2008 Baseball Thread, Part V: A New Beginning

I just saw The Mustache Man's home run. He's got quite the full swing, doesn't he, Friend?

 

Yeah, well, you wouldn't either.

Opp G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG
NYM 179 646 129 212 35 4 38 118 102 16 100 19 5 .328 .417 .571

 

That's an MVP season.

For a jerk.

 

I love him.

 

In your minds, is it more important for a closer to have one dominating pitch (Billy Wagner, K-Rod, Trevor Hoffman, etc) or a variety of good pitches (Huston Street, Papelbon, etc).

 

This was excellent. Nice work, foaf.

 

In his defense, I think he was referring to Hoffman's changeup. Although, since he left out Rivera's cutter and Gagne's changeup, his post was still rife with fail.

 

Braves have outscored their opponents 32-6 during their five-game winning streak, and that's with Glavine, Soriano and Moylan on the DL.

Pretty strong ...

 

Hoffman's change-up. K-Rod's breaking pitch (forget whether it's a slider or curveball).

Doc, if you notice, I said etc to include all the others in the mix. The ones I listed were the first to come to my mind.

 

So the one pitch that has propelled Rivera to a Hall of Fame career didn't come to mind?

 

When in his prime, Hoffman was a pitcher who brought the heat, but then could also make them throw the bats at his change-up. But still, he is dominating with the change-up and has been for a while now. I am talking closers. I am not talking about starting pitchers.

 

To answer the question, I think it is better to have more than one pitch in your arsenal. Mariano Rivera just happens to have one of the nastiest pitches in the history of baseball.

As a fan, manager, teammate, whatever, I'd rather the pitcher on the mound had more option than one pitch. And Rivera only having one pitch has led to some issues in the past (ie. bloop singles that came off of a sawed off bat to win a World Series).