Francisco Rodriguez Will Test The Market

man, he sounds like an egotistical jerk, doesn't he?
and, from the way he's talking, he wants to go to a different team.

let him walk, Halos. save the money and sign the young players long-term.

if they use Arrendondo and Shields in a dual closer role, they should be fine

"if they use Arrendondo and Shields in a dual closer role, they should be fine"

Yeah right. Just like the Indians were fine with Borowski? Shields is too erratic to be the closer and Arredondo is good, but still very young and without Frankie's varied repertoire.

"let him walk, Halos. save the money and sign the young players long-term."

Um, Frankie IS one of "the young players". He is only 26 years old for crying out loud and has had, knock on wood, no major arm trouble.

That guy is a cornerstone and should be resigned. Then Angels have the money and will have even more when GA moves, takes a pay cut or retires.

"man, he sounds like an egotistical jerk, doesn't he?
and, from the way he's talking, he wants to go to a different team."

Do you realize this guy is on a record shattering pace, and I don't mean just this year. If he keeps it up, and all signs point to that, he will shatter Hoffman's record and probably end up in the Hall of Fame.

As for wanting to move, that isn't really the case at all. I think he will move if the Angels don't pay him, but he has stated his preference to stay there and gets along really well with his teammates and manager.

Man I really cannot stand this guy. Granted, he's the closer for my rivals, but I have never in my entire baseball-loving life seen anyone act more self-congratulatory after an accomplishment on the baseball diamond. His overly excited reactions to recording three outs--squatting and shouting on the mound, pounding his chest, and doing that cliched pointing-to-the-sky thing that everyone else does--are so beyond ridiculous I don't understand how anyone can criticize Joba without looking to K-Rod first. And he'll do this when he comes in to "preserve" a three-run lead.

I agree with aa. Frankie is the face of the franchise. As a halo fan, I don't have confidence in shields or arrendono. I think a 10yr/10 million per should get him to stay. That's huge money for a reliever, but it's spread out, and Frankie is worth it.

The Angels are in a crap situation. K-Rod very well may be the best closer. Unfortunatley, the way the team is built this year is giving him the oppurtunity to pile up so many saves that his price is artificailly going through the roof.

The Angels should offer him a 4-year 52 mil deal. He is very tempremental and his moods shift quick, dont expect these words to be the last.

"His overly excited reactions to recording three outs--squatting and shouting on the mound, pounding his chest, and doing that cliched pointing-to-the-sky thing that everyone else does"

Have you done any research into the guy? He is a rather heavy practitioner of Santeria, which is a big part of his whole make up (and adds that craziness that has always been valuable in a closer). Further, if you have noticed, he always gives a huge hug to his catcher and is always talking about how great his teammates are. In fact, he has been cited as one of the biggest influences on how Ervin Santana has bloomed this year, which says something.

"Sure, his lines usually say 1-2K's/inning, but his walk ratio has been slowly creeping up as hitters realize that his wicked breaking stuff, though amazing, doesn't hit the strikezone as often as he'd like."

One, despite missing 3-4 days with his ankle issues (which have been resolved), he is on pace for more innings than last year. Further, he has been getting some really bad strike calls of late, which really were noticeable in yesterday's game. Also, he has started to pitch more to contact, which has increased his groundball rate and actually been more effective than when he just blew people away or caught them looking at a bender.

In fact, his newer landing style has increased his fastball command, which has meant more contact plays.

"They had six years. They didn't get anything done with me."

He's right you know.

"Arredondo should be groomed as a closer right now."

So he can bounce splitters in the dirt? If you want to talk about a pitching style that is conducive to injury, you should look at his.

"He's had no major arm trouble, but with such a violent wind-up, how long do you really expect that to last?"

His wind up looks violent, but that isn't what will hurt his arm. He has nearly flawless mechanics as far as pitch delivery, which means arm trouble is less likely. His older wind up was taxing his ankles, but even that has been changed to keep him in better form.

"Plus, all of this points back to the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And there is obviously nothing wrong with a 26 year old closer and the numbers he has put up so far in his career, not to mention this year."

And lets not forget that even paying him the full $15 million would mean only $5 million a year more from him, and the Angels have significant money coming off the books with GA. Not really much of an increase, seeing that it wont be that hard to get team friendly deals out of guys like Lackey and Saunders.

People please. Take saves away and you will see that he is far from the best closer in the game. Come on now.

Saves are a product of opportunity. It's a worthless counting stat. Look at his other stats like ERA, WHIP, K/BB.

