Somebody Needs to "Wake" Maddon From World Series Slumber

Well, most of us love Wakefield (coughNGcough). But there’s NO WAY he was deserving of a starting role. Hell, he wasn’t even deserving of a all-star spot when it comes right down to it. He got in as a sort of lifetime achiever because Maddon/the Players/whoever the hell chose him saw they had an excuse to do a nice thing (the wins) for a guy who’s been solid for a long time.

But he did not deserve it.

Wins are a BS statistic that shouldn’t really be looked at at all. You know why Wakefield has so many wins? He gets more run support than almost any other pitcher out there. It’s ridiculous some of the scores this team has put up for him. 8 runs, 10 runs, 10 runs, 13 runs, 12 runs, 8 runs, and that’s only half a season’s worth. He has an ERA of 4.31 (not at all All-Star worthy), a WHIP of 1.38 (ditto), and even though a knucleball pitcher is naturally not condusive to strikeouts, but to weak contact, a K:BB ratio of less than 2 is still very bad. His FIP is good for 20th among AL starters while Roy Halladay is 3rd.

The fact is that Wakefield got in ahead of some pretty deserving candidates. Cliff Lee, Jon Lester, Dallas Braden to name a few. Criticizing Maddon for not playing an extremely risky pitcher in a close game when home field in the WS is on the line? Come on now. The people who should be complaining are guys like Beckett who were passed over for Mark Buehrle who has been lucky and mediocre this year.

Oh, and the Rays are a fluke? Really? They’ve got a fantastic run differential, have had a good number of injuries this year, have a minor league system filled to the brim with talent, and are still only 6.5 games out despite being the unluckiest team in the majors. They’re no fluke.

But is this post a kind of joke? Or are you being sarcastic about the wins as a “stat”?

Also, the game was low-scoring and flew by. No one had to be pulled for performance reasons, so Maddon ended up not needing to use as many pitchers as he might have. If the game had been a pure exhibition, I think Wake would have pitched. But it does count and he was almost certainly the worst candidate on that team to pitch an inning. Wake’s value comes in his endurance, flexibility and ability to be a guaranteed league average pitcher for many, many innings. This does not translate well to pitching one innings against the game’s best hitters.

But to be fair, I thought Maddon was going to pitch Wake.

to eat up innings in case it went into extras…..

who cares? Its better he didnt pitch!

I cant believe people are worked up over this. Its the biggest non story.

Let me make it easy for you – none of the AL’s catchers had experience catching a knuckler and we were trying to win the game. There are actually many more reasons not to use Wake – among them, that he was probably the least deserving pitcher on the staff and was more of a career achievement/sentimental pick – but just take that one on its face and it should be enough.

I think Inge said it best a day or two before the game. The best way for someone to catch Wake who hasn’t done it before is to “Run to the backstop and pick up the ball.”

Neither V-Mart or Mauer would be prepared to catch him. It takes Sox catchers all of spring training to be confident enough to handle him. If Mirabelli or Cash had made the All-Star team maybe we would have seen him pitch otherwise I never expected to see him or Beckett take the mound, the game (unfortunately) has meaning and they can’t afford to blow it on passed balls and wild pitches.

I do agree though that Wake is truly deserving of a spot on the team but he isn’t a Cy Young candidate by any means.