On my way home from work these days I’m listening to The Dan Le Batard Show. I’m not a big fan of Le Batard, but they replaced the local show on our sports talk station when both hosts found other jobs over the summer. On Fridays they have a segment with Tim Kurkjian and they do a rapid fire of questions from callers for him. Tonight he was asked who he would select for the fourth rotation spot in the Cardinals’ postseason rotation: John Lackey or Michael Wacha.
Kurkjian was quick to answer that he’d take Lackey. Explaining that Wacha hasn’t looked good and pushing someone back off the DL was going to be a tall task. He also added that he expected Wacha to not even be on the roster.
Of course, I tweeted it. I meant to tweet a comment of Kurkjian’s last week when someone asked him if there was any better defensive outfielder than Jason Heyward. To which Kurkjian responded, nobody in the National League. Mr. Kurkjian, I have a Mr. Bourjos on line one.
But anyway, back to Wacha, our beloved leader tweeted back at me, in a little discussion about my bandwagon to make Wacha the closer that Rosenthal hasn’t struggled as much as Salas and Mujica did.
@JonDoble @jscherretz Yep but Rosenthal hasn't reached level of ineptitude that Izzy (injury), Salas (2011 was in flux a lot) and Mujica.
— Cardinal70 (@C70) September 19, 2014
Whoa, I said. Actually, yes he has. And perhaps arguably, even more.
For the sake of this discussion we’re going to limit the statistics from the All Star Break of the particular season until the pitcher was removed from the closer’s role. We’re not going to talk about 2006 because that was more due to injury.
So looking at Fernando Salas in 2011, he got his last save before Jason Motte started taking them all on August 30th, but Motte was the setup guy for Salas’ save that night. So we’ll use Motte’s next save on September 3rd as the cut off. To that point, Salas had a 2.61 ERA and 1.06 WHIP over 19 appearances and converted 7 of 10 save opportunities. He had a 9.2 K/9 to go with a 3.0 BB/9 to go with his 6.5 H/9.
Ironically, Tony La Russa is praised for this decision despite Motte posting a 5.11 ERA through the end of the regular season. Postseason results trumps all, I guess.
Moving on to Edward Mujica in 2013. Trevor Rosenthal took the closer’s role for the first time on September 23rd, which we’ll use as the cutoff as Rosenthal scored three straight saves in a series against the Nationals. Mujica posted a 3.13 ERA and 1.39 WHIP over 22 appearances and converted 11 of 13 saves. He had a 4.7 K/9 to go with a 1.2 BB/9 and 11.3 H/9.
To be far to Mujica, he was struggling with arm issues during this time. Potentially due to overuse.
And finally we reach Trevor Rosenthal in 2014. He has posted a 2.84 ERA and 1.46 WHIP over 27 appearances and converted 16 of 18 saves. Rosenthal had a 10.7 K/9 to go with a 5.3 BB/9 and a 7.8 H/9.
Salas had clearly the best numbers off all the closers at the point he was replaced. Mujica and Rosenthal are left to battle for second best. His ERA is better, but at the same time, you can give some credit to a Cardinals’ defense which is light years better this year than it was last year for some of Rosenthal’s failures not scoring. Mujica was also pitching through injury.
Is Rosenthal pitching through injury? Nobody’s spoken a word of it yet, if so.
But my point in saying this is that there was a point reached in each of those seasons where the manager decided they had squeezed all the saves they could out of a closer and that it was time to use someone else. I think we’re reaching that point with Rosenthal.
Matheny won’t consider pulling the trigger to replace Rosenthal mainly because of his pursuit of the franchise saves record. If he did pull Rosenthal from the closer’s role at this position, he could potentially create a bigger problem than we currently have. Plus, if Rosenthal gets the job done, however ugly, in the postseason while his replacement doesn’t, things could get bad for Matheny very fast.
It’s the kind of sticking your neck out that managers just don’t do very often.