His last 1.5 years he has sported a WHIP right around 1.25. That's not great. Just a quick comparison. Here is K-Rod compared to Nathan, Rivera, Soria and Lidge. These 4 pitchers are having a much better statistical year than K-Rod.

K-Rod: 1.26 (WHIP), 8.8 (K9), 5.5 (BB9), 2.36 (ERA)
Nathan: 0.93 (WHIP), 10.4 (K9), 2.3 (BB9), 1.13 (ERA)
Soria: 0.86 (WHIP), 9.7 (K9), 2.2 (BB9), 2.09 (ERA)
Rivera: 0.64 (WHIP), 10.6 (K9), 0.8 (BB9), 1.06 (ERA)
Lidge: 1.13 (WHIP), 12.3 (K9), 4.2 (BB9), 1.13 (ERA)

You put any of these guys on the Angels roster and I bet they have as many or more saves than K-Rod (Nathan and Soria have 2 blown saves - Rivera and Lidge have none).

And while the closers listed above are clearly having better years than Frankie there are another 4 or 5 guys that are having comparable years. That puts Rodriguez solidly in the top 10 for closers but definitely not the best.

Point is, Rodriguez is a very, very good closer. However, he is far from the best. I could care less that he is only 26. Fact is that he was much more dominant at 22 than he is now. His fastball has lost a solid 4-5mph and his slurve isn't nearly as nasty. I used to love when he would come in. Embarrass most hitters with filthy stuff. Now I have to pop a Tums (or 5) as he walks 2 guys and throws a few WPs before retiring the final batter.

We might have seen the best that Frankie has to offer.

Baseball Guru,

You are an idiot. First off, I really have no idea where to start. Losing MPH isn't a bad thing, it improves accuracy and can help a pitcher save his arm. Of course he is not as unhittable as he was 4 years ago because he has been playing for 4 years...all the hitters in the game know his pitches, have video on how he throws, and know how he likes to set hitters up. And despite all that he is still pretty damn good.

The one thing I'm still having trouble understanding goes back to BJSGUESS's post...I have to believe that saves are a worthy stat. You say saves are a product of opportunity, but then again in baseball what isn't? If you get more at bats you are more prone to hit more doubles, triples, homeruns, and strike out more. The more opportunity you get, the more chance there is to succeed and fail. The fact that he has suceed 38 times and only failed 3 so far this season has to say something about this kid. On top of that, closing out a game in the 9th inning is very important because like I said in a previous post, so many teams have had death by closer and losing in the 9th after going in leading is a demoralizing event to a team.

Plus, he is only 26 and has never had major arm problems. You can't just look at a pitcher and say, "oh, he'll be hurt next year," when your conclusion is based on nothing other than you don't like him.

His delivery is a litte more eratic than it used to be, but the majority of the time a pitcher or a hitter changes their stance or motion, its to fix a problem. Now I don't know exactly what that problem was/is, but so far...so good.

"But giving a closer, a guy with a wildly erractic delivery a $13-15M per year contract over 4 or 5 years is just asking for trouble. The Blue Jays are going through that with BJ Ryan. The guys arm could fall off at any time and I wouldn't be surprised."

Again, K-Rod's delivery is mechanically sound as far as his arm goes. If it wasn't, his arm would have broken down long ago because of how many curves he has snapped off.

"Point is, Rodriguez is a very, very good closer. However, he is far from the best."

The only one who has come close for consistency is Nathan.

As for your inclusion of Lidge, do you really want a guy who is ineffective for 2 years because of 1 home run? I like Lidge and his stuff, but no closer should have that happen.

"Fact is that he was much more dominant at 22 than he is now. His fastball has lost a solid 4-5mph and his slurve isn't nearly as nasty."

His fastball is slower by design. He never used to get that thing over for strikes, relying on swings and misses for people looking for the junk, or just showing it. He now has full command of that pitch, and still can throw it at 94 if he wants.

Further, he doesn't throw a slurve or a slider for that matter. He throws 2 curveballs, and he still gets them over. He also throws a tremendous circle change that he didn't have then, and it dominates lefties so much that he has started using it against some righties.

forget saves being the reasoning, i think krod is the best closer in the game. no one else comes close when u look at consistent performance year after year combined with being in their prime. nathan almost but hes older and hasnt been as good for as long. i also go by the eye test. some guys just come in and u know its over. lidge, soria, and nathan have all looked like that this year but where was lidge last year? soria 2 yearas ago? if every closer in the game was available as a free agent and i had to sign them to a 3, 4 or 5 year deal id take krod anyday. young, consistent, playoff performer. what else do u want?

