POLL: Who Do You Want As Your Closer in 2009?

[The Wedge]

Astonishing! Mystifying! Electrofying!

[Since'54]

I know in some sports (most notably, American Football) they said you should never lose your job to injury. Is baseball one of those sports?

Tell that to George Shaw (replaced by Unitas) and Drew Bledsoe (replaced by Tom Brady

[Old#5fan]

Astonishing! Mystifying! Electrofying!

Well, I was wrong about Luke Scott and the majority here were right, although I was right about Tejada. Anyway, I hope I am wrong about Ray being the second coming of Julio. I hope he regains his earlier form before he lost it just prior to his injury.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I wholeheartedly agree with you, but an astonishing 68% of the poll voters do not. I must admit this really mystifies me. Maybe some folks have a short memory of how unreliable Ray was against the Sox. I think they got into his head. I don't think Sherrill has this problem at all.

You must not wear pants on Super Tuesday.

[Crazysilver03]

I wholeheartedly agree with you, but an astonishing 68% of the poll voters do not. I must admit this really mystifies me. Maybe some folks have a short memory of how unreliable Ray was against the Sox. I think they got into his head. I don't think Sherrill has this problem at all.

It was two games in 2007, that hardly counts as being "unreliable." And please dont try to use your logic to generalize to the majority of OH posters.

[BaltimoreTerp]

As a side note, whenever Oldfan comes into a thread, anyone else have this flash before their eyes?

[elsid]

Sherrill was voted in by the players, probably due simply to his flashy save total (I believe he was leading the league at the time, but also leading the league in blown saves and had a high ERA for a closer... in other words, he'd gotten lucky in the opportunity department). If it had been up to the manager to choose an Oriole, he should have gone with Roberts who was leading the AL in both doubles and triples, Markakis or Huff who were on the leader board in multiple categories, or even Johnson who was pitching better than Sherrill albeit under less pressure or Guthrie who was singlehandedly holding together our miserable starting rotation. But since the players had already voted for Sherrill, there was no need for the manager to assess which Oriole was really most deserving.

Not that it totally matters, but the players did not vote Sherrill in. He was asked to be the Orioles representative by Terry Francona, the Boston Red Sox manager and the manager of the AL All-Star Team.

I won't argue the rest of your points, as I did that months ago.

[Mackus]

I went with Sherrill.

He did fine last year, and until Ray comes back healthy, or Liz proves he can get anybody out, you've gotta go with Sherrill. I also think if you put him in the role and he has another 1st half like he did last year, that his trade value will be at a very high level.

[DrungoHazewood]

I know in some sports (most notably, American Football) they said you should never lose your job to injury. Is baseball one of those sports?

Good lord, let's hope not. Give the job to whoever does it best. Did the Yanks give Wally Pipp his job back? Should they have?

[TGO]

I think the answer to this question is, "it depends."

I would rather see us go without a closer and run the bullpen in a totally different way, which I have talked about several times before. The bullpen would ideally be run by accounting for leverage, situations, and recent performance, and I would try to decrease the number of appearances while increasing the number of innings.

Drungo may have discussed this already. I haven't read most of the thread.

Assuming we're going to go with the standard, modern inning-role-oriented bullpen, I guess I would choose Sherrill and try to inflate his value before the deadline.

[Bosibus]

I like Sherrill in the setup role and Ray in the 9th.

Closer by committee anyone?

[Sanfran327]

I definitely don't want Sherrill because I hope he will have been dealt by opening day. I love Sherrill, but he's more valuable to us as a trade piece.

Again, I don't see how this logic is useful. It's the same as the Roberts vs. SS thing we have been discussing. It really irks me when people say, "if we get Furcal, we can trade Roberts!" and things like that because if you're trying to make yourself better, why would you trade off contributing memebers of your team? Sherrill isn't a closer, but he was thrown into that role last year and was pretty successful. I think his luck kinda ran out, but he had a ton of saves in the first half and was our lone All Star. Trading GS means we have another hole to fill in the bullpen. Walker may not come back very well next year. He's certainly not a go-to guy anymore. Sherrill is, and combined with JJ and Ray, we have a very formidable 'pen for the 8th and 9th innings.

If you think Sherrill is going to bring back some huge bounty of players, you're mistaken. I don't see it at all. I think trading him is a mistake, but so is letting him continue as our closer.

[Frobby]

At the time the all-star team was selected, Sherrill was a decent choice for the selection. However, he really wasn't effective after mid-June. From June 14 until the end of the season, Sherrill posted a 7.23 ERA in 26 appearances. I don't think he's really suited to pitch 70+ innings a year and he's not very effective against RH batters. While I think he has a good disposition for being a closer (which is half the battle), he's truly dominant when used in more of a specialist role and so I'd prefer to put him in the role where he'll be dominant to the one where he'll be OK.

Now with that said, we'll have to see how Ray's arm is following his surgery and rehab.

[Maverick2143]

I said Ray, but after a little investigation I could go either way. Sherrill's stats last year don't really show what a good year he had as a closer.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=sherrge01&year=2008

I Split         G   GS GF  W  L  S CG SHO   IP    ERA   H   R   ER HR  BB IBB  SO HBP+-+------------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+-----+------+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+  in Sv Situ    37   0 34  1  2 31  0   0  35.2   3.03  26  12  12  5  16   3  32   1   in non-Sv     20   0 15  2  3  0  0   0  17.2   8.15  21  16  16  1  17   3  26   0

But Ray's 2006 stats are even better.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=raych01&year=2006

I Split         G   GS GF  W  L  S CG SHO   IP    ERA   H   R   ER HR  BB IBB  SO HBP+-+------------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+-----+------+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+  in Sv Situ    38   0 35  1  1 33  0   0  43     2.30  30  12  11  6  17   2  34   0   in non-Sv     23   0 21  3  3  0  0   0  23     3.52  15  10   9  4  10   0  17   1 

2007's aren't too bad either when you compare his Actual Saves vs. Save Situation stats. Looks like he had 4 bad outings that really skewed his overall stats. Take away those 1.2 innings and Ray's ERA drops from 4.43 to 2.16.

 I Split         G   GS GF  W  L  S CG SHO   IP    ERA   H   R   ER HR  BB IBB  SO HBP+-+------------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+-----+------+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+  in Saves      16   0 16  0  0 16  0   0  16.1   0.55   4   1   1  0   6   0  21   0   in Sv Situ    20   0 19  0  4 16  0   0  18     6.00  12  13  12  3  11   2  23   1   in non-Sv     23   0 18  5  2  0  0   0  24.2   3.28  23   9   9  2   7   0  21   1 

End of the day I think we have 3 solid closer's in JJ, Ray, & Sherrill and I could live with any combination of the three (preferably all 3 in a flexable non-traditional BP, but thats another discussion).

[Old#5fan]

I honestly don't see what is so bad about this thread to warrant it receiving only two stars? It is a very debatable and important topic and has had a lot of responses. Can anyone explain why someone would be bashing it?