2005 Closer Preview Part 6 - NL West

At long last, the conclusion of our 2005 Closer Preview. This entry takes a look at the NL West, home of one of the greatest closers of all time, the most dominating closer of recent memory, and a couple of bullpens that look pretty brutal. Starting with the latter:

Arizona Diamondbacks – Brandon Lyon (2003: 59 IP, 4.12 ERA, 9/12 SV, 50 K)
If you’re like us, you probably didn’t even notice this closer battle. In fact, you probably picked up Greg Aquino in the late rounds of your draft, figured that you could tuck him away as your 2nd or 3rd closer, and promptly forgot about the entire Arizona bullpen.

Well, as we noted a couple days back, Aquino has been busted up all spring, and when he has pitched, he’s gotten rocked. In the meantime, Brandon Lyon has been lights-out. The winner of this closer battle was apparent on Opening Day, when Aquino entered in the 5th inning, while the D-Backs were getting routed, and proceeded to give up 4 earned runs. So for now, the closer is definitely Brandon Lyon. Lyon missed the entire 2004 campaign to injury, but picked up 9 saves in that mess of a Boston bullpen in 2003. He's looked great all spring, and may hold on to the job for the long term.

Colorado Rockies – Chin-Hui Tsao v. Byung-Hyun Kim v. Everyone else in the Bullpen
The Rockies have cornered the market on hyphenated Korean closers, which is sweet. But at the moment, it really looks like Kim is just washed up. He has mysteriously lost his fastball, and has had absolutely no success of any kind since the 2002 season. The Rockies had hopes that a change of scenery would bring back the dominant Kim of just 3 seasons ago, but the Rockies’ first impression of Kim wasn’t great – 9 batters faced and 8 earned runs, one hitter retired. On the other hand, he pitched a scoreless inning in his second outing.

Tsao is currently on the disabled list with shoulder stiffness. He’s been named the closer, but he’s never played that role in the past. He’s eligible to come off the DL next Saturday. In the meantime, Brian Fuentes will probably close out any leads that the Rocks manage to hold late.
Los Angeles Dodgers – Eric Gagne (2004: 82 1/3 IP, 2.19 ERA, 45/47 SV, 114 K)
Gagne starts the year at #1 on our Closer Rankings, which says something about the dominance that Gagne has displayed over the past three seasons. The man converted 84 consecutive save chances. He also starts the year on the disabled list with a sore elbow, which is certainly a major problem.

Reached for comment, Gagne indicated that his stay on the 15-day DL may be a bit longer than 15 days, and indicated that he wouldn’t rush back and risk reinjury:

“We know it's not major. Dr. Jobe said it's one of the cleanest elbows for a
pitcher. I won't rush back. They said 15 days at least. I don't think it will be
more than two weeks. But they told me the knee would take six weeks and I
thought I'd be fine in a week. It's been five weeks. So I'm not saying if it's
two weeks or longer. I really don't know.”

If Gagne is performing at 100%, he’s the best in the business. If the elbow turns out to be serious – well, closing can be a brutal business, and even the top closers can fall from grace relatively quickly. For now, we’re going to assume the best, and hope that Gagne is back to closing out games in dominating fashion by May. In the meantime, Yhancy Brazoban will handle the ninth.

San Diego Padres – Trevor Hoffman (2004: 54 2/3 IP, 2.31 ERA, 41/45 SV, 53 K)

Still the one.

It’s been eleven years of ringin’ Hell’s Bells in San Diego, and Trevor Hoffman showed in 2004 that he still had it. After his 2003 season was lost to injury, he closed out 41 games with a 2.30 ERA last year.

Hoffman is currently #3 on the all-time career saves leaderboard with 393. With a good 2005 season, he’ll pass John Franco (424), and if he returns for 2006, has an outside chance at catching all-time leader Lee Smith (478), or at least getting close enough to pass him by early 2007. Then again, he just turned 37. Lee Smith’s record may be safe for a while.

San Francisco Giants – Armando Benitez (2004: 69 2/3 IP, 1.29 ERA, 47/51 SV, 62 K)
It's the same old story. You blow a couple of playoff games in New York, and the next thing you know you're left for dead, shipped out of town, and when you wake up, you're in Miami.

Benitez wasn’t horrible with the Mets in ’03, but he’d earned a reputation as a pitcher who can’t lock down the big game. And so, he was shipped to Seattle, and then back to the Bronx as a mercenary arm for the Yanks before landing in Miami for the 2004 season. And what a season he had.

Last year, Benitez was simply fantastic, finishing off 47 of 51 save chances while allowing a 1.29 ERA. However, his strikeouts fell off quite a bit, which indicated the continuation of a troubling trend. Benitez struck out 14.77 batters per 9 innings in 1999, his first season with the Mets – and 12.55, 10.97, 10.56, and 9.25 K/9 over the next 4 seasons. Last year, his K/9 rate fell below 9 for the first time in his career – all the way to 8.01. Fortunately, he cut his walks from 41 to 21 last season, too.

Rod Beck once said that as a closer gets older, all the talent runs out of their arm and up into their head. If Benitez is going to continue his dominance as his K-rates dwindle, he may have to start outsmarting hitters, rather than blowing them away.

That being said, I wouldn’t bet against him just yet.