Billy Wagner = Armando Benitez + Lighter Fluid

[soupcan]

Or not.

I was not an Armando basher. I bought what Centerfield was selling. I'm not a Wagner basher either. I appreciate the difficulty of the closer's job and realize that Mariano is a freak of nature. I know that they are all 'Big Games'.

But let's talk about Wagner's and Benitez's spectacular failures.

Armando could blow up with the best of them and maybe its because he's several years removed from the Mets but I think Wagner's got 'Mando beat in terms of how dramatic his implosions are.

I wish I could just observe the closer phenomenom without having anything emotionally invested.

Thank God I take Prilosec OTC every morning.

[Benjamin Grimm]

soupcan wrote: Thank God I take Prilosec OTC every morning.

Is that the hair-thickening stuff that Giuseppe Franco is shilling?

[Gwreck]

The difference is that Billy has had fewer "big" games to blow. Excepting 2006 NLCS Game 2, he hasn't failed at the worst possible times, which was of course the biggest knock against Armando.

[soupcan]

It's for acid reflux wise guy.

I'll die an old man with all my own hair.

Suckas.

[Guest AG/DC]

It's all this denial-of-reality bullshit that menas you have to annoint one guy "The Man."

1) be willing to go to him who you think is your most effective reliever in tie games.

2) be willing to go to him who you think is your most effective reliever in the seventh.

3) be willing to pull him who you think is your most effective reliever if he's not particularly effective.

4) be willing to pull him who you think is your most effective reliever if you think you can get a good matchup.

Yay, he got Burrell. But the only reason I wouldn't have preferred Joe Smith there is because it would be such a sudden dramatic departure from the "one guy must close" mentality that Smith's head would have exploded. I still might have wanted him there anyhow.

[Centerfield]

Billy's got 6 blown saves in half a season...which is about what Armando would have for a full season (if not fewer).

Of course, in 2006 and 2007, Billy only blew 5 in each year. Plus the rest of his numbers stack up pretty much the same, so I guess some of this could just be bad luck. I think he had one blown save brought about by error.

I was never a big fan or Armando as a player, but I never really disliked him either. Mostly, I felt compelled to defend him from the unwarranted blasting he was getting.

I dislike Wagner. Even though I think he's a good closer, he seems like an asshole who says stupid shit.

I think Armando did himself no favors because (mostly because of a language barrier) he was unable to say the right things to the press after blowing a save. Billy has no such language barrier but is demonstrating how useful one can be.

[Frayed Knot]

What Wagner has done 4 or 5 times this month is something that closers rarely do and that's to blow multi-run leads despite being right on the cusp of shutting the game down - including several 2-out/2-strike HRs w/men-on in situations where only a HR will kill you.

He also seems streakier to me than most.
First year here he had a much better 2nd half than 1st
Second year here things were reversed.
And this season he was almost perfect for 60 games and now has had the month from hell.



The good news; our closer just had two perfectly awful nights back-to-back and we won both games.
Not often THAT happens.

[Guest AG/DC]

It could with Armando. Because he could blow a game in the ninth, and gut it out through the tenth and leave with the game still tied.

Not that he got a lot of points for it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I hate Wagner and want to release him, then re-sign him and assign him to AA, then trade him for nothing, then acquire him for a superstar, then release him again, but for different reasons that people hated Benitez.

1) Big mouth

2) Same record as Benitez, more or less, but afforded a completely different perception. I think this is a reverse racial thing. I stood by Benitez while Joe Fan piled on; now that we have his white doppleganger, I feel like I have to be Joe Fan.

3) Way too secure in his job. Basically got Willie & Peterson fired.

4) Symbol of all I hate about the Mets' case of Big Marketese: Acquired only because the Mets threw the most money/years/security at him, eschewing other options that would have been bolder, more creative, more exciting.

5) I resent being asked to cheer meaningless round-number counting-stat accomplishments by a guy who racked up 80% of those figures at our team's expense.

6) Track record of so-called "big-game" failures blindly ignored by Mets, media and fan base, which will all be surprised and hurt when they come and they will. I hate anticipating these moments.

7) Strenous crafting of "loose cannon" personna, and over-the-top mea culpas accompanying failure, are obvious ploys to get writers to remember his name when it comes time for HOF balloting.

8) Left behind fan bases in Houston and Philly that want to kill him; I'm not falling for him.

9) Called out and insulted teammates in public

10) Did nothing to stop last year's collapsse and in face accelerated it by being unable to answer the bell at a critical juncture. Later blamed management.

