A relief pitcher really breaks down into 5 categories, when you think really hard about it.
1. Lights-Out: When they give up a run, you're shocked. When you have to face them, you're pretty much sure that you're going to get shut down, especially when you're sending up a bunch of goobers like Nate Schierholtz, Mike Fontenot, and Travis Ishikawa. Isn't that who batted in pretty much every 9th inning for the Giants this year?
2. Specialist: The lefty you bring in to face lefties. He's great, but you can't bring him in to just pitch an inning. Only if the opponents' 89 year old manager is silly enough to bat his two lefty stars back to back in the lineup even though he knows you, Mr. Specialist, are going to strike them both out on 87mph sliders.
3. Hard-throwing Psychopath: This guy really brings the heat. 98, 99. But he's not a closer. Or a starter. Or even a set-up man. Why? Because between pitches he prays to a Chilean Rooster Deity and he can't throw strikes and his other pitch, a slideycurveychange, usually gets hit about 800 feet.
4. Trickeration Dude: This guy can't throw harder than 90, but he starts his windup with his head between his knees, his pitches break the wrong direction, and his "fastball" drops like 4 feet. But when he hangs a pitch....
5. Mr. Whitey McAverage: Every team has one of these guys. Fastball at 90. Average curveball. Average changeup. Average facial hair. Teams pitch these guys when they run out of the other four categories.
So the Giants have a Category 1 (WILSON)
A Category 2 (LOPEZ)
A Category 3 (CASILLA)
A Category 4 (ROMO)
A Category 5 (RAY)
They have Ramirez, who is 5 at his worst and some combination of 2/3/4 at his best.
They have Affeldt who is either 2 or 5 depending on how he's pitching.
They have Runzler who is 5 until he puts it together at which point he will be a starter and we will pay him $140 million over 7 years.
And Mota, who is too old to fit into any of the categories. Actually he's category 6.
6. Guys who are so old and have pitched for so many teams that if you tried to guess all the teams they played for you would forget like 7 teams.
The bottom line is that the Giants are set in the bullpen if they can bring back Lopez. And they should bring back Casilla (both are arbitration eligible). Same with Ramon Ramirez who struggled in the playoffs but had a .68 era with the Giants in the regular season and has nasty stuff. In some ways, the bullpen discussion is even more boring than the rotation discussion because we can't make fun of Zito.
Mota is a free agent and should be allowed to walk. Ray is arbitration eligible and I think the Giants will bring him back though he struggled. Sabes: just because he's all you got for Bengie Molina doesn't mean we have to keep him around. What we got by trading Bengie Molina was, oh, I dont' know, a Rookie of the Year catcher, a new star, a world championship, lots of wins...I dont' think Chris Ray is what made that deal a success. But whatever.
Who am I to argue? After all, I love pitchers with two first names. Like Brian Wilson. And, um, Jeremy Affeldt.
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