2010: A Papelbon Reality Check
The first week of baseball comes to an end tomorrow and who am I to freak out over the fact that Edgar Rentaria is the most dominant Shortstop in the game? No, I will not give you Mark Teixeira for Placido Polanco or Vernon Wells. Carlos Zambrano will hold a starting job in my fantasy rotation, and no I will not give up on Big Papi. I am a Red Sox fan, and I personally see upside to any player who can hit 25 homeruns and get 90 RBI in the second half of the season. I hope for the sake of the team that they utilize Mike Lowell against leftys while Mr. Ortiz warms up.
I also see a problem much larger than Papi’s slowed bat speed. His name is Jonathan Papelbon, and while all of you believe in his “elite” numbers, I see a closer with one pitch who has a bad attitude and no room for improvement. Sure, the guy had an ERA of 1.85 last season. Elite. His whip was above average at 1.15. He struck out over a batter per inning. Elite.
Something was wrong. I noticed myself going from a sigh of relief when Paps took the mound, to a feeling of anxiety as I watched pitch after pitch, a walk here and a full count there. What used to be 15 pitches, and a dominant fast ball has turned into 30 pitch sagas.
I know, I should not worry about one game. One blown save. I mean he only had 3 all last year right? Should I worry that he was supposed to be working on new pitches this off season but threw 37 fastballs out of 38 pitches? Should we be of any concern that he has blown two of his last three save opportunities? Or that he walked 8 batters in 08 and 24 in 09?
Consensus is “NO”. Quit being so hard on Papelbon, he is obviously a top 3 closer. He had 38 saves last year. Only blew 3. One of the most reliable closers in baseball, they tell me. Is a strand rate of 89% normal? Maybe that is why his ERA and WHIP look so good. Personally, I thought he looked his best in 2008, but the numbers would not necessarily back me up on that. His ERA was 2.35 in 08 vs the “elite” 1.85 in 09 but the guy struck out 9 batters for every batter he walked. And since his strand rate was 69% instead of 89%, more runs happened to score.
His Command is way above average, SUPER, superb, excellent…Elite. Well, I guess it doesn’t matter how straight you can throw a fastball when the batter knows what is coming. Granderson was the first batter to ever get two homeruns off Papelbon? May be the first but will not be the last.
ETCH that one into your kitchen table.
Papelbon is young, and by no means am I saying he couldn’t develop some sick new slider, or change-up. We won’t see that in 2010. We won’t see it in a Red Sox uniform. Sorry, Red Sox nation, We have seen the best we are going to get from Jonathan Papelbon. His ego has taken over and it won’t be long until we all see the effects of poor work ethics and no desire for improvement.
It wasn’t too long ago that Papelbon stated he would raise the salary bar for closers.
I scoff at that thought.