Proven Closer!

Preface: I wrote this at work today, but couldn't post it due to the profanity filter on all of the computers there and my lack of knowledge on how to turn them off on any browser that isn't IE8.  Fuck IE8.  I wrote this on Firefox from like 8:40 until 9, and again took a look during my lunch break.  Just in case this looks exactly like every other Jays Blogger's rant, which I'm sure it does, it's original material.

This is getting a bit old, no?  I mean, this kind of thing was alright last year and the year before because it was worth the risk to go out and sign old guys who just happen to be garbage, since either a) someone would give up a prospect for him at the deadline, or b) he'd turn in to a draft pick after the season.  I suppose the former is still possible with some kind of reasonable performance (i.e. one that would be a complete surprise, and not the turd that we've gotten so far THAT WE KNEW WE WERE GOING TO GET), but the fact that management can't turn relievers in to draft picks anymore the way they did with Rauch and Francisco last year grossly removes value from a reliever.

This shit just doesn't fly anymore.  The reward of keeping him around all year isn't anywhere near as high, and this team needs to eke out every win they can, since they're no longer in rebuild mode, but rather, are entering contention mode.  You need to win your fair share of games against shitty teams like Oakland, especially when their best offensive player is out of the lineup, because fuck knows that other competing teams are going to beat up on them.

If you're retarded, you might not know that I'm talking about Francisco Cordero, proven closer of the Toronto Blue Jays, though I'm sure half of the retards out there could have probably figured this one out.

You see, Coco hasn't exactly been good so far this year, especially as the closer, since Sergio Santos went down.  In 12 appearances this season, he has exactly one clean appearance, in which he's given up 0 baserunners, and an astonishing seven appearances in which he's allowed one or more runs to score.  Not exactly closing the door.

It doesn't take a fucking rocket appliance to figure out that you probably shouldn't put a guy in to a situation where the game is on the line if he allows runs in half of his 1-inning-or-less appearances.  Oh, but christ, he's been a closer for the last 11 years! Newsflash: that's probably why he's cum now.  He's 37 years old and he doesn't throw anywhere near as hard as he used to when he was useful.  It would be nice to nip this one in the bud, before everybody goes jumping off the fucking bridges about this shit, but apparently we don't get that luxury.  If we really want him closing out games (and we don't, but play along), at least have him throw the ball well in a low-leverage situation before throwing him in there.

I don't know whose fucking job it is to go tell Farrell to put literally anybody but Coco in there when the game is on the line, but someone needs to be slapped.  Remember that time in like 2009 when Frasor was closing games for most of the season?  If you really need someone who has closed before (which you don't, by the way), look no further.

And I think that's the most frustrating thing.  Jason Frasor, as boring as he is to watch, has been a pretty damn good reliever over the last  few years, striking out about a batter an inning, and getting a lot of groundballs.  Casey Janssen has regressed pretty heavily when compared to last year's performance but is still a fucking mile better than Cordero.  Luis Perez has been the absolute balls all year long.  Shit, Darren Oliver is actually pretty good against both righties and lefties.  But isntead, when the games on the line, these guys sit on the bench gathering dust while Coco blows it over and over again.  It's not like these guys aren't going to blow a save here and there, because that happens all the time, but at least these guys aren't getting chance after chance to fail just because of some selection bias that Player X "can close games" while Player Y can't.

[Like 3 hours after I wrote, but didn't post, this little rant, I get home to realize that Casey Janssen has been named the Jays interim closer.  That should have happened about 2 weeks ago, when Santos went down.  DFA Coco.  The following is a copy/paste smattering of  Barry Davis tweets:

At least for now, Casey Janssen is the new #bluejays closer
Farrell says he met with Cordero this morning and he fully understands the decisions. #bluejays
Farrell says he also met with JP about the move to pinch hit for him with Vizquel last night. Understands why it would upset JP.
No word yet on closer but Farrell has finally made the move with Lind. He is hitting 8th today. Edwin is new cleanup guy.

It may have taken a 5-run disaster inning, but it appears that somebody spoke to Farrell and fixed this whole fucking kerfuffle.  And really, if your 1B is batting 8th in your lineup, you've either got an amazing lineup, an outrageous defensive 1B, or it's time to get a new slugger.]

As for the little pinch-hitting nonsense from last night; yeah it was stupid, but it's not like JPA is that much better a hitter than Vizquel is.  The only thing I really have against the whole thing was the fact that JP is your 26-year old catcher, so you should probably show a little more confidence in him and let that break the tie.

There are certainly a lot more retarded managerial decisions that happen over the course of a day, so I'm not really going to get all up in arms about that one.  You can get your righty-lefty splits out, or talk about the bunt or the staying out of a double play all you want, and I can kind of live with the fact that some people still choose to think that these are reasonable ways to go about your business late in a game (and I assume that's what the rationale was), because really, the whole idea in that spot is to get one run, and then add on whatever you can afterwards.  If Vizquel lays down a nice bunt and gets a run in (and Coco doesn't shit himself on the mound), I doubt we hear a whole hell of a lot about this.

Morrow will take on the A's B-team, pretty much.  Morrow, a shit lineup, and a flyball haven... this should be good.

Lineups
Jays
Johnson 2B
Escobar SS
Bautista RF
Edwin DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Lind 1B
Arencibia C

Morrow P

A's
Weeks 2B
Pennington SS
Reddick CF
Gomes LF
Smith RF
Kaaihue DH
Inge 3B
Barton 1B
Recker C

Ross P