Joelcards, you act irritated when anyone doesn't take your word as gospel, yet you bring up Soria two years ago?! The worst season he had was last year, HIS FIRST YEAR, when he posted a .248 ERA with 75 SO in 69 IP with a .942 WHIP, how he is not the most dominant pitcher right now?! He's found a way to pitch better in his second season, even though every HAS seen his stuff and he arguably is worth more to his team than K-Rod, I'd rather trade a couple prospects and pay Soria 10MM a year than sign K-Rod for 15MM even if the Angels didn't offer arbitration for the kid!

A NOTE TO TIM, you are a hypocrite... You leave people calling other people idiots on your site, which means the same thing as calling someone an ass, this isn't church and everyone who puts "****" instead of the word... They make sure you know what it means, like F*ck You!! Guess what the missing letter is!! Yeah, if you don't know that you are brain dead, but you leave those posts up, comical!

In your attempt to cleanup your site, I've noticed (arguments with them or not) you've alienated the real fans, instead of these Sunday game watchers who know nothing... For a site that's supposed to be cutting edge for information and have informed discussions, you've sold out, not in a Platinum selling Load/Reload Metallica way, but more like a Garth Brooks/Vanilla Ice changing genres so that they can try something "new and exciting" type of way...

What this site was good at was being a little low brow comment wise, but no different than the conversations that would go on at your local bar between fans from competing teams... Now you've tried to take the pub to Rodeo (pronounced Row-Day-O, in case you were wondering it wasn't a southern reference) Drive and it just doesn't fit... Kind of sad really...

I'd take a slang/krass/crude verbal tirade over this "well, John, I respectfully disagree with that form of thinking as it's highly illogical that such would occur... A more sound way of thinking might lead to a resolution that is more likely considered fair by the two parties involved." Sorry, but nobody wants to read what equates to 20 pages per topic of that preacher crap, they come on here half the time to see the sh*t (happy??) talking that goes on because it's entertaining...

I hate AriGoldisaG, yet still I get a kick out of reading his attempts at insulting others... Just because a couple people come crying to you, doesn't mean you did the right thing by doing something about it... In most cases the kid that started it got popped in the beak on a counter punch and then goes and cries to the authority figure, but you are rewarding this start a fight then cry when you get hurt mentality...

By the way, you let his (Ari) little ass say whatever he wants as long as he uses "****". It's really funny because anyone that has half a brain should be offended that you would draw the line where you have, as if to say your viewer base is too stupid to know the difference between how I say it and how Ari says it...

You've definitely pulled a Microsoft with your website, not only did you make poor "upgrades", but now you are forcing it down the throats of your consumers with no regard for what the reaction might be to this... I mean you had the XP of baseball blogging sites and decided that in all your egotism, you needed to create a baseball mecca and the end result was Vista...

The problem is that instead of converting to Vista, you won't gain the long standing followers because those are true fans, not the ones on here today and yet you are alienating the other ones as they are looking for other chatting communities... It's like opening the door to another operating system, nobody wants to relearn how to operate their computer, but given the options, they'll go away from MS products, since both require the same amount of effort and they now have a reason to not like MS products with the crap they pulled on taking away XP and it's support system...

Now you are doing the same thing with this site, the only motification you needed to make was getting rid of type key and instead you changed everything else, but yet there's still type key on your site!! It's like having a flat tire and getting your oil changed with your last 40 bucks, yet you're still riding on your rim!

I bet you were the outcast in school, like the water boy/scorekeeper/coach's special assistant when you were in high school and this site is your life because it's your first chance to feel cool... News flash people are on her for the baseball, not because of you, take away baseball and you aren't anything but another talking head... You put up a person about Tim section, which I thought was priceless, talk about self centered, like anyone gives a crap about where you've been or what you do!

As long as my hamburger is done the right way, I don't care where the guy working the drive thru window has been, what he's done, how he lives, or what his goals are, I just want my sandwich and to go... Same with this site, you may be a legend in your own mind, but nobody else shares your thinking... Delete the post, it's the cowardly thing to do, hiding the bad... You should know best how to do that!

For all the people who have an issue with my posts... If I was that much of an idiot or that misinformed, everyone would take the time to read my posts, so that they could make reference to it... How many posts in a thread do you reply to, one or two ther writers, maybe!! Yet, everyone has something to say about me, so thank you, as they say, there's no such thing as bad press, just good and better press!

That's 2.48, I hit the period before the 2, so sue me!