Fantasy Baseball: New Twins Closer-Francisco Liriano?

by Ray Guilfoyle on Mar 10, 2010 9:00 AM EST in Baseball

I was trading emails with a fellow UBA owner yesterday morning and he thought the Twins should usestarting pitcher Francisco Liriano as their closer to replace Joe Nathan. I think it is a great idea, as Liriano really hasn't held up as a starter in recent years.

In his first two years in the majors, Liriano has made a total of 38 starts. In his career, ;Liriano has performed well in crunch time. According the Baseball-Reference, in high leverage situations, Liriano has held opponents to a .238 BA and a .678 OPS. He has identical stats in situations where there are runners in scoring position with 2 outs. When the situation is "late and close", he holds opponents to a .254-.324-.328-.653 slash line.

And here is an even more telling stat, his opponents first plate appearance again Liriano, batters are hitting .216-.292-.342-.634 with a K/BB rate of 178/56. Quite impressive. In his first 25 pitches of the game, Liriano is holding hitters to a .211-.274-.313-.587 slash line with a K/BB rate of 130/31.

The Twins have their closer and they don't have to look any further than Francisco Liriano.

Poll

Should the Twins move Francisco Liriano to closer?

Yes, he could be outright dominant.

130 votes

No, he is too valuable as a starter.

102 votes

232 votes | Poll has closed

Tweet Comment 3 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Backup Plan

I think that the key is that they should look at what their options are out of the bullpen and what other choices they have for the rotation.

The Twins have pitchers who can replace Liriano in the rotation (Duensing comes to mind) a lot easier than in the bullpen if they move someone else into a new role.

Jason's Baseball Blog

Follow me on Twitter

by Jason Hunt on Mar 10, 2010 9:13 AM EST reply actions