So, you think there's no difference between coming in for 8th inning situations vs. being the every-game 9th inning guy? Since TLR popularized the 1-inning save/closer, we've seen scores of examples of guys who succeeded in the 8th but faltered, or weren't as effective, when they were the 9th inning guy. Hell, even Gregerson's stats last season were worse than his career numbers. Merely responding to your concerns that this bullpen might not be that improved by a guy who is relatively unproven. Giles has 9th inning regular closer experience... moreso than Gregerson had going into last year. You say I made up a narrative... then you post all of this. Unless Giles is injured or decides to go off the deep end and alienate himself from the clubhouse due to his attitude.... he's the odds on favorite to be the closer. I'd take your bet in a second... but something tells me you wouldn't actually wager anything of significance (and then say something about how I'm nit-picking the narrative to imply that you'd bet against Giles). Also, Gregerson is being paid market value for a veteran setup/back end bullpen guy... not closer money. Sipp's contract is basically in line with this as well.
Looking back to the 2013 save leaders, it seams there are scores of examples of 9th inning guys faltering at being 9th inning guys in the future.
Those are bbref's parameters; not mine. Curious what narrative you think I've made up and applied to you?... Likely true, and not what I'm suggesting - though rereading, I was more vague than I intended. I think Gregerson will be default closer at the start of spring training and it'll be his job to lose. We've seen Hinch be both player-friendly and patient; I'd be very surprised if he made the move ahead of actual game play.
That would be excessively dumb... I'd be very surprised if their strategy was to basically wait for Gregerson to fail or be ineffective before putting the guy with better stuff as the closer. This is not a move that requires patience... you put the K pitcher as the closer. They may never come out and say it because they tend to come off as non-committal to the media... but you don't give up that much to make a guy a setup guy. Meanwhile, Gregerson is being paid Sipp money... or setup man money. Its what he's been the majority of his career, and his numbers show that he's better at that vs. being a closer (whereas Giles, in his 2 year career, shows less of a drop-off from the 8th to the 9th).
I love the way the bullpen should fall into place. Sipp is probably my guy coming out of the pen, but Neshek, Gregorson, Giles is a great 7,8,9th. We know Gregorson is a better 8th inning guy than 9th inning.
Yeah you have to make the switch. I'm sure Gregerson doesn't mind sliding to the 8th anyway. You don't make that big of a splash and then make Giles your set up guy.
Yea no doubt Giles should be the man I don't think Gregerson will necessarily be happy about it, I mean getting 30+ saves comes in handy when negotiating the next contract But he has been a great set up man before and I'm sure that is where Luhnow will have him
Gregerson has a bonus clause in his contract re: number of games he finishes. I'd imagine the Astros will renegotiate that to keep him happy. I can also definitely see situations where Hinch would want to use Giles before Gregerson. Nice to have that option.
Gregerson wasn't signed as the closer originally (he was in competition with Neshek), so I don't know that they actually will.
