Bottom line is, the Mets would solve a lot of problems with Lidge. Instead, our rival got stronger. Not good.
His ERA has risen from a low 2 to a mid-4 and his strikeouts have dropped. He hasn't been the same pitcher since giving up that huge homer in the playoffs.
He had a bad year in 06. That's it. And his strikeout rate may be down a little from his career high but it's still among the best in the league.
Lidge has been garbage in tight spots since giving up that blast, sometimes numbers don't always tell the story.
After looking at his splits from last year, I don't think it's stretch to say that he is not the same pitcher pre-Pujols at least from a mental standpoint.Look at his splits by innings last year 6-8 inning: (107 ab), hitters hit .168/.237/.243 with 0 hr, 8 xbh and 3 runs 9th inning: (112 ab), hitters hit .250/.359/.571 with 8 hr, 18 xbh and 25 runs 10+ inning: (28 ab), hitters hit .286/.394/.393 with 1 hr, 1 xbh and 3 runs It might be a fluke, but the numbers are so overwhelming, I think the "Lidge can't handle the pressure in a big spot" argument has a good argument.
Thanks for the support with those stats man...Brad Lidge was a dominant closer until Pujols cranked it off of him in 2005. The mental aspect of the game is HUGE, especially for pitchers. He probably lacks the confidence that he once had.
I think this has more to do with the fact that he was given the closer's job back after his injury and time on the DL last season then some lack of confidence that makes him magically suck when he's pitching in the 9th inning. Also, another thing I noticed from looking at his splits over the last 2 years was that his numbers were pretty poor when he had 3 days of rest or more between appearances. Maybe when he was the setup/MR guy he was getting steady work but as the closer he had longer peroids of time without an appearance. Either of these explanations are much more likely to me then a Pujols HR shattering his confidence only when he's pitching in the 9th inning.
Only pitching in the 9th inning is incredibly stressful...closers have to walk out to the mound, mainly in close game situations and "save" the win for their teams. That is a lot of pressure. The starting lineup and starting/relief pitching have worked all game to get a win, and the closer is sent out to finish it off...and if he fails, the team fails. Closing a close game in the playoffs, and getting a game-winning HR hit off of you can do tremendous damage to your mental game. It looks to me as if Lidge is telling himself that he can't do it anymore.
Not that it's such a big deal, but I'm surprised that no one noted that Wright and Beltran earned Gold Gloves a couple of days ago. The fact that they select outfielders in general rather than by position weakens it a little (clearly Andruw Jones was going to be the winner in CF), and I for one am very surprised that Wright got it. They followed it up yesterday by each earning Silver Slugger awards as well.
The fact that it's a Gold Glove award weakens it even more. Chipper agrees with you though. This guy has to be the biggest whiner in baseball. I mean, it's a Gold Glove.
To be fair to Larry, he probably lost out on an incentive bonus in his contract. Still though, he should shut up.
Obviously having the least errors and highest fielding percentage doesn't make you a good fielder, but I certainly don't watch the Braves enough to know if Larry was deserving or not. Having watched almost every inning of his play this year, however, I'm pretty sure that Wright was not.
Disagree. Wright led the league in Out of Zone plays by a fairly wide margin(83 to Zimmerman's 70) Both of these guys were legitimate candidates despite their throwing problems. A player that consistently gets to balls that many other fielders would not is worth alot more then a "steady" fielder that doesn't make many errors but doesn't cover much ground either. Obviously the voters probably didn't look at any of this and voted on the Wright name, as the only other guy that was really in Wright's class was Pedro Feliz, and nobody knows who he is. But I still don't see any reason to complain about the result here. Frankly Chipper has a better case to make for himself for the Silver Slugger.
Who is Pedro Feliz? re: 351 While Jones is still good, I guess, I think "clearly" is not a great term to use there. All I hear these days is that Jones is not great anymore. I don't think he was a better fielder than Beltran in 2007.
Common sense and the numbers say differently. I think Jones and Beltran are probably similarly talented when it comes to the glove but Jones is always going to be better because of where he positions himself compared to Beltran. Jones probably has slipped a bit though as both Ichiro and Granderson had better years then him with the glove, but he's still clearly the best in the NL.
You didn't read the post carefully enough. I did not say that clearly Jones was better than Beltran (or anyone else, for that matter) - what I said was that clearly Jones was going to win, and anyone who knows anything about how the Gold Glove works would agree with that. As to Wright, I am very convinced that there are no fielding metrics yet that are very useful in gauging true fielding contributions. IMO Wright made far too many bad plays on easy plays to be considered a top fielding third baseman. Of course a stationary fielder who never makes an error but never moves is of no use, but I don't think that that describes Larry either.
I agree. Wright wasn't bad, but he always seemed to make a bad throw at the worst times (I suppose there's never a good time though). These awards are dumb, all of them. I really just don't care who wins.
You could make that same argument about any stat. What I do know is that there are fielding metrics that are a hell of a lot more useful then fielding % and errors, which Larry seems to put his stock in. The alternative is throwing up your hands and saying you can't comment on any player's defensive ability that you don't watch on a consistent basis or relying on heresay and popular opinion "around the league".
