Well, one assumption I feel pretty safe making is that, up to this point, he couldn't possibly have been any WORSE than Valverde.
up to this point, certainly not. But if you think Valverde is going to do this all season.. then you may as well turn the TV off for about 6 months.
I agree. 6 inning is all we need to see. Other players that are jokes include David Ortiz, Jim Thome, Prince Fielder, and Hunter Pence.
Wasn't the hugest fan of the trade to bring in Valverde, and I'm still lukewarm on him obviously.. but he'll have good stretches along with his bad stretches. Consistency is what he'll need obviously. I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed, but, I think we'll need to temper expectations for him closing out.
Well, I don't really believe he will do this all season. Partly because I think he will improve, at least a little, and partly because I don't believe the club would ALLOW him to do this all season. At some point he gets demoted if he continues to blow every single save opportunity. But we've seen this before, folks. Quite recently. It is entirely possible for a dominant closer to go bad within the span of one year. Brad Lidge looked like he would be one of the most dominant closers ever...and turned into the town whipping boy in the blink of an eye. It's the reason why I really don't like signing free agent closers. More often than not, they will end up making more than they are worth...sometimes WAY more. The ideal is to develop from within, that way you have several seasons to look at them before you have to commit big bucks. In my opinion, we had a guy capable of being a good to great closer in Qualls, but I guess the club didn't think so.
Chad Qualls was traded to Arizona, for their closer. And yet they've shown no desire to install him in the 9th inning spot. With all the problems Brad Lidge has had the last couple of years, they never made him the closer either. He just doesn't have the "stuff" to close. He's not that kind of pitcher. He's a very good setup guy, but that's it. He's Octavio Dotel. And, fwiw, all this talk of him "developing into a closer" is pretty strange, given the fact that he's already 29 years old (a year older than Valverde). Nobody who's actually in the baseball business has ever had that belief.
Wow, I am not sure I would put all those position players in the joke category yet, but it is your opinion. Valverde is garbage ! DD
What's different between Valverde and those? If you're going to judge based on two weeks of a season, they are all the same. They all have an outstanding track record and a sucky two weeks so far this year. Why is Valverde garbage and not the others?
Doesn't Arizona have their own, young closer in training that they like very much as their closer of the future? It was one of the reasons they were perfectly willing to trade Valverde. Doesn't surprise me at all that they didn't put Qualls in the closer spot if they have someone else they like there better. Doesn't mean that Qualls wouldn't be perfectly capable of handling it. Who said Qualls would "develop into a closer"?
Hey I am a fan, who said logic plays any part of opinion? I think the guy sucks......I hope they find someone else to close out the games.... DD
LOL - Opinion is not always based upon fact, but the facts are that this guy is sucking this year..... DD
You said "develop from within" and that Qualls "was capable of being a good to great closer" ... seems like you're saying either that he could develop into a good/great closer, or that he's already one. Since I don't believe you meant the latter, the former is the only possibility. The 9th inning is just different from the 7th/8th. It is. Just because you think Qualls has the makeup to do the job doesn't mean he would do a good job at it. There are lots of setup guys who didn't become good closers. The ones who have made the transition were young, high strikeout, nasty stuff guys like Rivera and K-Rod. And Arizona is right now running out Brandon Lyons at closer. He's got a 6.00 ERA so far in limited innings, and he's 28 years old himself. I don't know if that's the guy you meant or not. He certainly doesn't project as a "closer of the future". They mostly needed salary relief so that they could add Haren in trade.
Tony Pena is their closer of the future. And Lyon had an ERA in the 2's last year and 3's the year before. He got the job to start the season but it's expected to eventually get handed over to Pena.