[soupcan]

Frayed Knot wrote: ...blow multi-run leads despite being right on the cusp of shutting the game down - including several 2-out/2-strike HRs w/men-on in situations where only a HR will kill you. He also seems streakier to me than most.

This is pretty much the impetus for the thread, the degree of the drama of Billy's meltdowns and the streakiness.

Save 20 in a row, blow 5 in a row, save 12 in a row, blow 4 in a row...

[Frayed Knot]

Armando actually went more than a year here without turning a lead into a loss.
He did turn some leads into ties during that streatch plus some ties into deficits/losses but managed to stay away from turning the impending win into an immediate crusher.

Somehow, however, his official bio says he did that twice a month - until September of course when it started occuring three times a week.

[Centerfield]

That's right. That was one of the most underreported stats about Benitez. In all of his memorable "meltdowns" he always recovered enough that he would leave the game tied and not allow the other team to take the lead.

In fact, in 2002, despite pitching in countless close and tie games, he never allowed the opposition to take the lead.

[Guest themetfairy]

Centerfield wrote: I dislike Wagner. Even though I think he's a good closer, he seems like an asshole who says stupid shit.

Stupid shit is one thing (hey, these guys are athletes - for the most part they're not rocket scientists). But blasting a teammate to the media (not one stray comment, but a couple of days running) puts him on a whole different plane.

Shut up and pitch, Alpaca Boy! And if you're going to criticize your teammates, you'd better not be pitching on a glass mound yourself.

[Guest AG/DC]

I'm pleased that there's someplace in the world where three remember that.

On Wagner, (11) called out management for letting Tom Glavine walk; expressed worried concerns for the team's fate over same, despite it being rather early in the offseason.

Hey, Bills, you know how you respond to teammates who leave, or who fail? You step up.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Benitez was a damn good pitcher, though it was ugly at the end.

Here's another similarity -- he was picked to be the Mets lone representative to an All-Star team and was an unpopular choice.

In fact, I think he's the only player whose final appearance in a Mets uniform was the All-Star Game.

For some reason, he was always wailed on in the New York press for hitting Tino Martinez -- every report dutifully reports he drilled him right between the numbers -- yet Clemens, who hit people in the head, got a pass.

[Benjamin Grimm]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: In fact, I think he's the only player whose final appearance in a Mets uniform was the All-Star Game.

If he had gotten into that game, it would have made for a better trivia question.

[Guest Kong76]

Playing redneck asshole advocate for a second, I think too much is still
being said about Wags saying some stuff about Perez. And Perez has
been more focused since. I don't read nearly as much buzz as many of
the faithful here but was there any inkling that Perez' feelings were hurt?
Was he pissed off? Is it possible it had a positive effect?

Seems there's sound bites coming from Billy's locker like five days out of
seven per week and no one in the clubhouse is throwing wet towels over
his head or giving him a shave cream shower on camera. His constant flap-
ping of the gums is annoying to listen to, but maybe he really is one of the
respected spokesmen of the clubhouse.

I never said I'd go fishing with the man.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I was a big Benitez fan. Benitez was one of baseball's best relievers during his years as a Met. I always thought that the fans expectations were unreasonable; that Benitez suffered the unfortunate sin of not being infalllible. And it didn't help Benitez's cause that he was a Met when baseball's best relievers belonged to the Mets biggest rivals (Rocker/Braves and Rivera/MFY's).

I don't like Wagner's mouthing off in public against his teammates, either. Wagner is becoming more and more unlikeable as a person with each passing week. But strictly baseball, how many relievers have been better than Wags going back to 2005? Not many.

[Frayed Knot]

Back when Met fans were whining about Benitez many of them were convinced that just about any closer would be better, such as that Wagner guy down in Houston ... boy, if only we had HIM instead.
And when that happened I would tell them that the two were virtually statistical twins and that their dreams that other closers would somehow only blow saves in UNimportant situations was, just that, a dream, mainly because there's really no such thing.

And now if we compare their Met careers we find that they're still statistical twins:

Closer	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	WHiP	ERA	Svs	BlSv	Sv Pct
Benitez	347.0	225	111	104	168	456	1.13	2.70	160	25	86.5%
Wagner	172.2	142	59	48	52	216	1.12	2.50	94	16	85.5%

[Fman99]

Frayed Knot wrote: Back when Met fans were whining about Benitez many of them were convinced that just about any closer would be better, such as that Wagner guy down in Houston ... boy, if only we had HIM instead. And when that happened I would tell them that the two were virtually statistical twins and that their dreams that other closers would somehow only blow saves in UNimportant situations was, just that, a dream, mainly because there's really no such thing. And now if we compare their Met careers we find that they're still statistical twins: Closer IP H R ER BB K WHiP ERA Svs BlSv Sv Pct Benitez 347.0 225 111 104 168 456 1.13 2.70 160 25 86.5% Wagner 172.2 142 59 48 52 216 1.12 2.50 94 16 85.5%

Wow the similarity in those numbers is striking.

