closers Stories - Amazin' Avenue
To Hate Like This: Armando Benitez
Whether it's true or not, Mets fans like to think they have the lion's share of Closer Trauma. In the 25 years or so since major league teams decided the ninth inning is a sacred frame, all the men who've handled that inning for the Mets have driven their fans completely bonkers. I imagine many...
The Mets Killers Team: Closers
For a full explanation of this little project, see my introductory post here. The Reader's Digest version: I'm working on a piece for the upcoming Amazin Avenue Annual about an imaginary team made up solely of Mets Killers, to see how such a team would fare when forced to play a full...
The Curious Case of Bobby Jenks
He may not be aging in reverse, but Bobby Jenks might be the unlikliest of smart pitchers in baseball. A former HS dropout, Jenks was waived by the Angels essentially for being immature. 10 months after he was let go, he burst onto the national stage in the playoffs by blowing away batters with 100...
What Signing Francisco Rodriguez Means For The Mets
Year K/9 FIP FBvel Miss% 2005 12.16 3.09 93.3 30.0% 2006 12.08 2.72 94.8 31.8% 2007 12.03 2.70 93.6 33.9% 2008 10.14 3.22 91.9 30.7% FBvel = average fastball velocityMiss% = swing-and-miss...
The Mets and the Closer Market
On the whole, the closer market seems to be echoing its Wall Street counterparts, as the prospective cost of high-end commodities has been dropping by the day. Francisco Rodriguez may have scared off potential suitors when it was leaked that he'd be looking for a five-year deal this winter, which...
Fantasy Baseball: NL Closers
Of all players drafted on a roto/fantasy baseball team, the closer spot has more volatility than a day of trading at the NYSE...well....not in the past month or so. History has shown that he who starts the season as closer has a very good chance at losing that spot by the end of the season. Here...
What Will The Mets Do Without Billy Wagner?
So, yea, this happened. Billy Wagner will undergo left elbow surgery and miss not only the remainder of the 2008 season, but most-if-not-all of the 2009 season. I think most of us were prepared for the former; Wagner had been showing some signs of progress in the days leading up to his most recent...
Closer BABIPs
BABIP is a stat becoming more and more accepted as a signal for pitchers whose WHIP and ERA are due for a fall or rise depending on an unusually low or high BABIP. This appears most applicable to starting pitchers due to the large number of innings pitched and opportunities for their BABIPs to...
Chris Perez Could Close in St. Louis
It's possible that there could be a new closer in St. Louis come next week following Jason Isringhausen blowing another save last night, and as he put it "[P]itched like a second grader." With a meeting today with members of the Cardinal brain trust it seems possible that minor leaguer Chris Perez...
Street on Fire
Reports indicate that Billy Beane would like to lock down Huston Street. Why is the move so un-Beane-like and why does it make sense for the A's? When Billy Beane took over as general manager of the Oakland Athletics he inherited 35 year old Billy Taylor as closer. Taylor had 18 saves, including 17...
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