And THAT right there is the problem... burn your closer in a non-save situation, hell even allow him to invite the opponent to score more runs.... smh He should be used in SAVE-ONLY, shut-it-down, situations. There's no reason for him to "appear" more than necessary... especially 40% more than necessary. I could understand 9-of-48 in non-save, but whether its Jim, Dana, Josh, Joe or a combination of those 4, the onus & burden is on them for "strategically pitching" Josh Hader. F that fine print of your contracts. You want saves or you want innings?
Also 10 games with 0 days of rest... which I am actually fine with just not in non-save situations. I am just not a fan of using him in tie games in the 9th knowing he will also pitch the 10th. But again, I am one of the few here that still defends Hinch for using Will Harris after Greinke in the World Series (I would have have just stuck with Greinke in all honesty).
No closer in baseball is treated that way, so you're expecting them to pay their $18MM closer to pitch like 30 innings a year. Again, 44 of his 48 games were close games and the other 4 were 4-run games where he hadn't pitched in several days. He's playing the same role any elite closer does - the Astros just play an inordinate number of close games. You'd be complaining a bunch if the Astros were repeatedly losing extra inning games because they refused to play him in a tie game and lost playing some mediocre pitcher instead.
Spring Training darling... let's see if he can get hot. With a WHIP of almost 2 in the minors...not super optimistic.
Of notable closers... Clase: 18 of 48 (37.5%) appearances in non-save situations before his issues... 62 of 201 (30.8%) low-leverage batters faced. So very close to Hader's usage. Estevez: 18 of 56 (32.1%) non-save, 62 of 229 (27.1%) low-leverage Suarez: 16 of 54 (29.6%) non-save, 26 of 206 (17.5%) low leverage. Munoz: 14 of 49 (28.6%) non-save, 23 of 192 (12.0%) low leverage. Megill: 13 of 46 (28.3%) non-save, 34 of 173 (19.7%) low leverage. ------ Hader: 19 of 48 (39.6%) non-save, 52 of 206 (25.2%) low leverage. So Espada misused Hader....
"Late and Close" - Hader has faced 160 of his 206 batters faced. He also has faced 56 batters with a 3 run differential or greater. I know 3 run games are for stat padding saves.... but it is really unnecessary unless there is an implosion in the works.
This team needs fresh arms and has to just keep rolling dice with arm talent and hope one or two come up 7 or 11. I wish they could/would just ditch all the AAAA guys and try guys like Ullola or Santa. Blubaugh works too. Get high ceiling, plus stuff guys working with Miller and Murphy and see if they can be a spark. They can't be worse than recycling Neris, Tayler Scott, Contreras, Hernandez, etc.
They know the Astros are playing the old Ali rope-a-dope with their opponents. Lose a few games by 10+ runs, don't score, and just when everyone thinks you're dead in the water...
Maybe we're trying to go for the 6th seed where we don't get any home field "advantage" since....you know...we've lost 6 playoff home games in a row...
Maybe I'm old school but I think it's bullshit that it's controversial for closers to go two innings...or pitch 3 days in a ****ing row. Geezus what has happened to this game.
What’s funny about this is that the reason that guys can’t/won’t go multiple innings isn’t because they all have of a sudden become p*****s. It’s actually quite the opposite. The reason they don’t go multiple innings is because they throw HARD AS **** now. Back in the day guys would throw more pitches but wouldn’t optimize for velocity so they simply weren’t straining their arms as much. The human body just wasn’t meant to repeat that motion at that level of effort like guys are doing these days.
Hader pitches a lot and multiple inning games because Espada goes to him a lot. In fairness usually he pitches Hader over an inning in tie games - but these are regular season games and the Astros were not in jeopardy of falling out of the race in June, July or August. Last year Hader and Pressly had issues with Espada and usage. Agents were involved. This year Abreu’s agent before July 4th spoke to the Astros front office about how Espada was using Abreu for multiple innings. Espada also kept Hader out there against the Yankees for nearly 40 pitches - gave him one day off and then was having him warm up to pitch again when he hurt his shoulder. We will see - we may see the occasional multi inning from Abreu if we are really desperate but I don’t think we see either Abreu or Hader going over an inning next year unless it’s 4 outs in the playoffs. It’s a foolish risk and one the Astros are paying for now.
The game has changed. Pitchers throw harder with more movement and exertion. Abreu was 99-100 his last save. Most closers aren’t soft tossers like Doug Jones or Kent Tukulve now.
Couple things there. You can’t point to a hall of famer as an example in the difference from one era to the next. Clearly Wagner was an exception, not a rule; it’s indisputable that pitchers on the whole throw harder in today’s game than they used to. Secondly, if Wagner would have come up in today’s game he probably would have thrown even harder (and probably would’ve gotten hurt).
