A Closer Walk with Thee

Jason Michael Barker

One of the great things about a 162-game, six-month long baseball season is keeping track of those little day-to-day moves, maneuvers and transactions. A couple of interesting tidbits crept across the proverbial wire Thursday, things you might not have noticed if they didn't happen to your favorite club. Enter Strikethree.com -- here to keep track of all of MLB so you don't have to.

The first thing that caught my eye comes from Montreal, where the Expos have decided to move starter Dustin Hermanson into the closer's role now that Ugueth Urbina is likely on his way to the disabled list with pain in his elbow. Hermanson has been one of the better starters in the National League over the past three years, relying on keeping runners off base rather than dominating stuff. Makes more sense than trying to get everyone out, if you think about it.

So far this season, Montreal's starting rotation has consisted of Hermanson, Carl Pavano, Javier Vazquez, Hideki Irabu and occasional fifth starter Jeremy Powell. Hermanson has been decent, Pavano and Vazquez have been very good, and both Irabu and Powell have been horrible. Point being, Hermanson is better than his 4.81 ERA this season would suggest, and he's much more valuable to the team pitching six or seven innings every fifth day than throwing an inning three times a week.

This is complicated somewhat by the fact that the Expos have two more starters set to join the club in Mike Thurman and Tony Armas Jr. Thurman was on rehab at AAA Ottawa after a solid, if surprising, season last year -- 4.02 ERA in 146.2 innings and 27 starts. Armas, on the other hand, is a top prospect who came over with Pavano in exchange for Pedro Martinez so many years ago.

Unfortunately, the Expos seem set on keeping Irabu in the rotation even though a Hermanson-Pavano-Vazquez-Armas-Thurman group would be quite good. Thurman, who was scheduled to make his 2000 debut on Saturday, will be pushed up to Friday, while Armas is getting the call-up and the start Saturday.

Getting back to the issue of closing games for a moment, it surprises me a bit that Felipe Alou is taking such drastic measures to fill the job. After all, he's the same manager who doesn't seem to care about "proven" pitchers -- he consistently gets good results from bullpens made up of cast-off veterans and youngsters just up from the minors.

Unless you tend to bring in your closer in "pressure" situations with runners on base -- and most mangers don't -- there's nothing all that special about closing ballgames. Starting the ninth with none on and none out is no different than starting any other inning in the same fashion, yet the conventional wisdom that it takes some sort of special mentality to close games is what kept a very effective Mike Jackson as an underappreciated set-up man for years.

In fact, you might even argue that being a set-up man is tougher than being a closer, because set-up men often come into those pressure situations in the seventh and eighth, leaving high-salaried closers to pitch a relatively easy ninth inning. The introduction of the save statistic has changed the way pitchers are used today, and in the mind of some (myself included), not for the better.

But enough on that for the moment, because I've still got two more topics to get through before you fall asleep on your keyboard.

Staying in the National League East, there's a human-interest story brewing in Florida where a pitcher by the name of Joe Strong made his big-league debut for the Marlins Thursday night. Strong faced five batters, walking one and retiring the other four. His 1.1 innings bridged the gap between starter Jason Grilli and closer Antonio Alfonseca, as Florida topped Atlanta 5-4.

What's the big deal, right? Turns out Strong is a bit on the old side, as far as rookies go. In fact, not only is he 37 years of age, but he's the oldest player to make his major league debut in close to 40 years. He still hits 93 on the radar gun, however, and has a 4.22 ERA in 343 career minor league games.

Wasn't I just saying you can build a successful bullpen from youngsters and cast-offs? I'm surprised Alou didn't find Strong before the Marlins did.

Finally, the Phillies missed a golden opportunity to seize the future when they re-called 1B Chris Pritchett from AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre of the International League. Pritchett was summoned to take the place of regular 1B Rico Brogna, who's out 10-12 weeks with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch Wednesday.

The problem? The Phillies have one of the top hitting prospects in baseball at AAA in Pat Burrell. Burrell was drafted as a first baseman and has played the position the last two years in the minors, but is playing left field this year, presumably so could get to the majors without displacing Brogna. But now that Brogna's out, what better chance to get Burrell into the line-up? He's a devastating hitter (his nickname is "The Bat") and the Phillies could certainly use some help scoring runs.

For some reason, the Phillies are committed to keeping Brogna around for awhile. Putting that aside for a minute, I applaud them for moving Burrell to left in order to get him to the majors. But when something unexpected, like this major injury, happens, you have to be flexible enough to scrap your plans in order to do what's best for the club.

There's really no reason for Burrell to be in the minors, because he's already a complete hitter. He probably needs work on his outfield defense, but in all likelihood that isn't going to be his future position anyway. So, why not just let the man play? Hopefully he won't wind up like Calvin Pickering in Baltimore, a great hitter but unappreciated in his own organization.

about the author

Sometimes, we're sure Jason Michael Barker feels underappreciated in his organization, so be sure to send him encouraging little "attaboys" to jmb@strikethree.com.