That said, the Sox obviously have their own major problem to deal with right now, one which has been around for most of the last few years, with the notable exception of 2004: they need someone who can consistently close out games. Foulke's been nothing short of awful; while he may have looked better lately, that's been mostly in mopup situations. As I posted a couple days ago, in win or save situations his ERA is 8.75, which makes him almost worthless as a closer (then again his ERA of 0.00 in non-win, non-save situations makes him the best mopup man in baseball). So what do the Sox do? The three possibilities being thrown around are
1) Make Timlin the closer.They each have their pluses and minuses, and I can't decide which I prefer. I don't like the 2nd one, though that seems to be what people are talking about. As much as I hate selling the farm, trading Shoppach, etc. for one of those closers (option 3) would seem to make sense. Anyone have any thoughts? I suppose there is a fourth option:
2) When Schilling returns, make Arroyo the closer.
3) Trade for a closer. Brad Lidge, Eddie Guardado, and Billy Wagner come to mind.
4) Don't do anything. the old Keith Foulke will show up.Does anyone still support this last one? (Bear in mind, we're just days from the midway point in the season.)
I don't think we've going to get out of July without seeing a deal for some reliever. I don't know tht it will be a Proven Closer, as guys like that tend to be overvalued on the market (and we know how Theo feels about overvalued players), but a solid set-up or midle relief guy would let us slot things up better behind Foulke, or move Timlin or Arroyo to closer, or put a new acquistion there, and in each case solidify the rest of the pen. I'm guessing that we end up seeing two new additions to this pen, aside from Arroyo; one from inside the system, one from outside.
ReplyDeleteWho would we get from the inside? Alvarez? One of our old friends Malaska/DiNardo/Gonzalez/Cla?
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, any guesses as to who we'd get from the outside?
From the inside, could be DiNardo, Alvarez, Meredith, Juan Perez, Manny Delcarmen, Jeremi Gonzalez, even Jon Papelbon.
ReplyDeleteFrom outside, I'd still say the most likely target is Danys Baez, but Cleveland has no shortage of BP guys, and there's an enticing lefty in Colorado, Brian Fuentes.