Having said that I still don't have the vitrol for Wagner that I had/have for Benitez. Maybe it's the postseason melting that sticks in my craw - the J.T. Snow HR, game 1 of the WS, etc.

[Guest AG/DC]

If the Mets could help out and make the post-season, I'm sure Wagner would oblige by being human.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Oh you know that day is coming.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: Back when Met fans were whining about Benitez....

I never thought that Benitez was a Met problem. And I could never reconcile, for example, the venom directed against him, especially in light of all the implausible flattery given to someone who I believed was a truly crappy Armando teammate like Rey Ordonez. Until the end of his Met stint, Benitez was one of baseball's top five relievers, and that's a good thing. If you could stack a team with the third, fourth or fifth best player at every position, you'd have a playoff team.

[Guest AG/DC]

Well, he already pulled a 9.52 post-season ERA in 2006, so I don't know what Fman is waiting for.

[smg58]

With Benitez, I don't think it was the postseason miscues so much as the two big leads he blew on successive weekends to the Braves in September 2001. I couldn't really blame him for the first one; he had pitched more than an inning in each of the first two games of the series, saving both, and I thought they could trust Franco with a three-run lead. And Valentine pulled a Grady Little by leaving him in when he was obviously out of gas, until the game was tied. But those two losses were particularly painful, and fair or not, Benitez wasn't going to be forgiven.

The one thing Wagner has over Benitez is that he's been a top closer for significantly longer. Otherwise, like most top closers, they'll mostly do their job and cause agita the rest of the time. My problem with Wagner is that he's a little too quick to publicly point the finger elsewhere when he hasn't exactly been perfect.

[Gwreck]

Every closer in New York is going to be inevitably compared to the legend of Mariano Rivera. (Note that I said the "legend" and not Rivera himself, because the legend is of course bigger than Rivera is or ever was). That the general baseball-fan public makes the comparison is probably unfair but that hasn't stopped them.

Once we look past that problem, we then have to get past the fact that the beat reporters are lazy and will talk to whomever has the loudest mouth, hence a disproportionatly large amount of attention on Wagner in the press. Wagner is gregarious, sure, but at the same point, the beat reporters could make a little more effort and talk to other players besides Wagner and Wright all of the time. I'm sure it doesn't help that not one of the Mets beat reporters speaks Spanish, despite the fact that it's the first language for half the team.

All that aside, Wagner is certainly guilty of flapping his gums too much and blowing too many games this year, but my general perception of him in his 2.5 years with the Mets hasn't been nearly as negative as it has been for others.

Many of the indictments of Wagner here are valid (if perhaps redundant) but I think suggesting that he "basically got Randolph fired" is moving well beyond exaggeration.

[Guest AG/DC]

So we're rewarding Wagner here for his success elsewhere --- his pereceived unblemished success that is actually just as blemished as his track record here.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Memory Lane: Mets sign Wagner

[seawolf17]

I'm too lazy to make this into a real table, but here are some current (and recent) closers, ranked by conversion percentage (saves + holds divided by opportunities):

saves, holds, blown saves, conversion pct
Gagne 187 5 15 92.75%
Nathan 186 20 20 91.15%
Hoffman 540 16 66 89.39%
Rivera 466 29 59 89.35%
F Rodriguez 181 34 28 88.48%
Papelbon 98 7 14 88.24%
Lidge 142 58 27 88.11%
Percival 343 36 55 87.33%
Wagner 378 7 61 86.32%
Benitez 289 66 59 85.75%
Cordero 128 11 24 85.28%
T Jones 317 100 73 85.10%
Isringhausen 292 2 54 84.48%
Gordon 158 122 54 83.83%

I'm considering a hold a conversion, because if you enter in save situation and don't screw it up, that's doing your job.

edit: Taking holds out doesn't appreciably change the order -- everyone on this list is within a point or two of where they are now -- but it makes Tom Gordon look like crap.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Memory Lane: Mets sign Wagner

Great thread! Recalls recently dead Met Guy, Ron Hodges, and Edgy's vacation plans to my grandfather's fam. How was it?

Only one to express any trepidation was out man abogdan, though his concern was more $$ than anything.

That's the thing with the Wagner signing though. It was an all-money, no-brain kinda thing. Of course he would be better than Looper. That didn't mean they couldn't also have done it another way.