Pirates To 'Look Into' Clay Rapada
The Pirates may be interested in Clay Rapada as a lefty relief option. I'm sure this would be a minor-league deal, since Rapada is almost a pure LOOGY (78 career appearances, 52.2 career innings) and therefore is a liability from a tactical perspective. (Righties have a 1.166 career OPS against him, so you really can't leave him out there for a full inning; lefties have a .472 OPS against him.) He's posted nice numbers in the minors, though, so he would be a nice player to have around, particularly given the Pirates' lack of lefty relief depth.
4 months ago
Charlie Wilmoth
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darn
was thinking this was that guy with the great ‘stache but turns out that’s Clay ZAVADA not Rapada. one stupid letter.
Zavada somehow wound in AA after having successful season in MLB. dont get it. GET HIM HERE
Speaking of the new market inefficiency
Confusing last names and great ’staches!
The glare of the spotlight is harsh, and the pressure that success breeds immense. We revere our heroes, but expect much. And criticism can come as easily as praise.
Perspectives become reality.
Twitter: @shanecglass
not to be picky
but there’s two letters different there, tiger.
(Also two letters the same – one repeated)
by BlindSquirrel on Feb 6, 2012 8:39 PM EST up reply actions
Good article about Zavada in the NY Times a few years back:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/sports/baseball/21pitcher.html?pagewanted=all
Hope he can make it back to Majors, hard not to root for him.
Rapada has just about the most extreme LHB/RHB splits of any pitcher in baseball. If the team isn’t going to use purely situational relievers, as Huntington said earlier this offseason, then there’s absolutely no point whatsoever in signing a guy like Rapada.
Yeah
I’d be more interested if it weren’t for Hurdle’s insistence on using Beimel last year as a one-inning guy instead of as a LOOGY. So far in his career Rapada has the highest % of LH batters faced I’ve ever seen, which shows that his teams knew he should never face a RH hitter if it could possibly be avoided. If Hurdle used Rapada like he did Beimel, it’d be a fiasco.
Occupy MLB! Down with Seligula!
by WTM on Feb 6, 2012 4:30 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
This is the kind of guy I'm thinking about
when I suggest MLB institute a rule that limits the number of pitchers on a staff. At least if it wants to take those two-or-three-pitching-changes-per -eighth-inning incredibly dull spots out of the game and inject more possibility for, like, hits and runs.
And you know, people who have a problem with the DH because it employs players who are all possibility and no liability ought to be with me on this, shouldn’t they? The guy can’t get right-handers out, but he can be an MLB player? If that’s fine by you, then the DH shouldn’t bother you either.
And you know, people who have a problem with the DH because it employs players who are all possibility and no liability ought to be with me on this, shouldn’t they?
No, because using a pitcher like Rapada carries an opportunity cost. A team using Rapada at a time when he’s due to face a RHB has a choice between letting him face the RHB (and get plastered) or pulling him (and using up one of their bench/bullpen spots). Either way, Rapada’s team pays a penalty for his incomplete skill set.
It’s the difference between a DH and a PH.
They're the same
in that they are, broadly speaking, one-dimensional players with large liabilities that the rules are tailored to ignore. And even then, the DH will still fail .700 of the time.
I could live with something different. I could live with a manager being allowed just one pitching change per inning, maybe. Something like that. I just finding incessant pitching changes in late innings (granted, one of the major perpetrators of that just retired) about as exciting as watching coaches call 10 timeouts and players hack and foul and shoot free throws in the last two minutes of a basketball game. In both cases, the people playing and coaching a beautiful flowing game demolish it by chopping it up into little bits of action punctuated by looong periods of nothing.
I love baseball, but sometimes the games bore. me. to. tears.
large liabilities that the rules are tailored to ignore
In Rapada’s case, the rules are expressly NOT tailored to ignore his liabilities. If a team doesn’t want him to pitch to RHBs, it needs to burn a bench player for the privilege, and once he’s been removed, he’s out of the game for good. For his situation to be analogous to that of a DH, he’d be able to step off to the side any time a RHB came up and have some other pitcher take care of it, then re-enter the game once that pitcher was done.
I agree that interminable LaRussa-style pitching changes can be annoying, but they aren’t at all similar to the DH.
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