Interesting article from CityBeat on the Danny Graves situation, if only for how ignorant it is.
If you're just looking at a ratio of poor outings, Graves is the best of the three key pitchers. He took the ball 20 times and converted 10 of 12 save opportunities, which is right in the neighborhood with Keith Foulke, Brad Lidge, Rivera and Wagner. And it's consistent with how he's performed from 2000 on -- 147 saves, 30 blown, 83 percent.
Bill Peterson is the author of this piece, and he should be disqualified from writing about baseball simply because he still thinks saves are a good way to measure a closer's effectiveness.
Tear-jerking Reds fans obviously lack perspective about the club's difficult start and, worse, management takes cues from them. One wishes the front office would make rational decisions and leave the knee-jerk reactions to the fans.The fan's role is to buy tickets, cheer and boo. They aren't paid to understand the game.
Wow. The guy who thinks Danny Graves was doing okay because he'd converted 10 of 12 save opportunities is talking about fans not being "paid to understand the game". The guy who thinks the Reds should have ridden out Danny's bad performance because of his eight previously solid years (even though many of those years weren't nearly as solid as Peterson probably imagines) thinks fans are ignorant.
You can't make this stuff up.
I actually agree with Peterson's larger point, that the Reds front office doesn't have a clue, but the way he comes to that conclusion is incredibly foolish.
The Reds and Dan O'Brien aren't ignorant because they cut Danny Graves. The Reds and Dan O'Brien are ignorant because they didn't trade Graves last July when he was leading the world in saves, despite being every bit as mediocre as he was this season.
But what do I know? I only exist to buy tickets, cheer, and boo.