Phillies Notes: A Good Bullpen Arm Is Hard to Find

The perpetual motion machine known as Fabio Castro was again demoted to the minor leagues on the heels of a 7-3 Phillies homestand, leaving the bullpen without a single lefty. Not that either Castro or Matt Smith, who began the season as the Phils' left-handed reliever, has been terribly effective this year:

Castro: 5 APP, 3.2 IP, 12.27 ERA, 2.45 WHIP
Smith: 9 APP, 4 IP, 11.25 ERA, 3.75 WHIP

I've always thought the idea of a "situational lefty" was a bit of a paper tiger. If you are a right-handed pitcher and cannot get left-handed batters out (and vice versa), then you probably shouldn't be playing in the major leagues.

At least Fabio had a marginally lower average and OPS against for lefties than he did for righties. Smith, on the other hand, had a .400 average against and 1.127 OPS against for left-handed batters. Talk about not doing your job. It makes one pine for the days of Rheal Cormier.

Well, not really.

But finding a decent left-handed reliever is, at this point, probably a low priority since nearly the entire Phillies bullpen has been an unqualified disaster. Things aren't good when you're taking on the refuse of the Toronto Blue Jays and men without faces. Honestly--the Blue Jays? At least poach pitchers from good teams, not a team that has been mired in a parallel spiral of mediocrity since 1993.

Only two things about this year's bullpen offer a glimmer of hope: the brilliant decision to move Brett Myers into the closer's role and the imminent return of Ryan Madson and his sideburns. I'm particularly tickled about Myers's success. The homegrown closer is something I've been advocating for a while. (Advocating to whom? Myself, mainly. But that's beside the point.) It's a great way to potentially savage some pitching prospects and save money--if it's made an organizational priority. The alternative, which the Phillies have chosen year after year, is to be held hostage by "veteran" closers who convert gaudy save numbers--perhaps one of the flukiest stats in baseball--into big bucks.

Remember, Billy Koch saved 40 games once upon a time. So did Keith Foulke. And when the Oakland A's dumped them both after one season of cheap labor, they were the ones laughing all the way to the bank. Saves really do grow on trees.

One last note about Phillies closers: has any organization ever done more for the African-American relief pitcher? Before Tom Gordon there were Arthur Rhodes, Wayne Gomes, Heathcliff Slocumb, etc. Even Robert Person was originally a bullpen arm (and he was acquired from Toronto to boot). I'm shocked that we haven't seen LaTroy Hawkins in red pinstripes yet. Otherwise, the Phillies have more than atoned for being the last in the National League to integrate.

This makes the Billy Wagner Era all the more uncharacteristic. He was obviously destined to fail. It was like booking Jeff Foxworthy at the Apollo.