They may - but Keuchel and CHARLIEMORTON! are both done at the end of '18. If they can manage McHugh (who might not be thrilled with a demotion to the pen/spot starts), I think they'd lean keeping him. Now, if some of the younger arms develop over the first half of '18, I think McHugh being dealt during the season makes sense.
Giles was scary because he, at least seemingly, never had clean performances, often times it felt pretty nerve racking.. if Giles had a 3 up 3 down inning it felt rare... and then he was a total and complete disaster in the post-season...you can say, "well thats just one post-season" - well how many post-seasons of a championship window can you afford to give him to figure it out?
Of Giles 63 regular season games, he pitched 28 in which he faced the minimum number of hitters in his appearance.
I feel the same way, but basically this is true of nearly every closer because they are being used in high leverage situations every time out.
I see where you are coming from. I think closers are the easiest targets to criticize. I'm not saying that your concerns are not warranted, but I personally put more stock in if he got the job done. He was 34 out of 38 in save opportunities, for a save percentage of 89.5%. I've love for that to be a few ticks higher, but Craig Kimbrel was at 89.7, and my hope is for Giles to be a younger, cheaper version of Kimbrel. I cannot attest to how many Kimbrel saves were clean though. Also, this is slightly off-topic, and I've been meaning to say this for a while, but never found a good place for it, but.... Ken Giles = PC Principal
Listen..I love you to death. But this guy against the A's is just fine. But when you turn on the lights..and you turn 'em bright...you can read it in this guy's body language. You can too, right? I'm not a wizard, but I can see it. He doesn't just give up hits..he throws wild pitches..he leaves them fat in the zone. And he looks terrified! His mental makeup is fine for a Wednesday evening game against a team that ain't great. But he terrifies the eff out of me when I watch him come in really big moments. I think this team is gonna have lots of really big moments over the next few seasons. If they can find an alternative to the guy that they have already acknowledged they can't trust those moments to, I'd be cool with it.
Yeah, that is just a fan driven preconceived idea about Giles, there was little in the way of actual evidence to criticize his regular season performance. Not much I can say to defend his catastrophe of a postseason, but there was nothing about his regular season that suggested this was coming, he was great. The "look in his eyes" BS doesn't fly with me.
Whoa...all I did was post an answer to what HTM posted. I don’t even know how that percentage even compares to other closers. Looking over the course of the regular season his results were certainly top 10, but compared to seasoned closers, he doesn’t have that ‘swagger’. Hopefully he’ll grow into that as he progresses.
Maybe I'm off, and lord knows I'm usually wrong, but I'd take Musgrove over Rondon. Not excited about that signing -- all I remember him doing is blowing saves for the Cubs.
As a Pirates fan, if I have to lose Gerrit I'd rather see him go to you guys than the Yankees. If you guys add Cole, you basically have every member of our rotation from our very brief pocket of relevancy. At least I could continue to cheer for you guys as a second team, as opposed to the Yankees - a team that embodies everything I hate about baseball (a team that's also been lowballing the Pirates in Cole trade talks, to boot). Astros or bust. Love, The bitter Pirates fan
I too am a Pirates fan, but I also follow the Astros very closely and don't want them to do something stupid here. Gerrit Cole is not that good. Throws hard & really competes, but he's not great. Allows far too much hard contact for a guy with a 97 MPH fastball. Cole for Fisher, Martes, and another piece or two would be fair. The Astros would be fools to include Tucker or Whitley in any deal for Cole - he's just not good enough to warrant it.
