SECOND LOOK:
ASSESSING K-ROD

Now defined by numbers, what do we think of K-Rod?

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Substantive, or deeply overrated?

We all knew this was coming. When a guy seems to start the season with 30 saves, it's only a matter of time before he eclipses the briefly-great Bobby Thigpen. Last night, K-Rod tied the saves mark with his 57th. Of course, when we took a close look at K-Rod in our last issue, we learned that this seasons totals won't be the only numbers that define him.

More curiously, however, is what this season means for the rest of K-Rod's career. As Eric Neel noted recently, "After his 57-save season for the White Sox in 1990, Bobby Thigpen had just 54 more over the next four years, due to a back injury that derailed his career. He was out of the game by 1995. Thigpen, who was 27 when he set the record, made a career-high 77 appearances that season. Rodríguez too is headed for a personal high.… There are 'alarms, ticking noises, neon lights and signal flares for any executive dreaming of staking tens of millions of dollars on Rodríguez,' as Tim Marchman wrote on July 22 in The New York Sun."

Of all closers, it would seem Rodriguez might raise the most questions about durability—his violent delivery is hard to get used to, and Neel notes that his velocity has dropped in recent years—and more, he brings that whole argument about the very concept of what makes a dominant closer into play.

Jim Caple recently called the closer by far the most overrated position in all of sports. Writes Caple: "The job of protecting ninth-inning leads that history shows are almost always successfully protected is simply is not as hard as people make it to be. Time and time again we see pitchers who struggled as starters become unhittable closers (Mariano Rivera, Eric Gagne, Joe Nathan and Jonathan Papelbon are recent examples), and yet we still pretend the job is so difficult, demanding and onerous that you need the pitching talent of Sandy Koufax, the philosophical makeup of the Dalai Lama and the courage of Rosa Parks."

It's a divisive issue.

On one hand, the closer is beloved, and seemingly vital. He is a symbol of victory, and seems suited for just such a role. It's a mindset, we hear. And we all know the name of the president or general who gets to accept the signature of defeat from the enemy, even at the cost of acclaim for the general who may have tired and resigned after leading the first five years of the war. It is the closer, we are convinced, that is taking the absolute best shot—the last shot—of the opponent, and through repetition, somehow has become uniquely qualified to perform such a role. Our passion for our closer of choice is deeply psychological.

Of course, damn statistics and bland reality say something else. For one, the ranks of the "dominant" 9th inning men are dominated by fellas who either a) couldn't hack it as starters due to a lack of pitch variety or endurance, or b) were converted to closer or reliever early because of predicted concerns about their durability. Consider K-Rod. Could any pitching coach in his right mind examine such a windup and think, we need to get this kid out there in a starting role? Of course not. Moreover, in recent years, pitchers have locked down the closers role in dominant form as a glorified stint on the rehab list. Both John Smoltz and Ryan Dempster can say as much. Kerry Wood isn't dominating, but he's essentially using the role similarly, and could stay there forever.

At the end of the season, K-Rod could be saluted as a king of closers, and folks will already start thinking about where he might fit into Cooperstown with a handful of similar seasons to come. And yet up the coast there is Tim Lincecum, with his own slight body and nutty delivery, set to hit 200 innings, and in dominant fashion. He'll throw three times the innings of K-Rod, many more of them scoreless, and could blow out an arm in two years time in the process, forfeiting a chance at the Hall of Fame the pure talent in his arm would seem to merit.

People think his stuff could make him one of the most dominant starters in the game for a decade to come. Makes you wonder.

What kind of closer would that make him?

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