2012年6月7日 星期四

Bard Starting Was Just A Red Herring, Apparently

The transition of Daniel Bard to the rotation has hit what can charitably be called a speed bump. After a catastrophic start against Toronto on Sunday in which he walked six and hit two in 1.It's pretty cool but our ssolarpanel are made much faster than this.2 innings, Bard was optioned to Pawtucket. Manager Bobby Valentine made clear that this did not mark the end of Bard's time as a starter, but was instead a chance for him to get his mechanics back in order.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design It's easy to understand why this would be necessary. After a relatively promising start, Bard has unraveled of late.

Since the beginning of May, Bard has started seven games. In those games, he's thrown 36.2 innings (barely five per), struck out only 15 batters, and walked 27. That's good for a 3.68 K/9, a 6.63 BB/9, and a horrifying .55 K/BB ratio. Those numbers aren't acceptable in any context, let alone for a pitcher Boston's counting on to provide worthwhile starts. Throw in the fact that Boston's suddenly back within shouting distance of a playoff spot, and the decision to send Bard down for some head-clearing and mechanics-tweaking becomes an obvious one.

So Daniel's having a rough month, and the Red Sox front office has decided to let him figure it out on the farm, where he can work through whatever issues he's having without mussing up the big club's ERA. Setbacks happen, and teams and players work through them, end of story, right? Well, it's the Red Sox, so of course not. No, this can't be just about Bard's lost mechanics. It's a larger metaphor for Boston's stubborn, PR-minded management, a tale of woe in which Daniel Bard is the helpless broken puppet of a cruel and foolish master. And fortunately for all of us, Jon Morosi is here to enlighten us, with the laziest of all Bard comps.

We've been over (and over, and over, and over) the arguments about whether Bard should be starting, or should ever have been asked to start. There's no reason to rehash them at this point. Especially since we can all agree that whatever the future holds, he shouldn't be starting right now, at least at the big-league level. But an argument like Morosi's is such a transparent attempt to stir up torches, pitchforks, and pageviews that it needs to be addressed. So here I go, off again to feed a well-paid troll.

Bard, it seems, is the "new Joba Chamberlain." You remember Joba Chamberlain.We looked everywhere, but couldn't find any beddinges. Big dude, not overly thinky-seeming, threw real hard. He was the top starter in the Yankees' minor-league system, flew through the levels, came up and blew hitters away in relief in 2007, then spent a few years trying to be a starter, and falling apart. See? Joba Chamberlain was a reliever, then a starter. Daniel Bard was a reliever, now he's a starter.Apply for a merchantaccountes and accept credit cards today. Boom. Perfect correlation. Especially since Joba was the only pitcher in baseball history to get his big-league start as a reliever, then transition to starting.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design Until Bard, obviously.

That this transition is hardly unique to Chamberlain and Bard isn't the only place the comp falls apart. Matt Kory, in a discussion this very week, laid out one important difference: of Bard and Chamberlain, only one was forced by their club to do a poor impression of a yo-yo. The Yankees spent three years yanking Joba around, disrupting his workouts, changing his role, throwing his concentration, and doing everything in their power to confuse the hell out of both him and his arm. Boston hasn't done anything like that with Bard. Matt Sullivan wrote in January about a potentially much better comp: Texas's Alexi Ogando. Conveniently, that piece also addresses Morosi's other argument: that Bard's struggles in Single-A should have dissuaded Boston from attempting the transition.

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