The Crane Pool Forum

https://sny.tv/articles/adam-ottavino-d ... ets-future

Speculation that when some of the injured relievers return, Adam Ottovino might be the odd man out. He wants to stay.

“I think it would be foolish to let me go,” he told Mike Puma of the NY Post. “It occurred to me that it could happen, but you can’t control it. As far as I’m concerned, I’m still throwing the ball the way I want to for the most part, so I just have to try to live with the results.”

It might be more foolish to pitch him in a close game...

Marshmallowmilkshake wrote: ↑Thu Aug 08, 2024 5:07 pm As far as I’m concerned, I’m still throwing the ball the way I want to for the most part, so I just have to try to live with the results.”

That reminds me of the (Tom Seaver?) line, "I'm throwing that ball as hard as I ever did, but now it takes longer to get there".

Later

I'm not sure, but I think Huascar Brazobán has about 50 options.

They'll probably have to shed more than one guy, though.

Brazoban, Danny Young, and Alex Young all have options.

Ottavino doesn’t have to worry yet, but when Dedinel Nunez comes back there might be a real crunch. Stanek could have reason to be concerned too.

And while it's certainly possible that Ottavino could be dropped between now and Sept 1 as pitchers return, the idea that such a move will be some kind of addition by subtraction is less true than some NYM fans imagine.

Today's game was Otta's 177th as a Met. And while his ERA for 2024 hovers around 4.25, much of that is due to a 9.28 in May when (let's face it) everyone sucked.
In the other months he recorded a 1.69, 3.18, 3.86, and (so far in August) 0.00

Looked at via a longer lens, in those 177 appearances as a Met, A.O. carries a 3.06 ERA. Wanna know who has a higher ERA among NYM relievers of note?
No? Well I'm gonna tell you anyway: John Franco, Roger McDowell, Tug McGraw, Jeurys Familia, Edwin Diaz, Pedro Feliciano, Turn Wendell, Seth Lugo, and Neil Allen

Now those are different pitchers with different roles in different times and I'm not pushing the idea the one stat, ERA in this case, is the definitive measure of pitcher effectiveness, so if you/they got somebody better then I'm willing to listen. But let's not pretend that they'd be taking out the trash by getting rid of him.

Good research. Paints him in a more favorable light than I expected.

I think he still has value.

If they don't have room for him, I'd rather see him traded than released, although I know it's more difficult after the deadline.

Mendoza has a cool way of using him that other managers should emulate. When a starter is looking like he may have to exit the game early, the manager usually gets his long man up. But Butto (or Adrian Houser before him), like many or most long men, is accustomed to starting but doesn't currently have a home in the rotation. So when Mendoza has to hook his starter mid-inning, rather than going right to his long man, he has often gone to Ottavino, or perhaps another short reliever who he doesn't expect to need at the end of the game. Ottavino can close out the inning, and Butto or whoever can enter like a starter, at the top of the next inning, with a full and deliberate warmup, and maybe give enough innings to hopefully lock things down until the later part of the game. Best of both worlds.

The only short reliever I can remember deployed like that, as a pre-longman early-game stopper, was maybe Jorge Julio. (At least, I think it was Jorge Julio, but I conflate him and Frank Francisco.)

If you play Diamond Mind or some other simulation, try making some Ottavino-like guy your pre-longman early-game stopper.