A Closer Look - Week #2
If you had Brad Lidge in your Closer Death Pool you cashed a check this week but you may have been only days ahead of Jorge Julio in Florida.
Manager Fredi Gonzalez has blown right past the "vote of confidence"phase in dealing with the Marlins' closer situation and he's already talking about "what's best for the team"... all in the space of a couple of days.
Julio has never been the classic shut-down closer although his 8.57 career K/9 makes you want to think so. A career 1.41 WHIP combined with a 1.30 HR/9 makes him a little bit more flammable than most managers would find comfortable. He sits this morning with 2 blown saves in 5 appearances without a conversion. He's given up 11 hits in 4.2 IP and opponents are hitting .647 off of him with a 1.672 OPS ... Yikes.
Unless there is a very quick turnaround here, Gonzalez will be forced to remove Julio, at least temporarily. Henry Owens and the recently activated Taylor Tankersley are the most probable alternatives.
Tankersley is the consensus closer in waiting but he's failed to control his baserunners. He posted a 1.44 WHIP last year in 41 IP over 49 appearances, due mainly to a 5.4/9 walk rate. Unacceptable. He walked 4.4/9 in the minors last year so this isn't rookie jitters, this is serious command issues.
Taylor's 10.1 K/9 (12.7 in the minors in 2006) shows why he's a candidate here as well as his .228 OBA, but unless/until he limits his walks more effectively it will be hard for him to nail down a closing job. This is the whole reason the Marlins traded for Julio in the first place. If you have enough depth on your roster Tankersley would be a good reliever to have as a developing closer, but there's no evidence he's ready now.
Owens has been effective in his first 6 appearances this year, including converting his first opp. not allowing a run in 7 IP. He's allowed just 2 hits while walking 3 (0.71) and striking out 2. Last year in AA Binghamton Owens struck out 74 in 40 IP while walking just 10 (16.6 K/9!). Last year in AA Owens collected 20 saves which is the same number of hits he allowed (0.67 WHIP). Those are the numbers you look for in a closer candidate but he will have to prove he can approximate those numbers more closely in the majors before he starts to truly pressure Julio by virtue of his performance. The rub in Florida however is that Julio is very adept at pressuring himself with his own performance.
In Houston of course Dan Wheeler officially took over for Brad Lidge as the teams closer on Monday. Dan's peripherals suggest he's up to the task. He carries a career K/9 of 7.77, posting something close to 8.5 in each of the last two seasons over 144.1 IP with WHIPs of 0.98 and 1.15 respectively. He limits homeruns (0.86/9 and 0.63/9 the last two seasons) and walks (2.33/9 and 3.03/9) and has held opponents to OBAS of .204 and .224 in 05 and 06.
There are a couple of concerns. He's had strand percentages of 87.4% and 80.5% the last two seasons and while he's been consistently above the league average of 70% in his career, he's never been this far over until now. He has upped his game the past two years and that strand % may be indicative of a new performance level, but he may also be enjoying some good fortune with baserunners. His GB/FB is also consistently under 1.00, which isn't unusual with power pitchers, but it's not ideal either.
Wheeler seems to have the skill set to do the job and could certainly handle the role of permanent primary closer, but this still feels like a temporary situation to me. Lidge has the stuff he just needs to get his act together. The issue is whether that can happen in Houston at this point. It would seem inevitable that the Astros move him, but it would be foolish to do that after permanently demoting him and undermining his value. They would be better served working him back towards the ninth inning, letting him post some successful conversions (and hoping someone's closer goes down in the meantime) and selling him high at that point, then turning the job over to Wheeler permanently.
Either way Wheeler is a legitimate claim at this point.
