Andrew Kneeland established last February 12th as
Nick Punto day, an event where all the Twins' bloggers made a post about Nick Punto. With the current situation in the Twins' bullpen (the Manager of the Millennium
brilliantly decided to go with a 'closer by committee' approach to replace injured Joe Nathan,) I would like to take the opportunity and call my fellow Twins' bloggers to a call to virtual arms, establishing April 2nd as the "Free Pat Neshek" day.
I will be posting a post celebrating the return of
Pat Neshek to the Twins' team and discussing why he is the best person in the Twins' organization to be names as the Twins' closer.
Anyone else of the Twins' bloggers care to join me in the Free Pat Neshek day?
7 comments:
I'm all for Neshek taking over the closer role, if he can prove that he won't break down over the course of a season. It seems all but a given that he'll be on the opening day roster either way, so to me he's already pretty "free."
I will post!
Thanks, t-rish! You'll post at http://tlcricht9827.blogspot.com/ ? I would like to make links to all the Pat Neshek day posts.
qualler, yes, he will go North, most likely (still, as of last night he was not told that he will be with the team) but Gardenhire, might try lesser pitchers in closing games and this will cost the Twins games.
That is definitely true. I just hope Gardy doesn't try Crain extensively. I think the entire state of Minnesota might have an aneurysm if that happens.
I do take what Gardenhire says to the media with a grain of salt, but the names he mentioned were:
Rauch, Guerrier, Crain, Mijares.
(at least he did not add Condrey or MayDay to those, which is a good thing)
Even-though I like all of them, I just a. am not comfortable in a closer by committee concept (every ballplayer will tell you -in private- that he would like to know what his role is in the pen and get psychologically ready to pitch as the game progresses)
b. I think that Neshek will be better than any other pitcher in Twins' uniform for the closer role
c. Trying to get into something like have Guerrier/Rauch/Crain pitch to righties and when lefties come up get Mijares will tax the pen to a huge degree (because all of them need to warm up, even if they face one batter)
So it is better to designate roles. And I think that Neshek would be fine as a close. Potentially better than Nathan (more info on that on the Pat Neshek day). Crain would be more than ok this season, believe me :)
It will be fun if several folks post their thoughts on Neshak. Something tells me, thry, that you might have a statistic or two to back up your ideas..??..
Marv,
for some reason, I suspect that you might be correct :)
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