Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: of rants and rumors; a ready market
Stuffing that Strawman
In short, Ballou thinks closers don’t represent real pitchers and as such, are trumped up far too much in the sport.
In particular, he hates the ‘Save’ stat… he believes they are far too easy to get. His exhibit A argument is this:
"[Craig] Kimbrel, of course, was the Red Sox’ closer last year, and his performance in the postseason was an abomination. When he pitched, Boston’s victories felt like defeats. In 10-2/3 innings he had an ERA of 5.90, and permitted 19 baserunners. He was also 6 for 6 converting saves — a perfect record."
First off, that’s one isolated incident – explained away by the fact that Kimbrel was tipping his pitches… which Ballou clearly was aware of.
Second off, this strawman argument has nothing whatsoever to do with Mariano Rivera, who compiled this post-season record:
- 32 series
- 16 years
- 0.70 ERA (0.99 in the World Series)
- 42 saves in 96 games… gee, I thought Saves were EASY to get, Bill.
- Maybe he prefers Wins: 8-1 in the post-season
- 527 batters faced
- 0.759 WHIP
Oh, and with 141 innings in 96 games, Rivera was clearly being used often in situations where more than 3 outs were required… another one of Ballou’s arguments.
There it gets weird
Since he could find any more baseball reasons for excluding Rivera, Ballou turned to singular bad examples from football (a kicker) and a goalie from the old American Hockey League (the lesser sister of the NHL).
If you’re gonna try to convince us, Bill, then please at least don’t try to insult our intelligence… stick with the same sport.
Bill, you know baseball players. You know who to ask about end-of-game scenarios. You know that increasingly, starting pitchers have been excluded from going the distance (heck, they’re now pulled at the first hint of trouble in the playoffs).
You know that teams give up tens of millions of dollars to get the best closer they can find. You know that the best teams standing at the end of the year almost always have a shutdown closer.
Overrated? Either all of baseball is wrong, Bill… or you are.
Not Inconsistent
In case you’re interested (I was), Ballou’s 2018 ballot was turned in and it contained these names:
His 2017 ballot included: Bonds, Clemens, Guerrero, Ramirez, and Jeff Bagwell.
No Trevor Hoffman, no Billy Wagner. His logic is terrible, but at least he’s consistent: here’s what he wrote in 2016 (announcing the results just noted) on that subject:
"I think closers are terribly overrated and judging from how he used his bullpen during the playoffs, so does Terry Francona."
At least Ballou is retiring. Too late for Fred McGriff, but he needed a lot more help anyway.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of Ballou’s out there… and those writers do hurt guys like McGriff… and Wagner… and Murphy in days’ past… and Andrew Jones right now.
Rant over. Let’s talk about trades and rumors of trades. That’s more fun anyway.