A New Closer And Other Baseball Notes

by faketeams on Jun 20, 2008 8:51 AM EDT in Baseball

Is there another change in closers occurring in the A.L. West? Texas Rangers' manager Ron Washington looks close to removing C.J. Wilson as the team's closer. Look for Eddie Guardado, another lefty, to get the first chance. I wouldn't be surprised to see Guardado rack-up a lot of saves in a brief time. I wouldn't be surprised to see him not do that.

In Guardado's favor is a Rangers' bullpen that can't stop walking hitters. This may mitigate a longer leash than anyone else anticipates.

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Jamey Wright	4-2	37	0	0	0	0	3	41.0	34	19	17	1	16	27	3.73	1.22

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Frank Francisco	1-2	22	0	0	0	0	2	26.2	27	14	13	3	17	34	4.39	1.65

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Joaquin Benoit	3-2	29	0	0	0	1	3	29.2	28	22	19	4	23	27	5.76	1.72

Who is Stephen Strasburg? He is the sophomore ace of Marshall Faulk's allma mater, the San Diego State Aztecs, and the front runner for the #1 overall pick in next year's MLB draft. Here is a link in this morning's New York Times that will be the first introduction for many.

The conversion of New York Yankees wunderboy Joba Chamberlain from lights-out middle reliever to starting pitcher is complete. He tossed 5 2/3s innings of one-run ball yesterday while striking out nine Padres. Those last two outs were by strike out. He threw nine fastballs that inning with five of them clocked at 95 or 96 MPHs. The lowest was 92.

My only concern is he is walking a lot of players since he entered the starting rotation - 12 in 18.1 innings. This just looks like a Scott Kazmir situation - lots of strikeouts, lots of lost opportunities for Wins thanks to high pitch counts.

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Joba Chamberlain	1-2	24	4	0	0	0	1	42.0	32	13	11	2	23	49	2.36	1.31

Is it inevitable that the Toronto Blue Jays deal A.J. Burnett? I think it is, and his bombing yesterday will not help the clubhouse atmosphere. How do his teammates think he isn't distracted?

For the hardcore fantasy basbeall player, The Onion has a great article about an aspiring Hank Steinbrenner.

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