blown save in the World Series, fine

Barry Jive wrote:i haven't been talking about Keri since maybe the second or third post of this discussion

My bad, I got confused about which angle of the Papelbon thing was being discussed. But I don't know that it's fair to call Manuel and the Phillies out for employing the approach that almost every other team employs